Unusual garden ornament spotted

[Steve Lake]

hole in one Ian ....

my working life has been defined by the TSR2 (tactical Strike & reconnaissance 2) ... I joined Vickers Armstrong aircraft manufacturer straight from school into their Apprentice school in weybridge surrey (the whole of vickers was built inside the old brooklands racing circuit) .. it was a 3 year apprenticeship, to cut a long story short, i left the apprentice scheme and joined the RAF apprentice scheme within 9 months, as the government of the time bowed it's knee to the americans and opted for the phantom, within weeks all TSR2 research documents, tools, jigs etc were destroyed ...  a criminal event. the aircraft had the first 'head up' display, the first terrain following radar, and the first digital computer operating on all control surfaces ...
the act of scrapping TSR2 .. the demise of the weybridge factory ...  and a lot of my school mates redundant.
I said don't get me started ..

[Moto63]

All sounds very typical of any given British government. I think the words are “short sighted “

[Ian]

Short sighted is very much an understatement.....try "blind as a bat" 😠

[Smithy]

My first Airfix model was an English Electric Lightning. I never did get round to painting it. Don't know why you needed to know that, but now you do.

ian

[CrazyFrog]

Short sighted is very much an understatement.....try "blind as a bat" 😠

Sadly typical of governments of all colours since the 2nd world war.

Being a cycling buff, I can give you another example. Back sometime in the 90's I think, Raleigh Industries were beginning to struggle, and as they owned Sturmey Archer at the time, they decided to sell it off as a going concern. It was sold to an American company at a knockdown price due to their business plan. They promised to sell the existing factory in Nottingham for housing development, and move production to a brand new factory unit on the edge of town. What actually happened was that the American company sold the factory for housing development, threw all the workers on the dole, and sold the intellectual rights and machine tools to Sun Life (I think) in Taiwan. Predictably, the govt. at the time lifted not a finger to stop this from happening 

[iansoady]

No doubt the EU got the blame......

[CrazyFrog]

No doubt the EU got the blame......

Hahaha, not this time I don't think Ian! Our own homegrown politicians have always had their own full quota of indifference and incompetence sadly. 

[Moto63]

Prat’s

[Ian]

I think this has turned into a rant.....and rightly so. How do we do something about it?

[Oldtimer]

In my mind I can still hear the wonderful sound from airshows back in the day. As you say Bill, a low pass over the runway,  pull the nose up at the same time as sticking the afterburners on and go up like a fncking rocket. AFAIK, lightning still hold some records for rate of climb to this day...

Could go supersonic in a vertical climb. Not many aircraft can do that nowadays.

[CrazyFrog]

I think this has turned into a rant.....and rightly so. How do we do something about it?

Guy Fawkes was thinking along the right lines imho. 

[Moto63]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Steve Lake]

it wasn't unusual for the jocks (jockeys = pilots) , to leave the aircraft with blood trickling from their ears and nose because of the huge G forces they pulled.
And, the Martin Baker ejector seat had to be modified to get the seat clear of the huge tail in the event of the pilot ejecting.
the end result being, if a lightning pilot used his 'bang seat', he was pretty much guaranteed spinal compression injuries of some degree...
having said that the pilots loved flying the lightning, with a top speed (officially) of Mach 2.23, it was the fastest aircraft during the cold war period .... and it's rate of climb has only been matched in recent years by 3 aircraft. wonderful bit of british design and british engineering ...