firbeck
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Posts posted by firbeck
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I intend to get us all there for the first show and hopefully the 1.30 display too !! I've heard that you get some good viewing from 'The Mound' , it was packed when I came over with my mum, but it may be a bit clearer now
I've downloaded this map of the airfield showing the vantage points, where is the Mound exactly, is it somewhere near the place marked M on the map.
It looks like an early start for all concerned in order to get there for 8:15:-
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I saw it in the film ' the first men IN the moon'......we invented 'Cavourite'
Do they sell it in B&Q, I have to go up there in a minute, I fancy painting me bike with it and doing an ET, I'll look out for Lionel Jeffries.
I didn't see anything last night, the clouds kept appearing at the wrong moment, I think that the neighbours across the road are getting worried as to why I've been hanging out of the front bedroom window for the last couple of nights.
The Shuttle is supposed to land at Cape Canaveral at 17:39 our time this evening, no doubt there won't be any TV coverage, but the NASA site will show it live, if you look on there it is currently showing live inormation from Mission Control. Meanwhile they are promising clear skies tonight for the ISS/Soyuz pass which should be at around 19:15, it could still be fairly light though then so Beefsteak might have something to focus on.
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Wouldn't it be cheaper to use one of these:-
You could launch two at a time.
There's loads going spare:-
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Well done matey, my mum is an autograph enthusiast as well, she reckons she's lost her precious book though, that's number one on my list to find when I next go up to Park Crescent.
Has any film or TV programme about Robin Hood ever been filmed in or around Nottingham, I can't find or think of any reference to suggest that it has, I suggested Wingfield as a location in Prince of Thieves, look on IMDB and it ain't mentioned, though I thought I recognised it as Maid Marions family house, or perhaps I'm wrong.
Nottinghams film career seems to have been suggested and promoted as a platform for so called working class angry young men dating back to the 60's, and nothing more, even Boon was of this ilk, what do you think, everything tarred with the same brush, it seems so.
I'd love to see a movie about Ned Ludd, possibly starring an outrageously cast Tom Cruise or even better, Jack Nicholson, who would you prefer, get on with it Hollywood and forget about Robin Hood, perhaps a film about Brian Clough would be interesting, oops.
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Don't forget that there's quite a movement who think that the moon landings were actually staged in a film studio in Area 51 just to fullfill Kennedy's ambitions, watching 'Apollo 13' makes you wonder sometimes.
During the early 70's one of my pals was doing a post grad research course at London Uni and was analysing the content of moon rocks from the Apollo missions. She found traces of human DNA or 'Blood Compliment' as it was known then, on one of the untouched, sealed moon samples taken straight off the surface, and on reporting it, was sworn to secrecy and taken off the case.
It's one of those things you read about in the newspapers or learn of through hearsay, but I can assure you, I remember her reaction at finding this, 'My God, we've been to the Moon before, I have proof'. Perhaps we have, Jules Vernes or Wells's novels may not have been fiction after all, perhaps there is a Union Jack or Tricolour stuck out in a corner of the Sea of Tranquility.
Am I joking, hmmmm.
For all you non astronomical types wanting to see the spacecraft pass by, look to the west at the times given and look out for a big 'H' shaped constellation known as Orion, its low down compared to the horizon, but you can't miss it, it's very obvious, the rest will happen as you watch that part of the sky, good luck.
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Not much in the historical sense to cause anyone to film around Nottingham, the Castle and streets aren't mediaeval and a wood is a wood, whether it's Sherwood or Burnham Beeches ( Prince of Thieves ), from memory, the nearest Kevin Costner got to Nottingham was Wingfield Manor wasn't it.
The only large intact important 'period' building I can think of in the shire is Southwell Minster.
The latest BBC Robin Hood offering was all made in Hungary on the outskirts of Budapest, cheaper filming options no doubt.
Pembrokeshire has a lot to offer, the fairly well preserved castle at Pembroke and St Davids Cathedral for a start as well as loads of wild countryside and rugged coasts, it wouldn't work to try and cram all the shooting around Ye Olde Trippe to Jerusalem with a CGI created castle above would it?
