patham

Quite right. However I thought that adding a padlock will deter the casual thief, the one who carries around the massive M30 spanner (or whatever it is) to unbolt the tow ball will probably have the tools to get the lock off anyway.

Good work. I had plans of splurging and paying stupid amounts of money for a Lightning flight with Thunder City in Cape Town for my 40th birthday. Dave Stock's tragic crash in a Lightning in 2009, and subsequent closure of TC put paid to that. But from what I remember of the investigation, safety standards at TC were not leading class, maybe it was an accident waiting to happen.

I think I have seen a hyper-realistic painting that could have been the source for the Tomcat part.

No, pretty sure its photoshopped. The US had stopped air testing of nukes by the time the F14 was around (i.e. all tests after 1962 were underground, F14 first flight was in 1970), and the F14 was never involved in even being trialled or certified to carry nukes.

We may have a winner for the worst photoshop image in the world contest.

Its already dissolved the spoon !

And a few more to Egypt and Qatar.

I can't comment on capabilities but the Rafale just looks so much more graceful than the Eurofighter/Typhoon.

Looks like you broke one of them on the trip.

I am not looking forward to that. I think the Sydney- JHB route must be one of their most profitable, I have done 4 return trips on that and it is either full, or 95% full. With losing close to 30% of the seating capacity from the 747s, that flight would always be full, and there will be less chance of booking flights on days you want or for ticket specials to occur. I had kind of hoped they would try an A380, but no such luck.

There are some pinch points and injuries just waiting to happen....

Yep - back then we had to project our own shadow puppet movies on the cave walls in the firelight for entertainment. My favourite movie star was Deformed Rabbit.

its been a while since I have seen a Worth1000.com watermark. It was the go-to website for people to display their photoshop skills. One could spend many hours perusing their galleries.

I did a 2 week holiday solo a thousand years ago, mixture of family and prepaid accomodation/travel. I budgeted $100 per day average for dinner, drinks & entertainment, and that did cover the expensive Queenstown type tourist activities and had some cash to spare at the end. So $200 per day for yourself is probably OK, but if you need to cover expensive activities and meals for the kids or other family members those costs can rack up quick. Movie tickets, slushie and popcorn x 4 (for example) is a scary number in Australia & N.Z.

The second Sydney airport currently being constructed will change that cosy relationship, being 44 km west of the CBD. If its like Melbourne, the far flung airport will be where the low cost airlines fly. The new airport will probably generate the usual amount of complaints at start-up from people who have not read the itinerary or ticket details properly and head off to the exact wrong one.

I was very tempted to try and be punny, but thought it best to leave it to the audience.

What a shame Fokker went under. Every once in a blue moon I get a flight on Alliance Air's F100's. Little dated, but goes just as well as anything else. And a little faster than the competitors turboprop Q400's. I think Alliance recently bought a whole new stash from Europe at bargain prices (less than $1M each if I remember) and now have the largest fleet of Fokkers around.

Spent a few days in Sydney as a family city break (from rural Brisbane). Trains were great, and didn't need or have a car. I gather as you get further and further out though, the odds of being a train route diminish, I have friends who are about 25 mins out of the CBD and they need to bus. Having said that, they have been there a year and still have not bought a car, they bus, train, uber and car-share. Brisbane - public transport is not so cool. I have a feeling public transport is about economies of scale. Sydney population is about 4.5 M people. Auckland 1.7 M, Brisbane about 2.5 M. The more people you have, the more intensive you can make the systems. BTW: I am not sure Ikea is the defining drawcard of a country. I would pay an entrance fee to Ikea if said fee enabled you to skip the long and windy footpath that leads you through the Quest of Mordor just to get the one item you are looking for. Tried it twice, no need to ever visit again (I hope).

I hope they have a flow chart for that process - its complex enough to need one.

What he said. Airfix back in the 80's was a lot closer to leading edge but I gather they dumbed themselves down a bit. The Japanese never let themselves go. I must admit in my day you could not get the Japanese, so I tended to stick to Airfix and Italeri. Ps. I just remembered my other kit that turned out awesome - 1:48 Douglas Skyraider, in Vietnam COIN setup. Its a really good subject with loads of interesting detail - just a bit like a scaled up P-47.

And that unique look is why I cannot bear to part with my half-started MH-53 kit.

Last week I could not spell finanace, now I are the minister of it. Not sure if this is a meme failure, or deeper levels of meme generation going on.

I might have had the perseverance to mask and paint the D-Day stripes, but big kudos to handpainting that cowling. If the decals for that were crummy I would have just changed the paint scheme.

Go for it. The worst that can happen is you superglue your fingers together (separate under water, do not them touch again for the next few hours is what worked for me) or nearly slice your finger off because you are using the wrong tool for the job (swiss army pen knife folding blade folded onto my finger). That one should have required multiple stitches, but because I was a boy, home alone - nothing a band-aid or 20 couldn't fix.

I have a cool book out from the local library on the SR-71 (aus tax dollars at work). Amazing how advanced the A-12 and SR-71 were for their time. I have not read it properly yet (my 10 year old called dibs) but two things on paging through were interesting: 1. The use of advanced plastics. The leading edges of the wings and chines are actually some form of plastic for better heat resistance. I always thought the plane had high tech alloys for that reason. 2. The leaking fuel tanks. I knew that the tanks were designed with expansion joints to allow movement at high temperatures when going fast, resulting in leaks whilst cold but this book goes into detail as to what magnitude of leak (i.e. gallons per minute for some, drops per minute for others) was acceptable for each tank whilst on the ground. Edit: looked up the leakage in the Book (Col Graham, titled SR71 Complete Illustrated History- he was pilot of them for 15 years). There were 15 leak measurement zones, the largest of them - the DR Bay Area was allowed to leak at 0.95 Litres/minute per side as per the maintenance manual. Apparently the planes had their own drip trays. Still nothing compared to a Landy and its oil though !