Tractors. Part-Two.

Construction, Engineering and Mining.

This is perhaps not the place one would think to find the need for the tractor, but some of the machines we use today came first from these uses. Caterpillar is one of several companies that developed tracked machines for working in heavy soils, this was the same in Soviet Russian Steppes where land was not intersected by ditches as in the west.

Today many giant machines working in all of the titled areas are tractors, limited by speed and used to move loads about in tight spots even underground. These machines do not look like our idea of the farm machines but they are mechanically the same, the Bulldozer is in fact a converted tractor for the road and building construction industry.

The future for the tractor of all types will be there Robotising into unmanned piloted vehicles, from vast area farming to construction, tunnelling and mining. May be the only human contact in the near future will be for repairing and cleaning?

Hollande Types.

United States and Great Britain.

The age of the submarine is a long one going back to the ancient Greeks, but we will look at its early years from the late 19th Century to the early twentyeth. France, Germany and Italy developed their own versions almost totally separately from the first Holland prototypes.

But it is these eleven or so types that has gone on to influence all modern design, up until recently when the British Royal Navy is going with an advanced copy of an early French designed hull.

All submarines in some ways have their shape based on or around the Holland original, because this fish like structure works well under the water for speed and manoeuvrability. 

But the French design which was taken on by Soviet Russia and now several other navies has more to do with the ability to dive deeper, hiding being the new game in submarine warfare.

North-American Railroads. Part-One.

La Fayette to Amtrak.

To cover the United States and Canada is one thing, but in this series we will also look at Mexico. Amtrak is currently the main civilian passenger company for long-haul rail travel, while a few companies remain in the freight business. 

America has a long history of the railroads, following on from the United Kingdom and France 10 years after they were first invented. American carriage design has found itself employed on the British London Underground from 1911. meanwhile many early smaller locomotives were sent to Ireland for various narrow gauge adaptions.

The firsts trains brought from the U.K and France were as basic as you could get them, with carriages being adopted from the wild west stagecoach.

Warships. Part-One.

The need For!

Every nation that has a coast, even a lake border needs some kind of Navy. Armed vessels from little patrol boats to the ocean plying aircraft carriers or deep water submarines. 

The British Royal navy has been shrinking over the last seventy years from being a world power, 'Britannia Rules the Waves.'

Today the United States of America, the Russian Federation and the Republic of China, with France are the biggest navies of the world. Britain is part of N.A.T.O. (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and is also a member of the European Union which is building its own joint forces programme.

EU Warships now patrol the Suez Canal in northern-Egypt, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, between war struck Yemen and Somalia. they are involved in protection oil and gas tankers travelling from the Persian Gulf to Europe. 

Meanwhile apart from local waters, some ships may be assigned from time to time to the Mediterranean to counter illegal seafaring immigration to southern-Europe.

ICBM. Part-One

The Inter-continental Ballistic Missile.

From the development of the atomic bomb to the Sputnik, the ICBM was the launch vehicle to get payloads into space. The highlight of the ICBM development was the Saturn V rocket, which took the first man to the Moon and many other Americans into space. This rocket was developed from those that had earlier failed.

Soviet Russia built their own versions, while both super powers raced to develop better and faster and larger multiple launchers to bomb each other.

Today the world has changed with many other nations such as Iran, Pakistan, China, and N-Korea now possessing their own versions of the ICBM. With the capability of a possible nuclear strike or their own need to get into space.

Invisible Bombers. Part-Two.

Unseen flying Technologies.

With the advent now of micro computers and new material developed in the vacum of space these combined have lead to the design and development of invisible objects to be deployed on the modern battlefield.

Co-alition forces are now employed in fighting the first mass mobile army in modern history, they may have 14th Century beliefs but they certainly know how to use 21st Century technology.

Many new types of drones and UAV, UCAV are being deployed and the air war at one level will be a success, but alas America has had to return to boots on the ground. Perhaps this is the death knell of the Democrats politically in the United States.

Tractors. Part-One.

From farm work to mowing the grass.

The Tractor has made great strides and progress over the lat 120 years, from a farming machine to replace the horse to moving your garden lawn. The first machines were heavy and clumsy, but they were able to draw ploughs and were easier to be put to work than animals.

The tractor came into its fore in the great plains of North-America and the Soviet Russia in the production of cereal crops such as wheat, barley and maize. Later around the 1920's they were reduced in size for general farming duties and as engine technology improved became more versatile and easier to drive.

We associate Massey-Ferguson and Henry Ford with machines in the British isles, while Case, Caterpillar and John Deere with Europe and North-America.

Rockets. Part-Two.

From Chinese Firecracker to ISS.

Today rockets are big business for the telecommunications industry, everyone wants a faster Internet speed. Despite many still believing that this is based on optic fiber cables, space actually provides the links.

The rocket has only come into its own, since the end of World War-II (1939-45). The 1950's saw the development of the missile at the beginning of the 'Cold war, between Soviet Russia and the U.S. The Inter-continental ballistic Missile (ICBM) was developed by all sides to deliver multiple nuclear warheads to multiple targets, anything from 12 to 24.

In 1957 Russia launched Spunik and the first man in space  Yuri Gagarin. 

Despite America coming late, it took over with a man on the Moon and then developed the Space shuttle. Russia has opted for commercial satalites launches and now provides the progress Robot shuttles to the International Space Station.

The Jumbo Jet.

Boeing 747-100/8.

You could say 'that the Jumbo jet was the King of the skies, because it has had a forty-three year unchallenged stay.' It is only now with the advent of the Airbus A380, that its reign may end?

I say may, because as has been seen many will continue on as cargo and freight usage. Nearly every country on the planet uses or has at one time employed this huge civil aircraft. The U.S. Boeing 747-100 was conceived by the owner of Pan Am, who designed an aircraft that would be the clipper of the sky, that was formerly held by the British Shorts Sunderland flying boat.

The 747 started as the flagship for Pan-Am, but soon everyone wanted one, because of its long haul capability. Even with the introduction of the joint British/French Concorde, the Jumbo held its ground. Later with the -200 series, I think the most of any series built it set it self up.

Many other versions, including military, scientific and the NASA Space Shuttle carrier have been built and next year (2014) we will take a closer look at some of them.