Garbage in books
 

Sometimes things people write in books just take your breath away. Makes you doubt the essential facts of life, or even your own history.

I have had two cases in the last two years. I am still gasping from the most recent.

Last year I was browsing our local bookshop and there was an Encyclopedia of Trains. Flicking through the pages I found myself looking at the Flying Scotsman (Loco, not train.) The book claimed that the Flying Scotsman was the official first loco to travel at 100 mph. I happened to know it is not so. In the UK at least the first loco accepted to have done 100 mph (although only checked on stopwatch, the usual standard of the day) was City of Truro. I know for sure it was not the Flying Scotsman as Alan Pegler told me so. He owned her for several years and he was my stepfather at the time. You would think a supposed authority could get it right in an encyclopedia, wouldn’t you?

OK, so you think that is bad?

Yesterday I was browsing again and found a book about “How structures fail”or something like that by a chap called Eberhard who claims to be a professor of chemistry and something else ( sorry, lousy memory.) In one chapter he was discussing fighters. According to him wooden planes were very good structures although they were more prone to catching fire than metal planes which almost never caught fire unless they were hit directly in the fuel tank. An example, he said, that not many people knew, was the famous plane that won the battle of Britain and was composed entirely of wood, the Spitfire, as was the Japanese Zero.

Well blow me down with a feather, I never knew that.

There is a lot of doubt about the "City of Truro" claim as the run was timed using the manual method of stopwatch and trackside mile posts. Not particularly accurate. Over the standard spacing of a quarter of a mile between adjacent mileposts the difference between 100mph and 99mph is less than one tenth of a second. Human reaction time would probably not be good enough for this precision. Also the gentleman who carried out the timing was known to be not very good at it!

The Flying Scotsman run was recorded using a dynamometer car in the train formation which transferred rotations of a measuring wheel against the track onto a pen recording chart. However there are some claims that the details shown on the printout (a sudden jolt up to a momentary 100mph peak) could not have actually happened and that actual top speed was only 98 mph.

I was confused at all the fuss not long ago about the Flying Scotsman. Having been a trainspotter (LNER main line) in my sproghood the Flying Scotsman was first and foremost a train, the daily 1x00 departure from Kings Cross to Edinburgh, which was hauled by one of the A-class Pacifics, usually a streamlined A4, sometimes an A1, A2 or A3. All of these had names, one of the A3s was called, confusingly, 'The Flying Scotsman'. It was no different from all the others.

People tend to take the pi$$ out of trainspotters. OK - those who stand on platforms collecting numbers seem a bit strange. But harmless.

But if you ever witnessed at close hand a steam-hauled express thundering past in a cloud of smoke and steam, with all those huge connecting rods thrashing away, you'd have to be a total ignoramus not to be impressed.

Not A4s, but Castles and Kings 'down moi way when oi were a lad. Oo-arr'

I think that is the difference between a "spotter" and an "enthusiast" - very different beasts where both aircraft and trains are concerned.

G

I saw a seagull "spot" an aircraft at my local airfield this morning.

He's a 'spotter', I'm an "enthusiast":p

tipsy

Mmmm. Stanier's magnificent Coronation class pacifics do it for me. And 9Fs are quite good, too.

Always loved steam locos and been interested in railways generally. Never written down a loco number in me life (or an aeroplane reg.).

But Flying Scotsman? Never understood why it generates such passion. It's just an A3, not even a 'looker'. I think it's that name - makes folk who don't know much about trains go all misty-eyed for the 'golden age'. :rolleyes:

It's a 'celeb' loco - famous only for being itself. :eek:

SSD

What's all this got to do with wooden Spitfires?

Wooden know........

Rgds Dr I

That is not right! The Spitfire was not a wooden aeroplane. It was made of metal. You should go to the Science Museum. They have a new exhibit of a deconstructed Spitfire for all to see. ;)

No, you're wrong, he's right when he says "Not many people knew."

