Wimps you say? I've have you know Mark I just had a colonoscopy on Tuesday and never cried once. Just taking the prep medication for it is enough to bring any grown man to tears. 

They put me out for this one which was a change from the two that I had in previous years. In those they only put me half out if there is such a thing.

The woke me up during Tuesdays ordeal and told me the doctor had to go and get a smaller probe because he was having a problem getting around a bend or corner in the intestine. Once he came back they put me out again. Next he banned and removed 3 polyps which they will check later for cancer and he mentioned in his report to me that I had 3 feet of intestine with Diverticulitis.That's probably where the bend or corners were because Diverticulitis is pockets in the intestine usually caused but no always by an infection in the intestine. In my opinion my problems started after having at least 3 good belts of dysentery in Egypt where I managed to drop roughly 42 pounds in weight. For at least 5 years after returning I was scared to be anywhere where a toilet wasn't very very close at hand and I mean close.

It cost me almost 18 bucks Tommy out of pocket for the cleaning out meds that you start the day before and calling them cleaning out meds is no understatement for sure. As I sat on the toilet all that day and night with time to think, I thought of all the people I had a dislike for and how I could manage to work them into their food. Yes Major, Trump was on the short list.

The 18 bucks was all that I had to pay Tommy. The Pre op with the specialist and procedure were free. As for time lines, my family doctor set up an appointment with the specialist which took roughly 3 weeks and the scoping was done 3 weeks after that. If they thought it was an emergency then I would have gone closer to the front of the line or to emergency surgery right away.

I don't give a shit (forgive the pun) about Trump Pete, just glad I wasn't on the list.

Are you sure that you're not Major. lol  

Would you eat some of my home made candy treats if I mailed a box over to you now?

In 1936 the US air corps woke up to the fact that most of their aircraft were not on a par with their possible enemies, so in 1937 the government put out a proposal to their aircraft manufacturers to produce a craft capable of an unheard of 400 mph, reach over 20.000ft and be armed with cannon. This directive was codenamed X608 and would involve six companies in a race to win this lucrative contract. The eventual winner would come from Lockheed, from an engineering design genius called Clarence Johnson, or Kelly, as he was commonly known and it was as unconventional as it was brilliant and it was designated the P38 Lightening.

Would you eat some of my home made candy treats if I mailed a box over to you now?

Not if they're wrapped in toilet paper.

If I rapped it in nice Canadian toilet paper there would be rioting in the streets over there from everyone just wanting to fell how soft it was to the touch.

The trouble with trying to built military aircraft is you no sooner get it off the drawing board before it is already out dated.

Watched a program the other night on a helicopter that looked much like a cobra but was bigger. Once the proto type came out the American Airforce started fighting with the Army over it to the point it ended up getting scrapped. The Army did manage to get the right to some helicopers after that.

The governments requirements stated that the new fighter had to be twin engined and what made the P38 so visually striking was Johnson's decision to abandon the traditional single boom and give each engine its own, coupled at the rear, which meant the cockpit had to sit, suspended between the two engines. I suspect a few jaws dropped when they got their first sight of this machine and it was and possibly remains to some as a beauty in the eye of the beholder. The prototype was finished and flown in 38 for a little under  30 minutes. Lockheed now decided to throw caution to the wind and gamble for the trans continental record flying. This was real risk taking because had it crashed a possibly killed the pilot, it could have proved the death knell for it, or at least put it back long enough for its competitors to shine. There was no need for concern though, as the record was broken by 22 minutes but then the shine was removed when the pilot was commanded to fly around for the purpose of getting photos, ran out of fuel and had to dump it on the runway. He survived but the aircraft was written off. Many still believe the P38 was the first American plane to fly at 400mph but that's not so. It was the first twin engined US plane to do so but the 400 mph record actually goes to the Vought F4U Corsair. Another little snippet for the Yanks, Britain ordered over 300 of them before the war started and it was they who gave it its name, the Lightening.