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It's looking very exciting up there tonight.
The shuttle passes over first, here at 18:54 and 20:29, the ISS passes 1 minute later in each case, then the toolbag 9 minutes later, then 12 minutes after that, Soyuz passes over, having launched yesterday, it is due to dock with the ISS later, three manned objects in the sky at once within half an hour of each other on the same track must be a bit of an event.
Have you managed to pick anything up on the video. I've been lucky enough to see the Northern Lights twice down here, on the second occasion it was so bright and colourful that I video'd it, the result, absolutely nothing, a few vague colours and that was that.
Have you noticed too, how some people refuse to believe that you can actually see anything in the sky at night. My missus' boss is one of these, she was looking forward to telling him today that she saw all that activity last night, but he steadfastly refuses to accept that you can actually see satelites or meteorites, he reckons it's all in the mind. I once had a neighbour who was the manager of Braintree Nationwide Building Society,( says it all ), he scoffed at the idea that you could actually see anything until I took him outside one night and showed him not only satellites but a meteor shower as well. He was quite stunned, he couldn't get over it, it would be interesting to know how many people feel the same way.
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Beefsteak
I saw it, we had a lovely clear sky and watched the two pass right over the top of Orion at 20:00, no light pollution either, my youth was amazed.
I'm assuming that the Shuttle had undocked from the space station and was probably following it in orbit.
I was surprised at how quickly they passed by, presumably they were in a fairly low orbit.
I've just checked out on the NASA website and this was indeed the case, here's a picture taken from the shuttle of the space station yesterday:-
It will now be preparing for re-entry tomorrow, I hope all goes OK.
A most spectacular sighting, it made our night after a bad evening trying to get a virus out the computer, but thats another story.
This is how it was supposed to look!!!!
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That was one of my favourite matches of all time, at any level. We left on a whim after a day having had lectures at Trent Poly, my mate had an old light blue Ford Anglia, I don't know how it got up there.
On arrival at Elland Road, no way was I going into the segregated Notts supporters part of the ground and went into the main stand, a group of really hardnut local miners insisted we stood next to them for our own safety, they were brilliant blokes, they actually wanted Leeds to lose that night to prove a point regarding Brian Clough.
I remember the Leeds 'fans' at their end being quite appalling and threatening, one of them climbed up into the steelwork at the top of the stand, dropped his trousers and crapped all over his mates, it summed them and their team up quite beautifully.
I recall that Notts had all their midfield players injured and employed the regular fullbacks in the middle, snuffing out and frustrating Bremner and Madeley, and passing the ball out to Scanlon and Carter on the wings while Les Bradd acted as a decoy, it was one of the most brilliant tactical ploys I've seen at any level of football. As the match progressed, the locals around us were actually cheering Notts on, it was a strange feeling watching arguably some of the worlds greatest players being humbled in this way by a bunch of Second Division alleged no-hopers.
I recall the Leeds 'faithfull' heading for the Notts fans at the end of the match so they could dish out a pathetic 'good kicking', I was challenged myself by some of these scum, but could manage a good Yorkshire accent and got away with it.
What were your experiences on the night Beefsteak.
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That Shuttles gotta be good to land on that plane.
Quite the reverse, Neil Armstrong was too busy checking his Lottery tickets and didn't notice the 747 landing beneath him.
I've checked it out, the balloon satelite was called Echo 1, followed by another called Echo 2, they were supposed to have been installed to check the earths actual size and were up from 1960 to 1970, at 30m in diameter, they were pretty big and must have been the objects we saw at the time.
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Thinking about it Plantfitt, wasn't there a huge balloon put into orbit in the 60's. I seem to remember it being inflated on release from the delivery vehicle and being so big and reflective that it was visible in the daylight. I don't know what the point of it was and what happened to it, but I have a vague memory of seeing it pass over on a bright sunny day.
Incidentally:-
Having had another tedious trip in space, Firbeck goes off to the bar at Edwards AFB to commiserate with Chuck Yeager.
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It's Allah making his presence known to us, whats wrong with you for not understanding that.
