Radschool Association Magazine - Vol 38

Page 9

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Allan George's Gems

Proposed passing the Olive Branch

to the Nth Vietnamese.

Last issue we spoke about the proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) with North Vietnam. It was initiated by RSL national president Ken Doolan who wanted to see Australian veterans reconcile with veterans of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong.

Seems that Ken might have jumped a bit early and could have ended up with a bit of egg on his face. RSL clubs all around the country gave the idea a big thumbs down - it is now dead and buried.

Jack Kirby, CSM.

Martin Walsh

Long Tan Disgrace!

On the 18th of August 1966 at Long Tan, Vietnam, D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, mainly made up of Australian National Servicemen and at that time located to support the American Army, fought a battle against the Viet Cong.  In this action D Company lost 18 men killed and 24 injured.  The Viet Cong dead numbered in excess of 245. The Australian lines were never crossed. The Viet Cong withdrew.

Second Lieutenant David Sabena

surveys the battle scene the next day.

American President Johnson and US Army Staff recognised the achievement by awarding the Unit Citation of Gallantry on 30th May 1968.

The Award was formally accepted by Queen Elizabeth in 13th June 1968. Prime Minister, John Gorton, made the formal presentation of this American Citation to the Battalion at Lava rack Barracks, Townsville on 18th August 1968.

On the 31st of March 2010, D Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (above) honouring their extraordinary deeds at Long Tan.

The Government however refused to approve travel payment for the surviving Unit Members or their families, including the families of deceased Unit Members, in order that they be present at the ECG Presentation Ceremony presided over by the Governor General of Australia.

In February 2011 the same Government of Australia footed the Funeral Bill to bury the illegal boat people, who tragically perished on Christmas Island. This included flying surviving family illegals and survivors to and from Sydney and Christmas Island, accommodating them, etc plus a Coach tour of Sydney thrown in.

The Canberra Politburo had waited 45 years to publicly acknowledge the bravery and sacrifice of these Sons of Australia and then immediately ‘shit’ on their memory by wetting themselves to appease the feelings of boat illegals forcing entry into our country.

Now we witness what can only be described as attempted political face saving, by this same Government, sponsoring a TV Documentary, to celebrate our Armed Forces accomplishments at Kapyong, Korea in 1951. This will see our Prime Minister and the entire Priministerial Entourage fly in a RAAF plane to Korea to mark this 60th Anniversary.

What Hypocrisy!!! What a Blatant Affront to the feelings of our Nation's serving Armed Forces, Past and Present.

C130 Gear Collapse.

Back in April 2004, a C-130, belonging to the Air National Guard, in Minneapolis, which was on a routine local training flight, had to circle Minneapolis for a while because of landing gear problems. The crew manually wound down the undercarriage, (about a million turns with a speed brace) and the aircraft lined up and landed normally, but as it began to taxi toward the National Guard apron, the right-side main landing gear collapsed. The right wing hit the ground, causing the number four engine’s propeller to strike the runway. (Aircraft engines are numbered from the left to the right). The prop mounting bolts sheared off, the prop assembly separated from the drive shaft and the engine ran away (overspeed) and caught fire.

The most impressive thing about the incident was how the pilots shut down the remaining three engines, feathered the props and left their aircraft all in about 30 seconds – though why one of the crew decided to leave via the top hatch is a bit of a mystery.

See the video HERE

Wear Your seatbelt

There is a "wear your seatbelt" ad doing the rounds in the UK, it was done by a young bloke, who was not hired to do it, but who did it because the cause was important to him. He came up with this idea and now it's being hailed across the world as a "beautiful" commercial. The video has become so popular with the general public that people are forwarding it to friends/family on their own so quickly that it has spread all over the world in a very short time. You can see it HERE.

The two pebbles.

There is a difference between logical thoughts and “lateral” thoughts. Someone has done a wonderful Power Point presentation to illustrate the difference and you can see it HERE

Turn-table Stylus.

If, like a lot of us, you've kept your old turn-table and you like the analogue sound from an old vinyl record, you'll know how hard it is to get a replacement stylus for your turn table. They are not sold everywhere as they once were, you can get them if you let Google do your walking, but they aren't cheap.

Luckily, there is a company in New Zealand that does nothing else but sell styli and which sells them far cheaper than you can buy them in Oz.

If you're after a new stylus, log onto their web site www.styli.co.nz and you'll find what your are looking for.

Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M-1, so named because it was the first paved road anywhere.

The first American Jet.

Prior to World War 2, Germany, the UK and the US were pouring resources into developing a jet aircraft. The Bell Company, which had designed and built the P39, (below) which was on loan to and which proved itself with the Russian Air Force, was the first to have a jet aircraft flying in the US.

Their aircraft was called the P-59 Airacomet but the US Army Air Force was not impressed with its performance and cancelled the contract when fewer than half of the aircraft ordered had been produced.

Although no P-59s went into combat, it paved the way for another design generation of U.S. turbojet-powered aircraft and was the first turbojet fighter to have its turbojet engine and inlet nacelles integrated within the main fuselage.

Early in 1941, Major General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, of the US Army, had become aware of the UK’s jet program and he arranged to attend a demonstration of the Gloster E.28/39 in April 1941. He requested and was given, the plans for the aircraft's power plant which he took back to the U.S. On 4 September, he offered the U.S. company General Electric a contract to produce an American version of the engine. On the following day, he approached the Bell Aircraft Corporation and asked them to modify their aircraft to take the new engine. Bell agreed and set to work and the design was finalized on 9 January 1942, and construction began.