The US government now took a somewhat jaundiced view of the order by the Brits, fearing they were selling fighters to a country they had spent the last 150 years condemning as tyrants and frankly, they saw the lightening as giving parity, so they removed the superchargers from the engines of the British planes, which effectively saw the cancelling of the order, as the plane was just not up to the job without them. This proved a godsend to the Brits, as they could now concentrate on their own designs, whereas the P38 was to find itself under close scrutiny back home for a great number of dangerous faults. The steering would jam in a dive and the engines were not as reliable as necessary. In testing the Brits had discovered that the plane was unbalanced and had a bias in flight because the two engine's props turned in the same direction and if one engine cut out on take off, it would flip the plane on its head. This lack of balance was to kill a number of pilots before the aircraft was given a thorough remodelling, starting with opposing rotary props. It had been a bumpy ride for the P38 but after two years of engineering endeavour the plane was becoming all that Johnson, Lockheed and the US could desire.

The finished article now found itself fighting the Japs in the Pacific theatre, where it was to show its true mettle. Pilots loved it, it was what they desperately needed, the Japs weren't so keen. It was to gain one of its major battle honours when the US codebreakers got wind of Admiral Yamamoto, architect of the treachery of Pearl harbour, was about to visit some remote bases in a morale boosting tour for the troops. The details of this tour in 43 was picked up and deciphered by American codebreakers, which prompted the brass to plan an interception of his plane. The P38 was the ideal tool for the job and sixteen were sent. They found Yamamoto's plane and escorting six fighters two hours later and destroyed them all, killing the snake of Pearl harbour. It must have caused wild celebrations amongst the many who suffered at pearl, especially the families and comrades of those murdered. Following the victories of Guadalcanal and Midway, the Japanese days of none stop expansion were over, they had reached their zenith and now it was their turn to begin the retreat and it would be the P38 that would play a pivotal role in destroying the Jap airforce because of its range for a fighter, which would be lengthened by a novel visit from a very famous aviator. It could escort the heavy bombers, who would destroy airfields and installations, whilst the Lightenings shot up everything on the runways and whatever managed to take off. As the Yanks began to island hop across the Pacific, the ubiquitous Lightenings cleared the skies and straffed the troops and equipment on the ground. If it had a fault, it was fuel consumption, as it had two big thirsty power units on either side of the pilot and fuel consumption equated to limiting its range. This problem would be solved not by engineers from Lockheed but by a man who knew all about conserving fuel, Charles Lindberg. Lindberg was out in the Pacific as a civilian observer and he had been fed stories of P38's having to ditch short of their bases through lack of fuel and pilots were lost. He had come up with an idea of running the engines weak, which many thought could wreck them and doubts were expressed, so Lindbergh volunteered to fly with them to prove his theory. Tests were carried out over a few weeks and the engines were stripped, only to find out they were just fine, so the plan was adopted all around. The result of this was a complete rethink of strategy, as now the planes could attack targets further than was ever thought a further 200 miles further, adding 400 miles to their capacity, which was actually extended with experience and they were attacking targets the Japs thought impossible. No other plane made more aces of pilots than the P38 and its tally of Jap aircraft alone totalled around 1800. It would remain the US's greatest long range fighter until the arrival of the Mustang. It was also highly successful in the European theatre, flying over 125,000 sorties. Around 10,000 of them were produced, in various models, as it was constantly updated. It was one of the most successful plans in history, beloved by its pilots and nation.

Fifty years ago America put a man on the moon (or the Arizona desert) & returned him safely to earth. A prophecy proclaimed by John F. Kennedy to do this in a decade, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

If was the Germans you can thank for space flight Tommy and those poor wee monkeys you used in the beginning for astronauts that never survived the landings. Poor things. It was probably dead chimpanzees dressed in space suits that were seen at area 51 being picked up and loaded into trucks, not little green Martians. 

