Just thought I’d share this great video by Lockheed Martin showing the F35B undergoing ‘suitability testing’ on board USS Wasp. One of the items on my ‘bucket list’ is to experience a carrier takeoff first hand. But judging by the remarkable footage it’s looking like catapult takeoffs are once more an endangered activity. Particularly impressed with the way that the clamshell doors slide open like a giant insect’s wings as it slows to the hover. The proud Brits will doubtless comment on how we got there first decades ago with the Harrier. Sadly, like may British innovations, we leave it for others to improve and perfect.
Don’t just watch the embedded movie, click it full screen and watch the HD footage, it’s impressive…
Apologies for yet another aviation video post, but after being given the heads up on this amazing flying, it cannot pass without comment. As the narration says at the start, where has this type of entertainment gone? Sadly Mr Health and Safety and the hi-res-jacket brigade have managed to control our lives and there’s no way I can envisage this happening today. It’s basically an air display by a Jetranger and accompany stunt man inside a football stadium. And not an empty stadium, but a capacity crowd. If you’re in the risk assessment business and love filling out those forms, you might want to look away now…
I’m not normally a fan of this type of contest, but because it includes an Extra 300, I’m making an exception. What the video, click the link and try winning a trip in Spain in an Extra 300……….
Watching the IOM TT this year, I was inspired by Mark Higgin’s drive in the Subaru to break Tony Pond’s long standing record of a 100mph average speed lap. Watch his ‘moment’ here
Of course, IOM is all about motorcycle racing at it’s best but I have to say, why not keep the roads closed one more day for a four wheeled challenge? On most race circuits, cars generally lap quicker than bikes by the nature of the amount of rubber they have on the track giving more lateral grip. So wouldn’t it be a great contest to have a car sprint event around the entire TT course, all 37 miles of it? Sure, it will take some setting up and there will certainly be problems, but here’s my thoughts: [click to continue…]
You might want to grab a coffee or something for this one, it’s 23 minutes long. Normally, YouTube videos of that length just don’t cut it – everyone knows that after two minutes your average visitor has itchy feet. But this is something else. A superb display of concentration and team work by Petter Solberg and his co-driver Chris Patterson. What this and you’ll see why they’re not called navigators any more. Watching WRC and seeing the stage times split by tenths of a second you fail to appreciate just how long some of the stages are. To maintain concentration like that, constantly listening to the commands takes a special skill over that distance. The next time the old arguement of who is better, race or rally driver, comes around, send them here. If you can drive, you can drive, but both have their own unique talents. Like this one…
Not many people seem to be talking about this machine in Europe, yet it’s been around in the USA for a couple of years now. Like all great ideas, it’s a simple one. Take a great concept such as a classic biplane layout, design a new one from the ground up with modern technology, then add way too much power in the form of a Prat & Whitney PT6 turbine, coupled to state of the art monitoring systems and you have the most amazing aeros biplane I’ve ever seen – the Turbine Toucan, the world’s only turbine powered biplane.
This concept ticks all the boxes for me. I love the classic yet aggressive biplane look coupled with the modern turbine intake and polished exhausts plus I’m a sucker for the startup whine of a PT6 turbine. Together with the reputation for power and reliability and the constant speed prop, I imagine the thing goes up like and express lift. Some interesting stats from the Toucan website:
“The performance mission of this aircraft is to create an aerobatic biplane capable of sustaining +8/-6 G’s, a greater then 300º per/sec roll rate, while creating a better-than-one-to-one power-to-weight ratio. Target air show weight will be less than 2000lbs with thrust targeted at 3300lbs. This will be close to a 1.65:1 ratio, unheard of in any general aviation (GA) aircraft. To put it in perspective, the F/A-18 Hornet (at fighter mission weight) is 36,700lbs@32,000lbs of thrust. This is about .87:1 thrust to weight ratio performance at a cost of $39.5 million dollars.”
