Amazing discovery
(From our special 'spin-and-nonsense' correspondent Monty Orangeball)
The remains of a historic aircraft, once believed to have flown over the house of the famous children's author Capt. W. E. Johns, have been discovered drifting down the Thames on a barge. "It's a baffling mystery worthy of one of the master's great works," says aviation historian and amateur sleuth Brian 'Algy' Cartridge-Starter, aged 11. Other than the absence of wings, tailfin, engines and undercarriage the aircraft appears to be perfectly airworthy and could be used as the basis for a future supersonic transport, say experts.
...Actually, here is Concorde Alpha Alpha sedately on her way by barge to East Lothian's National Museum of Flight in Scotland, the home of Capt. W. E. Johns who sadly died the year before the supersonic airliner's first flight. Johns, as most of you should know, wrote 169 ripping yarns, including 104 Biggles and 11 Worrals books. Alpha Alpha's voyage coincided with the news that French divers have identified the wreckage of a Lockheed P-38F-5 B Lightning in which author Antoine Saint-Exupery mysteriously disappeared on a routine reconnaissance mission on 31 July 1944. The first clues that this was the resting place of Saint-Exupery, author of the children's classic 'The Little Prince', came six years ago when a fisherman brought up the airman's silver ID bracelet in his nets near the Ile de Riou off Marseilles. Here, it seems, is one mystery that is no longer deep....
Yuckspeak (series of 1,000,000)
Fuel quantity indicating system = dipstick
Can't see the aircraft for the trees
Sir Basil Armchair: "So, you're finally ready to begin flight tests?" Barry Bimnod: "Almost your worship." Armchair: "Almost...what's stopping you now for heavens sake!" Bimnod: "Well it's the...er...the trees your worship." Armchair: "Trees? Trees? What are you wittering on about?" Bimnod: "Well there are trees at the end of the runway." Armchair: "So...?" Bimnod: "The programme is a trifle late, and now the trees are a trifle tall!"
...and what's beneath the trees?
A USAF Research Lab team visited a test site in Mississippi to measure the electrical properties of woodland being imaged by an airborne foliage-penetration radar as part of the Targets Under Trees programme. The team included Lt Seth Ouch.
Team member (measuring the electrical properties of a tree): "Ouch!" Lt Ouch: "Yes?" Member: "Ouch, ouch!" Lt Ouch (technically): "Yes, what do you want? I've got work to do." Member: "Oooooh, ouch again!" (sound of machine gun fire)
Source: Flight International