Actually we can thank Robert Goddard an American engineer who developed liquid fueled rockets in the 1920's. The Germans improved on it causing a race for Teutonic brains by the Soviets & Americans after WWII.

I wonder what Goddard used to add to his liquid fuel as a oxidizer. Today they use Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen. Both would have to be reduced to the gasious state before being introduced to the combustion chamber. Who would ever thing that water when separated could be used as rocket fuel. As like a car motor the more fuel and air you can force into into the cyclinders the faster you go. An oxidizier like pure oxygen is what is used to increase the power of the rocket.

Apparently the first tests on rockets in the States were done using V2 German rockets. They shipped 80 of them to the States after the war plus a lot of spare parts. They did have many failures at first and many blew up on the launch pad but they did manage in the end to get them working right but then so did the British and the Russians.

The V-2 rocket also became the first man-made object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.

At the beginning of WW2 it's difficult to grasp how totally unprepared Britain was in being able to carry out any bombing campaign. The RAF had argued over the merits of bombers and settled for building mostly fighters instead, which was fortunate when the Battle of Britain arrived. What bombers we did have were very inadequate for the job, being mostly two engined lightweights which would have a problem finding Germany, never mind a single target, as these bombers had no navigators for a start. During the 30's the RAF was still equipped with biplanes as bombers, so the government issued a directive for a new breed of monoplane bombers and two companies responded. Armstrong's came up with the Whitley and Handley Page the Harrow. The Harrow had power operated gun turrets, with was quite an innovation at the time but no retractable wheels. The Bristol Bombay followed, again with a fixed undercarriage. Then came the Hampden, which did have retractable undercarriage and would serve until 1941 but all of these could not realistically take the war to Germany and bombers were increasingly seen as the only way to fight back at the time but British bombing was still in the dark ages and so was bombing strategy. The first bombing raid on Germany was carried out by the Whitley's and they dropped leaflets instead of bombs, in fact, they were prohibited from dropping bombs except on ships and only warships at that. Bomber Harris put this phoney war in perspective when he said that they supplied the Germans with enough toilet paper to last the war. Only the Vicker's Wellington, designed by the genius that was Barnes Wallis was up to the task. It was lightweight, which meant it could carry 4,000lb of bombs and was able to take immense damage and still keep flying. Crews loved the Wellington as they felt it was the only way that had to hit back at Germany, although they still had the problems of navigation. Pilots would follow canals, rivers and even swoop down and read the signs on railway stations to get where they were going. Bombers like the Blenheims would hedgehop to Germany, not needing to go up and down and at low level did not have the disadvantage of cloud to obscure their view. These low level pilots said they realised how important were their missions when they could see hundreds of Dutch people waving to them as they flew past and they knew when they had crossed into Germany, as the waving stopped. There were others which were too, such as the Fairy Battle and the AVRO Anson, which were wholly outdated and insufficient for the tasks and casualty figures were shocking. Then there was the AVRO Manchester, designed by Roy Chadwick. Again, this was another twin engined medium bomber carrying two Rolls Royce Vulture engines which were not up to the job. They were underpowered and suffered bearing problems, and the Manchester suffered with disturbing handling problems. Paradoxically, pilots liked them. Out of the 202 delivered 51 of them crashed. What RAF Bomber Command desperately needed was a four engined heavy bomber and Chadwick would deliver that by extending the wingspan of the Manchester by 9ft and fitting four of the legendary Rolls Royce Merlin engines. It was then known as the Manchester MK3 but would later become known as the Lancaster.

On 12 May 1940 F/O Donald Garland and Sgt Thomas Gray in a Fairey Battle of 12 Sqn bombed a bridge over the Albert Canal that the Germans were using in their advance into Belgium. It was damaged but not put out of use. They were shot down and killed. The third member of the crew was not awarded any medal.

