'Lets do the Locomotion?

 U.S. tariffs will mean for Trains!

It seems a good idea to the U.S. to bring home jobs for heavy industries, but will it really work in 2025 or be the cause of more problems and broken promises as last time around to the Ohio dust belt?

The building of locomotives is not what it was and now with many nations going electric, there is no demand for Diesel and the dirt that they produce, meanwhile Africa is looking to China for conventional engines, because they are cheaper!

In the U.K. we face loosing our Scunthorpe Chinese owned steel mills and many rail projects may go under or come to nothing?

When these import taxes hit, we may need to start to look to Europe or the far-east for a Class 66 replacement, since many were built in Canada

NATO and Europe!

 Dwindling Forces?

Without the back up of the United States, ie paying the bills of other peoples wars and the U.K. talking about supporting the Ukraine, when we and many of them have nothing to keep going for a few months? 

One finds it hard to believe that our government still has the clout to think we are a world key power, when we have been cutting back our own armed forces for the last twenty-five years!

It is easy to believe that the U.S. will back us up, but with the anti-Israel situation, we have lost curry favor already with the Donald.

Submarines and forces in Estonia may look good to the media, but when facing the Russian bear, many lives will be lost and this proud moment will lead to more memorials and duties for the British royal family to keep going???

Space flight not as easy as it Seems!

 This week we see a Moon lander flop over and the Musk Star-link Fail.

Space is still a dangerous place to be and what sets out for it does not always function, even with triple checking the systems, something that NASA learned over the years with the initial loss of rockets and then the disasters with the Space-shuttle and now even connecting to the International station remains a problem?

But many lesser nations have made it to Mars and the Moon, if not also to our Sun and we don;t get to hear much about them, because of our biased media who just cannot accept that they have been out-done!

Working together was seriously damaged under the Biden administration, but now Trump is fixated with Musk, cooperation with Russia might return to save the day?

Meanwhile China has its own Space station and a lander working on the dark side of the Moon with great success, the European space agency has many probes making breakthrough discoveries and the NASA New Horizons in now approaching a strange object well beyond its last target of Pluto.

Demise of the flying Boat?

 Beriev A-40 and Be-200.

Russia now is the only country to still build and sell flying boats that are dedicated to that particular role and the Be-200, which is a civil version of the larger A-40 has proved itself in the fire fighting role, easy to fill on landing, with an immediate take-off it can just keep working!

Very little is known about the Russian A-40 flying boat and what its long-range role with the Russian navy is, but perhaps this is the last line of a successful aircraft that maintained the Soviet naval defenses from 1945?

Other countries that maintain the flying boat is the peoples republic of China, which have adapted the Antonov An-12 to this role, but it is believed Russia has supplied the Chines navy with the A-40 and the BE-200!

While the rest of the world has abandoned this effective concept, with Japan and the U.S. retiring the last of there aircraft, many other countries have purchased the civil Be-200 for several roles, Greece, India and others and so the story will continue for some time yet?

New supersonic Travel?

 Forgetting Concorde!

The way that the media are reporting supersonic travel is something new, the XB-1,when we have thousands of combat jets that can break the sound barrier many times over, but we also have the possibility of converting an America B-1 bomber to a civilian aircraft or re-start the Concorde program, but this is where the U.K. has given way to the states again?

Concorde could seat 100-110 passengers, but the current jets 20 to a planed 60, costs may be the main factor, but a converted B-1 could seat 28+ for starts!

So all the hype gives us the impression that this is something new when it is not, but many younger people may be fooled into believing another lie, such as that of Boeing and Space-X being the only things developed over the defunct Space Shuttle that could do the job!

PAC-750!

 A New Zealand Wonder?

The development of this aircraft has opened the aviation market up to this southern nation and now the type originally for New Zealand and Papua New-Guinea is operating also in Australia and Israel.

With a crew of two and nine passengers it has multiple roles, but in the parachute version it can cram seventeen people in and for other operations, it has a STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) capability making it very versatile?

There are at least two versions developed over the past twenty years the latter being up rated and able to handle in a better way than before, but both types are equally good aircraft and have both military and civilian usage and may the type continue perhaps with a two engine capability?

Trump is shutting down Musk?

 Happy and a Peaceful New Year 2025!

Trump is not for Electric?

Wow it looks like all that money that Musk has invested in Trump is going nowhere and his dreams may be coming to naught with the gas guzzling new President and the automobile is to stay on for another while!

European reality is moving still for the electric future and perhaps Musk will open a European plant for his cars and trucks and take a piece of the market off the Chinese, but one has to wonder what Trump might make of that?

In recent weeks many electric powered projects have been cancelled in Europe in relation to flight and this may be in relation to U.S. sales of the types and heavy U.S. tariffs, but it might also be that conventional bio-fuels are more reliable than all electric?