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Did anyone watch this last night, well, Beefsteak stayed up late, I can't believe he didn't watch it, despite being a diehard County fan.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and the way it was put across, though sometimes it was a bit confusing, the Brighton affair for instance seemed to have been very neglected.
I also didn't realise how much the book 'The Damned United' was so much fictionalised, I can now understand the families concern about the film, as well as some of the players thoughts on it, even though they were the Leeds 'Untouchables', at least Johnny Giles was prepared to admit that Clough was a genius. A pity that they didn't speak to some of the Leeds fans and got their thoughts on what subsequently happened to their team, why they should have bitten the bullet and accepted the inevitable and how they felt about the success that Forest achieved when it would have inevitably happened to them.
I was at Elland Road when the self appreciative Leeds team were knocked out of the League Cup by an injury hit Notts County, I always thought that the victory was engineered by a closet meeting between Sirrel and Clough, the whole County game plan was too well orchestrated to suggest anything else, it smacked of a combination of Sirrels shrewdness and Cloughs knowledge and contempt of the Leeds team and his 'derring do' attitude, Cloughie had only been at Forest for a few months, I'm sure he would have relished seeing the Leeds players that had seen him off being humiliated, they certainly were that night and I recall standing with a bunch of diehard Leeds fans who actually thought it was a disaster that Clough hadn't been taken on board.
Ces't la Vie, has it put you off seeing the film, I hope not.
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Thanks for that Beefsteak, a great site, I'm already signed up and looking forward to seeing the ISS tonight, unfortunately it's passing over quite low at 20:00 over in the west, the worst place for light pollution for me as our George's school sportsfield floodlights are likely to be on at that time.
I was interested to note that two satelites crashed over Siberia last month, as my bright green meteorite suggests a high copper content and it was exactly below the North Star, I'm wondering whether it could have been debris from the collision.
Incidentally, my son Jack had a very profound meeting with Stephen Hawkin in Cambridge a few years ago. Jack was rushing out of Woolworths and the great man knocked him over with his electric wheelchair, all Jack got out of it was a lopsided grin and a pre-programmed apology from the computer, he didn't wash for days afterwards though.
I note the time of your posting, were you up to watch a particular interstellar phenomenon or still not sleeping very well.
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Please can someone explain to me why, considering the rubbish thats on TV tonight, that a much publicised documentary about Brian Clough is put on ITV1 at 22:35, going on till 23:50, is the man so scary that he has to be put on later than the so called watershed time. ITV, you should be ashamed of your programming, you do yourselves no favours with this ridiculous time schedule, I doubt whether many people will be able to keep themselves awake to watch it at this unacceptable time, but I suppose the Soaps take precedent, thats what the public want after all, isn't it.
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Beefsteak
In view of your love of the Reds, quite understandable too, I had a sniff around to find what I considered some of my favourite moments featuring the team.
Big time was the Hucknall Airshow in 1972, but I have no momentoes of that event, my camera went bust and I don't have a programme, I just have the memories.
Next was the Reds 25th Anniversary in 1989 at Scampton, I have the prog and special ticket, which of course I can't find at the moment, and I have a truncated video that I took, as well as some slides, I'll see what I can find before our meet up, in the mean time look at this site:-
http://www.airscene.org.uk/oldstuff/arrows25/scampton25.htm
My next deal was RIAT 93, heres the programme:-
I missed the Su 27's, they had crashed the day before, nearly wiping out all those display teams aircraft. Look at the static line up, a real Soviet Bear, best a/c on the day, the Hungarian Mig21 fighter tactic demonstration team, they were very scary, high speed low level dogfights, by their own non existant safety standards, yeah, right, followed by the Oz F-111, demonstrating the art of fuel dumping and burning at low level, high speed, and to the music of Rolf Harris, unforgettable.
Next one, Mildenhall 1997, aniniversary of the founding of the USAAF, possibly one of the best as we had to suffer the complexities of a USAF Thunderbirds display complete with cheerleaders that had the crowd faling about laughing, to the chagrin of the hosts, British humour, what is that?
Sorry, I only have it on unplayable video.
