View from the bridge

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reohn2
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by reohn2 »

Great photos Colin,that bridge is a favourite of mine :) I've always liked Southport,many fond childhood memories of Labour Club trips there.
Mrs R2's sister lives there in one of the posh apartments in what was the old hospital overlooking the Marine Lake.It's a great view across the bay to Blackpool(Blackpool is always best viewed from afar IMO :lol: )from their livingroom window on the second floor.

Thinks... ...I totally forgot about the ride you Bill and me did to Southport,a nice ride out :)
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colin54
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by colin54 »

Thanks John, I took a picture of something that may interest you the other day, I'll pm it to you.
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reohn2
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by reohn2 »

colin54 wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 8:41am Thanks John, I took a picture of something that may interest you the other day, I'll pm it to you.
Thanks Colin,I'll look forward to it :)
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Cowsham
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by Cowsham »

colin54 wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 7:46am I had a ride down the pier at Southport yesterday and took some picture of the Marine way bridge, an impressive structure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Way_Bridge
Close-up.
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View from the end of pier across the mud at low tide.
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Picture at the foot of the support cables, with a cyclist for a better sense of scale.
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It crosses an artificial lake, which becomes a yachting lake a bit further north, I like Southport, lots to see and do for a holidaying visitor.
Used to go over to southport every year for the woodvale international rally -- A fantastic event -- Ran by volunteers for over 50 years till some jobs worth decided asbestos roofs of old Nissan huts buried below ground somewhere on the 300 acre ww2 airfield would give us a disease if we walked over it.

I recon it was to clear the site for building more houses to make some greedy knob even richer.
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colin54
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by colin54 »

Cowsham wrote: 27 Oct 2021, 11:01am
Used to go over to southport every year for the woodvale international rally -- A fantastic event -- Ran by volunteers for over 50 years till some jobs worth decided asbestos roofs of old Nissan huts buried below ground somewhere on the 300 acre ww2 airfield would give us a disease if we walked over it.

I ride past there occasionally and still see the basic trainers the RAF use nowadays, taking off and landing. Air experience flights and gliding apparently. It quite took me back to my Air Cadet days, reading about that in the Wiki link below. DH Chipmunk air- experience flights at The Cambridge University Air Squadron at Marshals Airfied and Glider Training in what I remember as being called Kirby Mk 111's, though was probably one of these linked below, at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire, happy days. Sorry, I went a bit like the ' Fast Show's 'Jumpers for goal posts' nostalgia bloke there !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_Tandem_Tutor Open with a Tandem cockpit anyway, I did my three required solo flights to get the first license, and decided gliding was not for me (terrifiying !); and I was too thick for powered training ! I think you had to be a bright 'A' level student with officer potential, for the RAF to spend the money required for that. Some cadets got their Wings tho' I think, but not many, I only remember one or perhaps two in our Squadron.
I see from this Wikipedia article, that Woodvale had an operational connection with the Fleet Air Arm Airfield at HMS Ringtail during The Second World War, at Burscough.This is rapidly disappearing under housing and masses of new industrial units even as I write, a massive site. They still use some of the remaining hard standings for car boot sales in the Winter and a lot of the old hangers and dispersal buildings are still there being used for various things it's still boggles the mind, the vast size of the war effort then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Woodvale
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Cowsham
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by Cowsham »

Is it HMS ringtail that's disappearing under housing or woodvale -- I think there's a training division there atm.
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Jdsk
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by Jdsk »

colin54 wrote: 27 Oct 2021, 12:08pm I ride past there occasionally and still see the basic trainers the RAF use nowadays, taking off and landing. Air experience flights and gliding apparently. It quite took me back to my Air Cadet days, reading about that in the Wiki link below. DH Chipmunk air- experience flights at The Cambridge University Air Squadron at Marshals Airfied and Glider Training in what I remember as being called Kirby Mk 111's, though was probably one of these linked below, at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire, happy days.
The Chipmunks were brilliant. The tandem seated training gliders were fun, but the Sedbergh side-by-side seated gliders were very clumsy in comparison.