I haven’t seen any video of this machine yet, but company head David Kervinen plans on creating some HD footage very soon. Meanwhile, here’s a short sequence of it starting up
Just a shame it’s only a single seater and on the western side of the Atlantic ocean, as it would have a queue right down to the airfield perimeter for passenger rides here in the UK. The single seat issue is due to the compact installation and is optimised for performance. Plus, the turbine likes to drink it’s Jet A1, so no room for passengers. So meanwhile, I need to get my PPL done, add a turbine rating and make these guys my best friends…. As soon as I have more info, I’ll be sure to post it here, meanwhile, find The Turbine Toucan website here.
I see there’s a bit more news on the Tesla vs Top Gear story today, with this website reporting that the issue seems to be that Top Gear planned the dead electric car stunt before the Tesla was even delivered. It’s claimed that Tesla’s UK representative saw the script and was unhappy about certain representations and despite being assured that they would be removed, it’s claimed that Top Gear went ahead and filmed it anyway. In the best Fleet Street tradition, Tesla claim that Top Gear ‘Never Let The Truth Get In The Way Of a Good Story.” However, in rare break with standard BBC procedures, Top Gear producer Andy Wilman puts forth their own version of events which is a perfectly reasonable explanation. With regard to the court case, it’s going to be interesting to see the outcome, I guess.
Top Gear is a great entertainment show and has made the creators very wealthy, rightly so and hopefully will continue for some time to come. But personally, I think the whole Top Gear Bloke Routine thing is running on empty right now and in the quest for next next big blokey laugh or big ‘wow’ moment they’re in danger of losing the audience. While no-one really believes the road trip stories, just like a Jason Bourne stunt, they like to kind of be told it was real, that’s all. You know what I mean…. [click to continue…]
Loving this new viral advert from Toblerone. I love the taste of it, but I can never understand why they make eating chocolate so painful. Every time I buy some, I need a sledgehammer to avoid it drilling into my gums as I try and bit it. Looks like they’ve realised this, as the viral ad asks you how you eat yours:
I was looking through some hard drives the other day and I stopped to look at these shots from a couple of years ago. I was actually looking for some scans of car documents, as it’s getting close to that time when I have to go online and search for the most competitive car insurance quote. I had to smile when I looked at the shots as it had memories of a great day and totally at odds with the car insurance information I thought was stored on that hard drive. Even though my job of the morning was to look for some car insurance quotes, I couldn’t help but waste a little time looking at the images once again, as it’s much more pleasurable that finding scans of no claims bonus letters.
The foreground car is a Ferrari 288GTO, shot on the wilds of the North Yorkshire Moors for a feature last year. The car must be worth close to half a million pounds and probably not the type of thing you’re typically going to get an online insurance quote for. Behind it is a Porsche 959, again with a six figure value these days and equally rare. I’ve owned older, classic cars in the past, including a lovely old Porsche 930 Turbo and insurance for that one was actually pretty reasonable, but I can’t help but think that these two icons are going to need a slightly larger cheque writing out.
The owner of both cars is a well known car collector, based in Yorkshire and with the resources to both own and run cars like these two so the issue of no claims bonus is unlikely to be of any relevance whatsoever to him. His willingness to get the cars out and drive them on a regular basis and even loan them to photographers and writers is testament to his passion for seeing his cars being driven hard.
In these times of rising driving costs, it’s good to see someone with a can-do attitude and the funds to not have to worry about how much next year’s premium will be.
Neill Watson is a UK based professional photographer, writer and web designer. He can also often be found delivering professional track instruction as fast as his lips will move. If you love a Cosworth V8 as much as a Merlin V12 and admire the late Ray Hanna as much as Sir Stirling, then we're on the same page.
His childhood love of cars, driving and all things flying has never abated and he continues to love the internal combustion engine, the turbine, the hybrid and indeed any lovely buildings he happens across. Yes, it's a diverse blog...
