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Tuesday, 13 October 2015

Rockets. Part-One.

1938 to the Present.

The German V2 rocket was the first intercontinental ballistic missile targeted from Southern-Denmark to London. In 1957 Soviet Russia changed the world with Sputnik, the first signal received from Space. The 1960's marked out the Space race from Gagarin to the Space shuttle and the establishment of the International space station (ISS).

Today we have the Internet and space communications, satellite TV, GPS and many other things, due to the development of the rocket. On the other side we have nuclear weapons from Trident here in the U.K. to many other sophisticated U.S and Russian counterparts. Missile warfare is now standard, ad seen in the Middle-East with captured Surface to air SCUD systems and we hear of Iran testing a newer system nearly every month.

Tuesday, 6 October 2015

Volksvagen Camper Vans. Part-Two.

Pleasure to Icon.

The VW brand has a shaded history in the twenth-century and has now come in for more dishonesty in relation to its cars having the abilty to give false readings. I expect we will be hearing more about this for a long time yet, because many manufacturers are telling lies about the performance of their machines!

Todays models of the classic camper are far more advanced and one feels that something has been lost in the box designs compared to that of the 1950', 60's vehicles. VW originally developed this van for its West-German paramilitary police in several chassis versions and all were based on World War-II ideas to improve thier amphibious scout car.

In 1946 the iconic shape was developed to run along side that of the Beattle car and they both were extremly sucessfull in taking the world market for sales. 

The main reason being both had simple constructed engines that were easy to fix and manintain and the parts were also cheap.

Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Cessna C-172/C-41.

Most prolific aircraft Everbuilt.

The Cessna aviation company in the United States is one of the most prolific and successful for design and durability. Here we are going to look at this little light aircrat, which can be used for various multi-roles from Liason to Utility. From Training to Light Attack, and the there are hosts of other applications for this four seater.

Concieved in the 1950's this aircraft remains in production and is licence built in France by Reims, it is cheap to buy and to operate and is used by nearly every airforce, police and border security across the globe. It has enormous success in the civil market from pleasure flying to photographic observation and many more business and government uses.

It can be lightly armed with a 7.62mm gun pod and two to four rocket pods, some aircraft have been converted to operate with floats, while others as air ambulances or flying doctors. Developed from the O-1 Bird Dog a World-War-II design which came to fruitition in the late 1940's it is one of several designs that continue to operate such as the 152, Stationair, Caravan-I/II and the 337/0-2.

Segways.

The Two wheel Wonder.

The Segway is taking the world by suprise from the streets of the Czech Republic captial Prague to Thailands Bankok International airport. But many are now wondering how safe are these gyrocope controlled vehicles?

The Segway is perhaps the most prolific developmnet to compare to the invention of the bicyle, but it remains not as good and versatile as the bike. No seat and it is limited to short distant travel and depends very much on human balance technique.

With the further development of solar panels and digital guidance and stability platforms the Segway will perhaps have a further inpact, but it will in no way surpass the bicyle!

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Hunters of the Sea. Part-One.

Fishing Industry.

Have you seen the two recent programmes on television in relation to what fishermen get up to at sea? The Catch and Trawler Wars open to the general public where our hake and cod today comes from and the risk endured daily by crews in all weathers at sea.

Fishing vessels come in all sizes from small one man and his fishing rod to factory ships, but generally they are in the Trawler class. These classes of vessels vary from nation to nation in how they are built and laid out, but they basically all try to do the same thing.

These two programmes and I am sure their are many other, reveal that the fishing industry is surviving on the edge. European quota's and many other International agreements do not benefit fishermen from individual nations, because it now allows others to fish in their waters and vise versa.

Tuesday, 8 September 2015

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.

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Space Exploration. Part-One.

New Discoveries.

I don't know about you! But I am fascinated by Space exploration from the Moon landings to this day I like to follow all the press releases from NASA, the Russians and the Europeans ESA. plus now we have the new additions of China and India to also view.

Since July Pluto the furthest out planet has been reclassified as a planet, after it was discovered to have a 80 km thick methane atmosphere by the New Horizons probe. The plutonian system has also five moons, while on Pluto moving ice shelves were also discovered.

Ceres in the asteroid belt has some strange bright spots and a pyramid shaped mountain. Recent closer flybys have revealed more of them, but still no explanation to what they might be? 

Meanwhile ESA images from Philae on a hurtling comet has revealed mass water ejections, as it nears the Sun. The Mars Rover Curiosity has discovered silica deposits and has had to back track its route up Mount Sharp.  This discovery rises the possibility greatly in the search for fossils

Last of all Russians trusted Progress robotic supply ship has softened relations between it and the United States. because there is now no other alternative way to supply the ISS, International Space station.