After those the RAF were kind enough to pay for my Flying Scholarship.

Jonathan
colin54
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by colin54 »

Cowsham wrote: 27 Oct 2021, 12:30pm Is it HMS ringtail that's disappearing under housing or woodvale -- I think there's a training division there atm.
Ringtail at Burscough. I should take some photo's , I've no doubt the old hangars will come down for something newer when the remaining green space runs out.
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colin54
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by colin54 »

Jdsk wrote: 27 Oct 2021, 12:31pm
The Chipmunks were brilliant. The tandem seated training gliders were fun, but the Sedbergh side-by-side seated gliders were very clumsy in comparison.

After those the RAF were kind enough to pay for my Flying Scholarship.

Jonathan
They used to have Sedberghs at Henlow, we called them Sedbarges.
They used to tow the gliders aloft from a wheeled winch trailer on the ground, 900ft as I seem to recall, then you pulled a release knob when the nose started to to 'hunt' at the extremity of the cable. I can remember the first time I went solo and pulled the release at the top of the winch, thinking, what the ... are you doing up here as soon as I'd parted connection to the ground, I have not changed my view. I love flying in an Airliner though, as long as someone else is doing the driving. I don't suppose I'll even be doing that do that again thinking about it.
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Cowsham
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by Cowsham »

Jdsk wrote: 27 Oct 2021, 12:31pm The Chipmunks were brilliant. The tandem seated training gliders were fun, but the Sedbergh side-by-side seated gliders were very clumsy in comparison.

After those the RAF were kind enough to pay for my Flying Scholarship.

Jonathan
I fly a scale model ( hence the reason I found out about woodvale -- model flying -- then went a few years as part of the vintage car show -- ) of the Aerobatic pennzoil chipmunk special -- a beautiful thing to fly -- so steady coming in to land with full flaps on.

Image
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colin54
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by colin54 »

Cowsham thanks, I didn't know about The Super Chipmunk. Chipmunks have an interesting and varied history, designed by Wsiewolod Jakimiuk a Polish Engineer (it says here !) for de Havilland Canada just post WW 2. I don't see it in the article, but from failing memory; didn't they have a gun cartridge engine-starter or something....... jdsk ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havill ... 1_Chipmunk
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Jdsk
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by Jdsk »

colin54 wrote: 28 Oct 2021, 9:30pm ... I didn't know about The Super Chipmunk. Chipmunks have an interesting and varied history, designed by Wsiewolod Jakimiuk a Polish Engineer (it says here !) for de Havilland Canada just post WW 2. I don't see it in the article, but from failing memory; didn't they have a gun cartridge engine-starter or something.......
The starter upgrade is mentioned in the Wikipedia article. I just don't remember what our Air Experience types had. I don't recall any special arrangements or discussion so I'd guess that they were electric.

For the Flying Scholarships we mostly flew Cherokees, with a few hours in Cessnas because they could be persuaded into unusual attitudes.

Jonathan
colin54
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by colin54 »

Thanks Jonathan, I see it now in the virtual engine compartment ! Gipsy Major 8 variant, I'm fairly sure that's what the aircraft at Marshals had fitted, this would have been about 1970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Gipsy_Major
Fancy Prince Phillip learning to fly a Chipmunk, his signature's (copy) is on my Gliding Certificate (in his role President of The Royal Aero Club).
Edit.
I just had a look in my old ATC Record of Service Book, and I see I had an Air Experience flight in Chipmunk WZ846 at RAF St Athan in 1970 at summer camp, it's now a fuselage only with the ATC at Biggin Hill.
The list of 'demobbed' RAF Chipmunks makes interesting reading , they've ended up all over the world.
http://www.demobbed.org.uk/aircraft.php?type=343
I think I've drifted this thread too far somehow !
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colin54
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by colin54 »

Form following function, a rather graceful bridge carrying gas over the L&L Canal, with slightly less elegant anti-vandal fluttering eyelashes at each end.
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One pipe larger in diameter than the other for some reason.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: View from the bridge

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Less anti vandal, and more just preventing additional load on the centre of the span from the inevitable rope getting tied round it...
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