He's quite incorrect of course in that statement. I would venture that no one in the world knew they were built of wood.:confused:

"It's a 'celeb' loco - famous only for being itself."

Eh, Shaggy, re-read the first two posts. It's famous as it is claimed to be the first steam locomotive to have exceeded 100mph.

I saw a wooden Spitfire once. I think it was a Kielkraft!

My word, BEagle, you remind me so much of my late Father-in-Law - GWR to the core.

Considered by his contemporaries to be a benevolent and kindly man, he would regale us young ones with tales of his life on the Railways. From humble ticket hall clerk to Station Master at one of the Great Western’s termini, his stock of humorous tales seemed limitless.

But he had his dark side too. Heaven forbid you should mention the enemy; Southern Railways. He’d kick off in a trice, embarrassing the staff and inmates at the old people’s home, cursing the whole scum-sucking, dung-eating crew, from General Manager down to Station Cat. Of course it was they who decided that I K Brunel’s magnificent bridge at Saltash was incapable of taking anything heavier than an eight-car rake, thus keeping revenue down for the Company, and thereby eliminating the possibility of renewing rolling stock. It was also the Southern who gave the Luftwaffe target maps for the GWR station in Plymouth, a magnificent edifice so badly damaged that all trains from up-country were forced on to Southern metal, again diverting much needed cash away from locomotive maintenance.

But it was his hatred for the machinations of politicians and their ‘professional advisors’ such as Dr Beeching, with their meddlesome ways, closing many a fine station steeped in history. His outbursts could be spectacular as well as frightening, and only the intervention of a kindly nurse, prepared to ignore medical protocol and exceed Father’s normal dose of sedatives, would restore calm.

But thankfully, human nature suppresses the memories of the less savoury side of those we revere. Barely a day passes without my wife, his daughter, commenting on his wonderful sense of humour, and when she does, I smile to myself, and envisage a proud old man, sat on his commode, a warm drink sloshing around in a saucer by his side………….


and my Father in Law.
:ok:

I think you will find that there was a wooden Spitfire, Full size. and it even flew!
It was a replica, do not have details to hand, but it can be seen on the ground on display at various places around the country - it is not however the machine that "won" the BoB - and neither is the Spitfire that was built at the time, though it did have a major roll in it along with the Hurricane (and it is better looking):8

Some bits of the Spitfire were made of wood, not many, but some of them. Early fixed-pitch props. were wooden and there are wooden battens fixed to the underside of the tailplane ribs. The skins are riveted to the top of the ribs, but the underskins are screwed to the wooden battens.

In 'The Da Vinci Code' ( a comic if even I read one), the hero/heroine/bad guy flew his private biz-jet into Biggin, taxied into his hangar and then turned the aircraft round inside the hangar. It must have been a huge hangar and built like a brck outhouse to withstand the jet blast. The rest of the book was rubbish too.

On the other hand, the Science Museum exhibition is excellent.

'City of Truro' appears to have at least as strong a claim to that, according to the second post.

'Flying Scotsman' is the Harley Davidson of the loco world - everyone who knows nothing of the subject knows the name, and thinks it represents 'best in class'. ;)

SSD

That was Clive Du Cros' Spitfire prototype replica (Jaguar-powered):

http://www.spitfirebuilder.4t.com/im..._in_flight.jpg

The Isaacs Spitfire replica is all-wood also, although about 60% scale.

http://www.isaacsspitfire.4t.com/ima...kvb_g-bbji.jpg

http://www.spitfirebuilder.4t.com/im...s_spitfire.jpg
(This second shot is utterly gratuitous, because I've just recognised the mug of the man who taught me how to fly taildraggers).

G

Wooden you know -

I was closely examining a FG-1D Corsair (same as F4U-1D but built by Goodyear) and was surprised (but pleased) to see its ailerons were plywood skinned. Having a bit of stick time in several wooden-winged aircraft, I'd have no reason to fear this construction material.