I recall a story from your namesake, Beefy Botham. In his heyday, Botham decided he fancied a flight with the Red Arrows, it was of course accepted, presumably our RAF types wanted to take him down a peg or two, well he probably deserved it at the time.
So, off he went on a training flight with the team, and promptly felt as sick as a dog, but didn't want to complain in flight. Going through the whole routine, they landed and he staggered out the cockpit, triumphant that he hadn't thrown up. Guess what, his G suit hadn't been connected up, they couldn't believe he had survived the experience under the circumstances, he must have had more than his normal share of Shredded Wheat that day.
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I think that you'll find, that according to Einstein and his 'relatively' untested theories, if you travel faster than the speed of light, you pass through objects rather than collide with them. As my knowledge of all this extends not much further than knowing that E=MC2, whatever that means to us mere mortals, I can't comment other than the fact that I'm sure that Einstein and Stephen Hawkin were and are, probably aliens themselves sent to confuse us all, and that they've succeeded.
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This will make you smile.
When my son was at his village junior school 15+ years ago, I got very involved with the place and they needed a football coach, they hadn't won a match for 10 years and a variety of footballing dads had failed miserably, they all looked at me, so despite my lack of skills and ability, I decided to adopt the Clough policy, sort 'em out and let them get on with it.
It worked, we won our first match 3-0, this had never happened before, and it carried on, trouble is, the footballing dads couldn't cope with this, they didn't like it, they knew better, the team would march on to glory in their eyes, so they would run out on the pitch at half time and push me out the way in order to deliver their twopenneth of cr@p. It didn't work, it all fell apart, particularly when the Head got PC and insisted on introducing girls into the team, I gave up at that point and let them carry on with their failures, the team doesn't exist anymore, Brian would be horrified.
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This has been prompted by Stan on the Aviation Day thread.
Has anyone ever seen anything strange and inexplicable in the sky, do you believe in such things, or do you think it's just natural phenomena.
I admit to getting carried away with all that George Adamski/Erich Von Danniken stuff many years ago, but a lot of their findings turned out to be fake anyway.
I've always tended to think that alien visitations are unlikely, but then look how alien this computer is to even my mothers generation, even in the Swinging 60's, communicating world wide on a piece of kit smaller than a briefcase would be incomprehensible to most people.
I've seen a few odd things that can't entirely be explained away. I used to live in a remote farm cottage with incredible pollution free skies, you could sit out at night and lose yourself in the stars, coincidentally it was next to RAF Wethersfield as well. Some of the objects seen moving across the sky were pretty wierd, I tend to think that they were probably space junk, tumbling about in erratic orbits, they probably were, but it's so easy to use your imagination and wish them to be something else.
I've recently seen a couple of wierd things from here as well.
We get quite a few overflights, airliners at very high altitude from the continent heading west, lower level stuff to and from Stansted, light aircraft from two local airfields, warbirds in transit to and from Duxford and military helicopters from Wattisham, never a dull moment.
The night skies are fairly clear too, only last week I saw a phenomenal meteorite, bright green with a hell of a trail, that might have made some people wonder.
Last year though, one lunchtime, I saw a very high object heading north at a hell of a speed, it wasn't leaving much of a contrail and by the time I got my bins, it had gone. I reported it on an aviation site and someone else claimed to have seen it off the coast near Sunderland about 10 to 15 minutes later, working out the approximate course and distance would have made it doing about Mach 3, not impossible, but where was the sonic boom.
In January, my missus and I watched a mysterious orange light heading towards us, military helicopter? no sound, Chinese lantern? heading against the wind, it took a very sharp left turn and went up into the clouds, can't explain that one.
Has anyone else seen anything like that recently.
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I know what you mean with regard to the ATC.
I was a leader at Finchingfield Scouts for many years, our aims were to bring the movement into the realities of the late 20th, early 21st centuries, and it worked for us and the kids. Unfortunately our masters, the Braintree Baden-Powell traditionalists didn't agree with our views, so we carried on at our peril.
On one of our unconventional trips to the Peak District, I took them on a tour of Peak District WW2 crash sites, the expedition being led by my 'expert in the field' brother.
