Member postings for Martin Harris 9

Your taste might be for more subtle flavours but if anyone enjoys a full bodied coffee with some bite, you could risk a very small amount of money on Aldi's Italian blend which I particularly enjoy. It compares with far more expensive coffees and is consistently good.

I don't know which side of the Tees-Exe line you live and what your water is like but Yorkshire definitely doesn't have hard water - at least the bit where my sister lives - I tried to buy some de-scaler near Halifax and they'd never even heard of it!

It's all academic anyway - I can't stand tea - that flat, soft, time-wasting opium of the masses which Bond loathed and despised to quote Ian Fleming's Thunderball...the Brooke Bond 007 inspired adverts always gave me a wry smile...

I'm with Clive Hartland as a confirmed coffee drinker - in my case unsullied by milk or sugar.  Just one question Clive - when you blended half and half of no 3 and no 5, wouldn't it have been easier to buy a pack of no 4?

Edited By Martin Harris 9 on 16/02/2019 19:27:14

Telex was even nastier - plus and minus 80V DC gave the potential for 160V and that definitely made you jump! The main hazard while working on distribution racks was the legendary "tag rash" - you would get a belt from an exposed tag and jerk your hand away from it, scraping the back of your hand across the exposed tags on the next block - a leather "half glove" was often worn to protect the back of the hand...

If you decide to give it a try, don't forget that normal 2 stroke practice is to peg the ring to stop it turning and catching the ends in any of the transfer ports.

Edited By Martin Harris 9 on 31/01/2019 11:23:50

While the magnets may be up to the job, the sword of Damocles comes to mind...

I recall being told that good blocks from high mileage van engines were much sought after for building Top Fuel and Funny Car drag racing engines.

Yes, I gained the impression that the young man had been put in a similar situation due to him completing his allotted training time.

I certainly can't match Andrew's experience but I thoroughly enjoyed my time in gliding before marriage and mortgage tempered my fun. After being hooked by a trial flight at Dunstable with the legendary John Jeffries, my training was in K13s and first solo and early soaring/cross country was in club K18s - although I didn't see them as oddities in any way! My first syndicate glider was another of Andrew's oddities (I can possibly see why as it was one of the last high performance wooden gliders with a V tail, glass fibre cockpit and geodetic construction wings - the spars only extending to the first 8 feet of the wings...but other than heavy ailerons it seemed to work very well, with the proviso that you meticulously checked that the expanding main spar joiner had done its job top and bottom).

I also bought in to a 1935 Rhonbussard, which had the odd feature that you first joined the wings and then lifted the assembly into place to rig it. Somewhat modified by a German university group, it had reduced span ailerons, airbrakes instead of spoilers and a 1 degree twist in the wings - but after fitting large trim tabs was pronounced fit for flight by Cedric Vernon of the BGA Technical Committee (that Andrew's father may have been on?) It was wonderful fun to fly and capable of decent cross country flight on a reasonable day.

I then bought a share in an ASW 20L (although I much preferred it as a 15M glider and rarely fitted the tip extensions) which got me to Gold Distance/Diamond Goal although several trips to Shobdon and the Black Mountains never produced the hoped for Gold Height - but provided some rather exciting memories of cloud descents and small fields in compensation.

I did some instructing in K13s, K21s and occasionally in a K7 and flew quite a variety of other gliders - the jewel in the crown being given the opportunity to fly the most beautifully engineered Swiss Moswey IV - the polished aluminium fittings and intricate control linkages would have delighted any model engineer!

I never moved to power flying although I have been lucky enough to get a little stick time on various Cubs, Chipmunks, a Tiger Moth, Beech Kingair and memorably, a couple of trips from Luton to Glasgow via East Midlands in the front of an Air Atlantique Dakota - with a little flying time on the way. Oh, and not forgetting a couple of hours on a Super Falke motor glider during my instructors course and the trial lesson in a Grumman Traveler which started it all...

P.S. Fancy meeting you here Mr. Duncker!

Edited By Martin Harris 9 on 21/01/2019 01:35:01

Thanks for the warm welcome all.

Yes Tim, that's a very familiar name. I doubt I'll be as prolific as I am on the RCM&E forum as my expertise in engineering matters is fairly limited but I've already picked up a wealth of information scanning through a few threads here.

I don't know the history previous to its last owner - an aircraft engineer/inspector who used it to make such parts as rigging pins for gliders and offered it to me when he decided to upgrade to a newer machine.

No, not typing this during an early night - I live on the Herts/Beds border and am a very amateur engineer.

My only relevant qualification is "O" Level metalwork - work took me into communications and networking so I'm largely a self taught bodger. I've owned my Smart & Brown Sabel since the early 80s, using it for making a variety of parts and tools for motorcycles and cars - and the same for my current "main" hobby of building and flying RC models.

I have a "toy" milling machine - good for undercarriage parts etc. and I've amassed a variety of tooling over the years.

I'm not too far from Chronos (making regular visits going back to their original location in my home town of St. Albans where I've invariably spent far more money than planned whenever I've popped in for the odd drill or tap) and I recently discovered that my sister lives opposite RDG Tools!

Having discovered this forum, I'm learning a great deal to reinforce the small amount of skill and knowledge I've picked up over the years.

Edited By Martin Harris 9 on 20/01/2019 00:18:06

I didn't see it but it was described to me at the time by someone who did. I was told that he appeared to be manouevring to attempt an inverted landing as he was unable to roll out and too low to pull through to upright and hit a guy line from an aerial mast - perhaps that ties in with the wing panel separation?

Edited By Martin Harris 9 on 19/01/2019 18:00:59

Was that the Blanik which killed Andy Gough? A bent rusty spanner was found to have jammed the ailerons and was suspected to have been lodged somewhere in the wing since the glider left the factory, as it was of Czech manufacture...

Laudable as the ATC may be as an organisation for getting young people interested in aviation, my memories as an outsider of their training was rather coloured by a young lad who turned up at Dunstable for a week's course, proudly announcing that he had already soloed with the ATC in a motor glider. First impressions were not good, with poor lookout, little co-ordination and spacial awareness, coupled with a very nervous disposition. It emerged that he had been taught to fly circuits solely by reference to the altimeter and ground features - the exact opposite of the training the BGA encouraged where reference to the apparent angle to the landing point and flexibility in circuit adjustments to counter lift and sink encountered on the circuit was the key to a successful landing approach. A little later in the week he confided in me that he hadn't felt ready to solo but the instructors had sent him anyway - and he'd crashed while making a hash of the circuit!

Another time, I was talking to a member of another club who had been an ATC instructor. He had given up instructing after crashing into an inflatable hangar at Halton...because it hadn't been there the week before!

I used to have problems every winter but since insulating the roof and my double up and over metal door, stopping water run-off getting under the door bottoms and using a compressor type dehumidifier, rusted tools and machines have become a thing of the past (touch wood!) I run the dehumidifier through a temperature controlled switch to avoid it running at air temperatures below 5 degrees and maintain below 70% RH on my cheap hygrometer.