View from the bridge
Re: View from the bridge
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 )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
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 )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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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: View from the bridge
Thanks John, I took a picture of something that may interest you the other day, I'll pm it to you.
Nu-Fogey
Re: View from the bridge
Thanks Colin,I'll look forward to it
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Re: View from the bridge
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.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.
P1150752.JPG
View from the end of pier across the mud at low tide.
P1150748.JPG
Picture at the foot of the support cables, with a cyclist for a better sense of scale.
P1150753.JPG
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.
I recon it was to clear the site for building more houses to make some greedy knob even richer.
I am here. Where are you?
Re: View from the bridge
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 !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.
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
Nu-Fogey
Re: View from the bridge
Is it HMS ringtail that's disappearing under housing or woodvale -- I think there's a training division there atm.
I am here. Where are you?
Re: View from the bridge
The Chipmunks were brilliant. The tandem seated training gliders were fun, but the Sedbergh side-by-side seated gliders were very clumsy in comparison.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.
After those the RAF were kind enough to pay for my Flying Scholarship.
Jonathan
Re: View from the bridge
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.
Nu-Fogey
Re: View from the bridge
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.
All clear above and behind !
Nu-Fogey
Re: View from the bridge
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.
I am here. Where are you?
Re: View from the bridge
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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havill ... 1_Chipmunk
Nu-Fogey
Re: View from the bridge
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.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.......
For the Flying Scholarships we mostly flew Cherokees, with a few hours in Cessnas because they could be persuaded into unusual attitudes.
Jonathan
Re: View from the bridge
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 !
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 !
Nu-Fogey
Re: View from the bridge
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.
One pipe larger in diameter than the other for some reason.Nu-Fogey
Re: View from the bridge
Less anti vandal, and more just preventing additional load on the centre of the span from the inevitable rope getting tied round it...
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.