On 12 September 1942, the first XP-59A was sent to Muroc Army Air Field (today, Edwards Air Force Base) in California by train for testing. The aircraft first became airborne during high-speed taxiing tests on 1 October with Bell test pilot Robert Stanley at the controls, although the first official flight was made by Col Laurence Craigie the next day. Over the following months, tests on the three XP-59As revealed a multitude of problems including poor engine response and reliability (common shortcomings of all early turbojets), insufficient lateral stability, i.e., in the roll axis, and performance that was far below expectations. Chuck Yeager flew the aircraft and was dissatisfied with the speed, but was amazed at the smooth flying. Nevertheless, even before delivery of the YP-59As in June 1943, the USAAF ordered 80 production machines, designated "P-59A Airacomet".

Although the aircraft had the UK copy engine, when compared to the initial aircraft, the improvement in performance was negligible with only a five mph increase in top speed and a decrease in service-before-overhaul time. One was sent to the UK and swapped for one of their Meteors. The British pilots found that the US aircraft compared very unfavourably with the Meteor and in fact compared unfavourably with the propeller-driven P-51 Mustang.

The US Navy also tested the aircraft but quickly found it was completely unsuitable for carrier operations so after negotiations between the US Gov’t and Bell, 50 production Airacomets were completed and assigned to the 412th Fighter Group to familiarize pilots with the handling and performance characteristics of jet aircraft. By 1950, not one of the aircraft was airworthy and disposal began.

While the P-59 was not a great success the type did give the USAAF experience with the operation of jet aircraft in preparation for the more advanced types that would shortly become available.

Click HERE to see a short video of the aircraft in flight.

The full name for the city of Los Angeles is:

El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, which when translated from the Spanish is:

The Town of Our Lady Queen of Los Angeles Porciuncula.

Global warming??

David Rose

01 Feb 2012

Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again. The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the London Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997. A painting (left), dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age.

Leading climate scientists recently told the London paper, The Mail on Sunday, that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food. Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why January’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

According to a paper recently issued by the London Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C. However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.

Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible, because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’

These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.

‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’ He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.

CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.

So far there is no sign of any of this happening but only recently a London Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid. ‘The ten-year projection remains ground-breaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.

Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’. ‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said. He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said.

Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand. ‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ she said. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.

She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. ‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ she said. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years.

Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997. The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.

‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’

Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific. ‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk.

And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’

How Much Do You Know About Golf???

This is multiple choice. If you select a wrong answer, the ball moves only so far down the fairway and stops and you are charged with one stroke. Keep selecting the answers that you think are correct and the ball moves down the fairway until you get the right answer and the ball goes in the hole. If you have the correct answer right away, the ball goes directly in the hole- a hole in one.

To play click here!!!!!

Is this for real??

The sound is all in Japanese but the subtitles are in English so you will understand fully what is going on. The Japanese reckon they can turn plastic containers, bottle tops, bags, all and any plastic waste BACK into usable oil (where it came from originally).

Have a look at THIS.

However, being the world's greatest sceptic.......I doubt it!!!

What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447?

For more than two years, the disappearance of Air France Flight 447 over the mid-Atlantic in the early hours of the 1^st June, 2009, remained one of aviation's great mysteries. How could a technologically state-of-the art airliner simply vanish? After many months of searching, they finally found the black box and when the played the audio they could not believe what they were hearing, it just seems the pilots forgot how to fly an aircraft. You can see the full story on Page 15

You can run – but you can’t hide!!

This is impressive, 2.5 miles away, at night and it looks like they are right there. Heck of a weapon. The pictures were taken from an AC-130 Specter gunship. The people in the picture are setting up a roadside bomb and planning to ambush an American convoy which followed a short while after the pictures were taken. They were setting up for the ambush and were pacing off the distance from the bomb to where the convoy was to pass by.

The marksmanship with those electronically controlled 40mm cannons is astounding. Click HERE, turn your sound up.

Atlantis – Space Shuttle.

Here is your chance to have a look at the insides of one of the amazing Space Shuttles which has been decommissioned and on its way to the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex,.

Atlantis, which flew the final mission of NASA’s 30-year shuttle program, is now being prepared for its public display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Its insides were pulled out to ensure it is safe for exhibit, as well as significantly lighten it for its planned steep-angled display, Atlantis is scheduled to be powered down this week for the final time.

The following photo gallery starts on Atlantis’ flight deck, and then proceeds to its now mostly empty middeck, out into and above the 60-foot payload bay, and then around and under the winged spacecraft. The gallery offers an impressive tour of the shuttle and it’s mind-boggling array of buttons, controls, and compartments. Click HERE.

Old 666.

There were lots of heroic acts undertaken during WW2. Every day normal people were put in situations which required them to undertake acts of amazing bravery against impossible odds, to put themselves in terrible situations which most of us can only wonder about and to thank all the Gods that we weren’t there.

One can only imagine the terror experienced by these people. Most of these heroic acts have gone un-noticed and un-recorded, but fortunately, one such act was noticed and someone has taken the time to record it on film.

You can see it HERE.

Sam’s Lamb.

Big Sam Kekovich, the ex North Melbourne/Collingwood footballer, has released his 2012 “Aussie Lamb” commercial, we don’t think it is as good as previous ones, Sam seems a bit flat!!!. Click the pic below to see the 2012 version and click HERE to see the first one which was released in 2005.

You know it makes sense!!

Wherever your are:

In the UK, 100 wives and girlfriends of servicemen in Afghanistan were brought together for a TV series under the wing of choirmaster Gareth Malone. They sang a song called “Wherever You Are” the lyrics of which were taken from love poems which were written between the women and their absent husbands. Royal Wedding composer Paul Mealor wrote the music.

It puts a lump in your throat – see and hear it HERE.

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