A mention of one of the greatest and most prolific aircraft designers of all time, the practical genius Roy Chadwick. The Lancaster is probably his most famous legacy but in fact, his design career is a who's who of innovative design and performance. This man broke records for fun. He's a son of my home city of Manchester. He came from a family of engineers, so it was in his blood. He went to school where I used to work as a young lad and his other school where I used to live when I first got married. So what's that got to do with it you may wonder? Well when you discover these things you feel a connection to the person. He was born in 1893 and started work aged just 14 as a trainee engineering draughtsman. He was a master mathematician and gifted engineer from the start. At the tender age of 18 he joined Manchester's newly created aircraft company, established by the great aviation pioneer Alliot Verden Roe, the company being named A.V. Roe, known universally as AVRO's. He immediately showed what an extraordinary talent he was, being involved in the design of the AVRO 500, 501, 503, 504 and 504K. Thousands were sold worldwide, thousands learned to fly in one and the 504K became the aircraft which started the Australian airline Qantas. His designs and achievements from there are so many I'll just catalogue them in order. 1915 The AVRO Pike, a twin engined bomber, being the first ever to have bombs stored in an internal bomb bay and gun turrets behind the wings. 1918 The AVRO Baby The world's first true light aeroplane. The test pilot, Bert Hinkler flew it 650miles to Turin. Seven variations of this model were designed by Chadwick, including a seaplane version, which was used by the great Ernest Shackleton. Alas Chadwick took to the air in one of these aircraft without adequate clothing and fainted through the cold. He crashed, breaking his pelvis, an arm and a leg and if that wasn't enough, the joystick went through his neck. He was to take quite a time for him to heal and recover. 1920 The AVRO Aldershot, the world's biggest single engined bomber. This was the forrunner of the modern bomber in that it carried two pilots, a gunner and a radio operator. 1923 A variation of the Aldershot, being a troop carrier, a plane for the Schneider Trophy race. A training seaplane and a a special aircraft for polar expeditions, called the AVRO Arctic. 1924 The lightweight, record winning AVRO Avis 1925 The AVRO Andover ambulance plane, which is another variant of the Aldershot. 1925 He designs an all metal plane called the AVRO Avenger, which was a single seater fighter plane. 1926 in collaboration with the Spanish inventor of the autogyro, the forerunner of the helicopter, Chadwick mounts one on the AVRO 504 1927 AVRO Avian, a lightweight touring plane, which completed a flight of 1200 miles, to Latvia, followed by a flight to Australia in 1928. This aircraft was his first to be built under licence in the USA. 1928 The AVRO company is sold to what would become Hawker Siddeleys and he designs the AVRO Ten, a passenger aircraft 1929 Chadwick wins a competition to design and build a training aircraft for the RAF, it's called th AVRO Tutor. It sells worldwide 1930 He designs another training aircraft, the Cadet, followed by the Commodore, which incorporates an enclosed cockpit 1931 AVRO 18, having a steel tube body 1932 The AVRO Anson, all purpose plane. Trainer, bomber, shipping attack plane, transporter and coastal command spotter. 1938 AVRO Manchester 1941 AVRO Lancaster 1941 AVRO York, a long distance transport plane. It served throughout the war, being the personal plane of Churchill and took a major role in the Berlin airlift. 1946 AVRO Lancastrian. It had two Rolls Royce Nene engines and was the first Jet Airliner to fly between two countries. 1946 AVRO Shackleton What was in effect and overgrown Lancaster and was used for coastal command as long distance patrol plane, which flew in service until the 1980's 1947 AVRO Tudor Britains first pressurised cabin airliner

After the war Chadwick designed the AVRO Vulcan, which would be his last. Here we have a Delta wing behemoth capable of delivering an atomic bomb to Moscow. It was revolutionarry in many ways. It carried not persoanl protection because it could out fly and out manouvre anything the Russians had. Chadwick produced a concept for a Delta winged plane in 1947 which forsawe the Concorde. He wouldn't live to see his magnificent Vulcan fly as he died in 1947, when a fault on his aircraft was not repaired correctly and he died in a crash.