The video above shows what happened when we still had a country - and industry - run by grown-ups. And look what we have now come to. Children are to be taught about homosexuality in maths, geography and science lessons as part of a Government-backed drive to "celebrate the gay community". Weep for what we once were and have now become.

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To leave an English Electric Lightning on both after-burners behind with just one after-burner....
The Soul of British engineering died with the TSR-2.

I was at school with a lad whose father was an engineer working on TSR2 when it was cancelled. It was in the news at the time and I asked what his old man thought about it.

He said it was a subject they avoided because when it had come up, the old man just flew into a rage and came out with a lot of foul filthy language.I recall something about how it was not only cancelled but all jigs, tools, design documentation, circuit diagrams etc were deliberately destroyed so that resurrecting it would have meant starting from scratch. There was something about a deal with the Yanks which fell apart when they cancelled a project involved in the negotiations surrounding the scrapping of TSR2.

However, since the war, there have been oodles of military development projects which gobbled up money and got nowhere or were years and years late and disappointing.

I could weep - so many lost projects.

No pressure.

Thank you!

Must be the water in Essex. Always made a disgusting cuppa.

One of the boxes I never fill in on official forms is the one that requests my ethnic origin. This is because it should not be important. It should make no difference to the recipient of the information what ethnicity I think I belong to. I know that the information is only being sought so that reports can be drawn up indicating that the organisation in question is meeting ethnicity targets but that, in my opinion, is not a valid reason. The reality is that it does not matter.
I feel exactly the same about this ridiculous LGBT initiative. Do you need to know whether I am straight, gay, a transvestite, dom, sub, masochist or celibate when you read these words? Do you care? Of course not, it is irrelevant. Do you know that there are people in the world that you encounter every day that fall into these categories? Of course you do. We just get on with it. So why does anybody feel it is necessary to say "When you have a maths problem, why does it have to involve a straight family or a boyfriend and girlfriend? Why not two boys or two girls?” I am tempted to respond “How do you know it is a straight family?” I then realise that I am being sucked into their argument which is entirely spurious. The point is that in the teaching of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and any language, living or dead, sexuality does not play a part. It is irrelevant. What drives people to get to the point where they think that this drivel is necessary?

Chris Morris and his colleagues were far too prescient for comfort.

This was a great plane but I partially agree with your assessment.

It's true our school system sucks.
It's true we now have the "green inventors show" on television presented by a gay moderator and a panel of judges made up by dikes, hookers and transvestites. It's true young people are motivated (brainwashed) to come up with all kinds of eco inventions and the effect is devastating.
We now have a generation of people obsessed to do something about our use of toilet paper, plastic bags and use of shower water (no body dares to speak about taking a bath anymore because that's against the party line) It's true we have wimps who talk about sustainability but don't know how to spell the word let alone know that it's just word covering a pile of horse shit when it's used in context with the green idiocracy we're building.
I am getting sick, really sick and angry when I watch this pathetic show of madness.
Today I watched that crook Jean Claude Trichet who heads the ECB coughing up his EU propaganda for a fiscal union and a bigger bail out fund. If you shake hands with this guy you better count your fingers.
I tell you that the moment these bastards are no longer dependent on funding from the national EU members because they can tax the EU citizens directly, the true face of this regime will emerge and it won't be pretty.
I curse the day our lunatic government signed the Lisbon Treaty without even taking the trouble to negotiate a backdoor escape.
The Dutch had voted a clear No against the European Constitution because of all the fraud and financial and regulatory mess that was created by the EU and they did not trusted them with more powers but Balkenende and his gang of arse licking turds suckered them into the Lisbon Treaty by lying between his teeth.
We're going to pay a tremendous price for this deed through our noses and a lot of people are going to risk their necks in an attempt to curb this one way or the other.

But not all is s dire and black as it sounds.
In Germany and France there is a tradition to conserve as much knowledge and skills as possible in the field of aviation and pass it through to new generations and it's very much alive.
I know for sure that a similar tradition is present in the UK as well.

