h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi! Thanks for replying to my music query...
RAF, eh?
We just had an air show here (the 1st ever) <>
Any sweetheart/airman stories?
Anyone remember the RCAF; or are these old farts pulling my leg?
More importantly, I think we could make scads of cash auctioning off a ride in an "authentic jet fighter"; particularly one of those Harrier-jump-jet"s you folks have...

((Do you refer to them that way, or is it Uncle Sam? "Harrier-jump-jet" sounds a little contrived (by guess who) to me....?
I was most impressed by our "Buffalo" search & rescue 'plane.
In our area, the only Bombers are fighting forest fires; Good for Us...

We refer to the 'plane simply as a Harrier, Mick.

As to stories, I suppose there is one I could tell without falling foul of the Official Secrets Act (I hope!)

This happened at Royal Air Force Saxa Vord (A Radar Station situated at the very northern tip of the Shetland Isles)

On a stormy winters night a number of years ago, when the radar aerial was still unprotected from the elements, the wind speed reached a peak gust of around 185 knots (200+ mph)

This was too much for the aerial, and it was ripped from its mountings(Aerial length- 80Ft, Height 15ft, weight 18Tons)

The wind threw it 30yards.

The story goes that the officers in the bunker rang the transmitter blockhouse to complain that they had lost their picture.
The technicians, reputedly replied "That's nothing, Sir. We have lost our F*****g Aerial!!"

Its true, it was in the Guiness Book of Records at the time as the highest windspeed recorded in the UK.

'G'

Now you started me thinking about wind. Maybe I should have been a meteorologist, it is interesting; it can be so welcome at times and wreak such havoc at others. I've moved around a bit and have two examples:
When I lived in Dawson Creek, BC (56deg.N; on the lee side of The Rockies we'd get 'Chinook's, a strange type of inversion where a blustery warm wind suddenly appears - (Chinook apparently means "snow eater"). The most extreme example in my experience was in Feb. 1985. (I had a Casio Altimiter/thermometer/watch thing, not very scientific, but Environment Canada recorded close to it at the DC airport; anyway...)
Our Rover group (like Scouts, but ages 18-25) were out camping in lean-tos down a valley alongside a creek. At 10:00AM it was -32C and calm. A Chinook began blowing (& one can tell, somehow,feels different) and by 3:00PM the temp was +13C! 45 degrees in five hours!
The punchline is that all our gear got soaked and we bloody froze that night when it got cold again! (only lasts till sunset).
The second example is short but tragic.
NE from where I used to live in Alta. there was a tornado in '87 and another SE, unfortunately, last month. The last one hit a lakeside campground. Trailers (caravans?), cars, boats: everything got flung all over...about a dozen were killed, hundreds injured.

Ah, but I mustn't leave you without the 'miracle story'...One couple were in their car with an infant in a car-seat. The car was tossed about; doors torn off; smashed into a tree which was felled by the impact. They emerged to discover that the car-seat had been sucked out in the storm and they had lost their baby to the forces of nature...
The child was found; still buckled in; 'without a scratch', as the
saying goes.
(kinda long, but that's me..Cheers!)

PLT,Mick.

Hi Mick!
Yes, I have heard that kind of 'miracle' story before.
Luckily, here in the UK, we get very few tornados. Those that we do get are usually a couple of yards wide and last only a few seconds. There's not enough flat ground for them to build up any power. Saying that though, we did have one down in the south of the country that caused quite a bit of damage in the Sevenoaks area, where all but a couple of the seven oaks were grounded!
'G'