A long time ago, in a galaxy far,far away...well, our home in south west London, actually, near Kew Gardens. My brother Mike needed new transport; he hadn’t had a license long, and had £600 to buy something more reliable than the Austin Healey Sprite he had passed the test in. Back then, there was a publication called…

I’m 72 next birthday and have no problems reading that font. Perhaps you should get your eyesight tested?(!)

I took my test in one of these:

A friend of mine did something similar in a dispute with a neighbour...he bought two wrecks and left them outside the neighbours drive. He registered them in the neighbours name.....they attracted a slew of parking tickets and attention from the Police before he was told that they were his, and had to pay to get them…

Yes, there’s a crosswind. No, it’s not a display of very skilled piloting; precisely the opposite. The landing was all going nicely until the application of a huge bootful of left rudder, held on for too long, by the handling pilot. This started the left yaw, and after that followed the pilot induced oscillaations…

This vessel, apparently full of the most secret stuff there is, seems to use a standard Furuno radar you can buy in a chandlery....(!) Nothing wrong with that, but it does seem a trifle out of place... Well done to all, whatever it was you were up to!

A relative of mine had sadly shuffled off this mortal coil...and I went to the funeral. As I arrived I saw his son...who seemed to be giggling...so I asked him why. He said “You remember what Dad was like...his comments on hearses?” I did...he was an aficionado of veteran machinery and fast cars, a regular attendee at…

Stuck?? Trapped in the cab?? Yet he managed to get out of the window.... No reason at all why he couldn’t have done that without any assistance. He’d be sopping wet anyway...all he’d have had to do is get out, and he would have removed any threat of being “trapped”. There is no current, the water is placid, and he’d…

Re: The Limit.

Drag force = 1/2 x air density x velocity squared x coefficient of drag x cross sectional area.

Whilst we are nitpicking...the Nagasaki bomb was an implosion plutonium weapon of the type that had been tested in the Alamagordo Desert at Trinity. The Hiroshima bomb was a URANIUM gun type weapon. You can’t make a plutonium gun weapon, which is why the implosion type was developed. Richard Rhodes’ book “The Making…

My late Grandfather was a Rolls Royce trained mechanic. In later life he worked for Bobbet’s Garage in Teignmouth, no torque wrenches then. The only man to break head studs was the Workshop Foreman; all the mechs would recognise the “give” in the stud as they tightened it and ask him to check they had got them tight…

I cannot understand anyone who has spent that long amassing the money and sacrificing things to the Gods of Motoring...but needs other people to tell him what to buy. Potty.

Some years ago, a good friend of mine bought a shiny new Range Rover. He was running a security company at the time, and the vehicle fitted the company image and was really useful for it’s off road capability too. When he took it in for it’s annual service, the garage called him in...it seems that all the suspension…

My Lotus Esprit Turbo was made in 1982....but I can still buy everything for it. And my supercharged MG TC was made in 1947; once again, all the parts are available...even more so now than in 1967 when I bought it. Not supercars, maybe....but all the driving fun one needs.

Back in the late Sixties, Friday night was always the meeting night for the Richmond model aircraft club. That’s the real Richmond, in Surrey, England... the meetings would usually repair to the pub and some drinking would take place, followed by a lengthy game of 3 card Brag. There was a large poly bag of change and…