All three countries have small airstrips and aero clubs all over the place. There are groups that build their own planes, gyrocopters, helicopters, jets, gliders, wig's, hovercrafts, ultra lights, rockets and even spacecraft. We have historical societies with workshops and flying museums where replica's are build and old planes restored.
In France you even have club (Museum) that is preparing a Concord to be certified for engine runs and who knows they manage to get it in the air again. http://heritageconcorde.com/?page_id=2
The plain is pampered by a certified maintenance crew and these people drag in younger technicians to pass their skills.
Similar groups are involved in flying museums keeping war birds in the air but also planes like the DC-3 Dakota, the Jünckers JU 52, DC-4, DC-6, the Lockheed Electra, the Catalina, the Grumman Goose, the list is endless.

We have aerobatic flying, we have speed races, we have cross country flying events and all kinds of competitions. This is where the little flame is kept burning and when the tide changes I am sure we will have the people who will build the next generation of aircraft.

The only problem today is to interest young people to join these clubs and club activity.
But that was to be expected when it became clear that the baby boomers and the generations after them rather enjoyed their freedoms above the responsibility of having children.
The computer, internet, games and social sites did the rest but I now see some light at the end of the tunnel as we see an influx of pensioners who bring along their grand children.
Everything that has to do with flying you must know has something to do with what we call a virus. It has to infect you and once you've got the virus you're hooked for life.

Those involved with aeronautics, no matter which discipline, always have been a rather odd breed of individualists that come in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life.
And most of them are climate skeptics too. These are all people who had to fight to get into a cockpit, who learned to deal with officials and changing rules and regulations every day. They are fighting with environmental organizations to keep their airstrip open or their hangar protected from developers. These are people who know you don't get anything for free and when you want something you have the get it.
We have people of similar character in all kinds of other sectors from driving to sailing, from horseback riding to hunting. We have groups working with trains, restoring steam engines, tractors, trucks, buses, you mention it.

So hopefully I have been able to cheer you up a little and have been able to convince you that our basis at the core is still sound and if the entire EU collapses we will have sufficient human resources and knowledge to build whatever we set our mind to, take it to the air and make a fresh start.

Ten years ago I nearly got banned from a message forum for imitating The Gay Desk sketch - you know, just to see if it would get a laugh or I would be called a hater.

The "LGBT community" - which is not a real community, gay men don't hang out with lesbians - are used by heterosexuals and gay activists as a weapon to destroy the reputation of career rivals, irrespective of whether these individuals are actually bigots who would deny someone an opportunity or not.

The cynical bigots are those who would use this status nuke, who recognise there is an opportunity to use human differences to destroy the lives of honest rivals who judge on individual merit without explicitly favouring any of the designated "victim" groups (females, LGBT, minorities, whales, grey squirrels etc.).

Right, the Canadians had a similar experience and many, many other projects have been cancelled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow

Burt Rutan, one of my favorite aircraft designers, together with Hanno Fisher (Rhein Flugzeugbouw), the guy who developed a.o the Fantrainer and the first commercial Wing in Ground Effect Flightship, in fact a flying ship certified under the Lloyds, Anthony Fokker and Claus Holighouse (gliders) and Walter Extra, they have all suffered major set backs ranging from bankrupcies to fires, crashes, war, cancelations and It comes with the business. Frank Whittle (Jet engine) was kicked out of the war ministry so many times that they must have worn out a dozen pair of shoes before he recieved his first support.
Russian designers were pugged from the goelach put to work and when they made a mistake send back again.

These are al incredible people completely obsessed from their dreams and idea's.

We will always have these kind of people.

Dear God, don't get me started!
The sad truth of the matter is thatI know ful well what we were & what we had because I have lived it...that dubious advantage is confined to a rapidly decreasing few Englishmen & women...Britons, if you will....who took pride in their country & fought for its survival.
Some of my generation were stupid enough to believe that Socialism would provide the post-war answer to the real problems in our society ...and voted in the Atlee government, thus sowing the seeds of our decline....in that sense we are guilty of our own destruction & no amount of breast-beating can alter that terrible fact.
Unless they have studied History( ) the young & the middle-aged of today have absolutely no idea of our brilliant, if in many ways imperfect, past & heritage...they do not care, they do not know & they do not want to know.
Short of a miracle we are yes, doomed to a whimpering oblivion.....yes, weep.

“ All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 simply got the first three right. ”

The above quote was by Sir Sydney Camm - just about covers it!