We ended up with large bits of aircraft, particularly from the B-29 on Shelf Stones, these were all arranged dutifully in our WW2 Scout hut in a particularly informative and poignant display, you have to admit, it was so good for the kids to be so invoved in all this history rather than sitting around camp fires looking bored and being lectured to about helping old ladies across the road.
But what has happened since, the people that replaced us have gone back to the old ways of 'life begins with knots', and they wonder why kids don't want to join up, the display has vanished and it's all back to 'Dib Dib'. I tried to live with the new Scout leader but it was impossible, he stuck to the Scouting code and that was that. He's since packed it all in because he found the new kids to be a pain and just wanted to play football, what a surprise.
Beefsteak, you seem to have a worrying fixation on the Reds, just one comment, they are the best, the Frecci Tricillori are good, but lack the finesse, its hard to say exactly what that is, but I've seen most of 'em, including the US teams, compete against each other, and the Reds are a differenet class.
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I wasn't sure where to publish this, but I'm sure the Flyboys will look on here.
I had an interview in Chelmsford at lunchtime, I won't go into all that, except to say it was for a post at the JobCentre, well, if you can't beat them, join them, and be the enemy within.
Anyway, typical Government, despite having a large half empty car park at their site, I wasn't allowed through the barriers to park in order to have their interview, what a bunch of t@ssers, I complained about that straight away.
The nearest car park was down the road and guess what was just over the fence:-
I was vaguely aware of this Meteor at their local ATC Headquarters, but I didn't know it was still there, interesting find just outside the city centre, lucky I had my camera with me for once.
Quite an old T7 this one, built in 1951 and sitting here since 1966, I think it unlikely that it was flown in!!!
It looks very sad, you'd have thought that the ATC would appreciate what they were lucky enough to have got on their premises and keep the poor thing in a better condition.
There's a big outdoor model railway centre at the back of it as well, a right keen types corner.
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I was wondering what the reaction was to this up and coming film in the City.
Quite frankly I don't think that I've ever seen so much advanced publicity for a film about football, it seems that every time you either turn on the radio or put on the TV, Michael Sheen is being interviewed, the reason is obvious though, it's not about the football, it's all about Brian Clough.
I must admit, having looked at the film clips on IMDB and the films own website, to me, it looks quite a remarkable portrayal of the man by Sheen, and the whole cast generally puts in uncanny performances, Colin Meaney of Star Trek fame for instance, looks and behaves frighteningly realistically as Don Revie. It also gives you a strange feeling looking down the cast list and seeing the names of some of the familiar footballers from the past being given star billing.
I know that there has been critism that much of it has been over fictionalised, particularly from the Clough family, but that's the Hollywood touch for you, you wouldn't expect anything else.
I'm looking forward to seeing this one, what do you Clough fans up there think of it.
Incidentally, it's being called Brian Clough Week in the media with a documentary about him tomorrow night on ITV, they are also running a cr@p article in the Daily Mirror ( I'm only buying it for the free seeds ), did anyone spot yesterdays mistake in their article.
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Lets also not forget the piles of flowers and teddy bears at the scene of celebrity deaths, murders, and fatal accidents, where did that idea come from, I don't recall it occuring at all only a few years ago, it seemed to get out of control following the death of Princess Di. If you travel on the road from Linton to Haverhill it looks like a blooming garden centre, not for much longer, say those evil men from the Highways Department.
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The one that really winds me up is Halloween. I don't really recall hardly anything relating to this when I was a kid apart from being told to keep away from churchyards. Nowdays it really is massive business, second only to Xmas I heard recently, thank you for that one too USA. At least Mothers Day can still be kept as a personal thing, but I really can't abide hordes of kids continuously knocking on the door and forcing you to take part in an exercise that I don't have any interest in.
UFO's
in Owt' Abaaht Nowt !
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First landing of shuttle aborted due to crosswinds, second attempt at 19:15 our time, coinciding with the passing of the ISS.
NASA TV just shown crew of Soyuz that have entered ISS after docking.
NASA currently have a chase plane over Florida checking on the weather conditions.
Good live pictures on here, it reminds me of the old days when the media used to care about spaceflight.