pmccarthy

I have been on minus 40 a few times, in the Arctic. My main memory is wanting to be somewhere else.

Positive is I got car painting job done today. Negative is that it turned out crap, I will have to sand it back in a couple of weeks and recoat it.

I am surprised that pilots on both sides in WW1 got to 20,000 feet for periods of 10-15 minutes without oxygen. They usually got quite ill at the end of it and some blacked out, to recover in a spin at lower altitudes. By mid 1918 they were using oxygen and patrolling up to 21,000 feet. At the extreme altitudes, a height advantage of 50 feet would determine whether you could bring your guns to bear on the enemy, or stall and spin as you raised the nose.

I am ten years older and more concerned with terroir than terrain.

Back in the day, artificial eyes were made of wood, painted. A bloke with an artificial eye asked a girl to go out with him. “Would I!” She exclaimed. “Your not so flash yourself you skinny bitch” he replied.

When I was young I worked in a mine 3500 feet deep and before work I did flying lessons at around 5000 feet a couple of days a week. Had no effect, except for the farting. That has persisted, like long Covid.

Apparently people on their first LSD trip say that they can see the air.

Spelt pasta is healthy and tastes great.

I haven't heard of a gin clear day before. As distinct from a Scotch mist, or a wine-dark sea?

My keyboard

Round door knobs.

The political and philosophical arguments are too complex. All Russians are responsible for Putin and all Gazans are responsible for Hamas, and get what they deserve. If Australia ever attacks another country then I will be responsible. What, we did? Then thank goodness we prevailed, as winning trumps morality, as Putin and Hamas both know.

I see the word aircrafts a lot lately.

Years ago in Perth there were birds that mimicked the pedestrian crossing sounds at the lights. I wondered if any blind people stepped out as a result.

A clay pot - ask my wife!

Again, thunder, rain, no power. Gone to bed.

Governments today focus on the important things like transgender athletes, whingeing first nations people and LGBalphabet people.

We haven't really had any summer yet. Grass all around is still green. Only a handful of hot days, lots of very cool ones. We had a fire at Christmas.

I had a school mate M.Bell who may have ended up out there. He grew up along the dog fence.

No power, heavy rain, no broadband. 4G is running at slow speed. Thunder fairly continuous.

It’s defenestration, a very old political move.

I first saw coloured smoke pouring out of a footpath coffee shop in London about twenty years ago. Took me a few days and asking around to figure out what I had seen.

Louis Strange wrote about responsibility after WW1: Many of the things I learnt will apply in the next war, for in some few thousand respects the science of navigating the air is as immutable as that of navigating the sea. As pilot of a machine you are responsible for that machine all the time, and it is always your fault if you crash it in a forced landing occasioned by any failure, structural or otherwise, of the machine or its engine. It is your fault if in thick weather you hit the top of any hill that has its correct height shown on your map, for the worst offence you can commit is to lose your way across country. Therefore until altimeters are more reliable, always give them a good margin on the right side, and never fly above clouds without two of them on your machine, in addition to making sure that you know the exact height above sea level of the aerodrome from which you take off. In war it is entirely your own fault if you run out of petrol when coming home against a head wind after a four or five hours’ reconnaissance, or if you fail to come down on the right spot after a couple of hours cloud flying. It is your own fault if enemy aircraft spot you first, and it is likewise your own fault if after spotting a hostile machine you get shot up by another formation streaking down from out of the sun just when you have your opposite number nicely sighted. It is, furthermore, your fault if you allow your Squadron to drift too far down wind in a dogfight and leave its machines with no margin of petrol for emergencies when they have to fight their way home again. It is your fault if you have nowhere to make a landing when the engine fails just after you have taken off; in the event of a forced landing your machine is a glider that should take you down safely on any possible landing place. It is your fault—well, it is a golden rule to assume that whatever goes wrong, is your fault. You may save yourself a lot of trouble if you act accordingly.

Check that the lock is primed and the load is in place. Hence the order “lock and load”.

No, I just realised how you were thinking!