Alicatt

I had that fleeting thought too :music_whistling:

It's space/time compression due to the speed of the aircraft, it's longer than you think ;)

Ah you have been to Scotland too then ;)

Oh for a Westland Whirlwind, that's the one I would love to see, but there is such a shortage of data about it and no surviving aircraft :( A lovely little twin engine single seat fighter/ground attack with 4 20mm canon in the nose, they even made a nose with 12 .303 guns and one with a 37mm canon too. The aircraft was designed by that same chap that designed the EE Lightning, Teddy Petter :)

Aye and also those of us awaiting the EE Lightning, that is also going to be fun to get back on the ground

Dream harder...

The frequency card holder covers it when it is in use too,

That's just it, I can't find a direct reference to it either in the pilot's notes, ground handling notes or the service manual, the F-53 service manual I have is a bit sparse in detail compared with the F-6 and T-55 manuals I have and that particular item is absent in that location in the F-6 and T-55. I have posted up your pic of the item on the group and asked the question... :)

Those two buttons just aft of the item are the engine start buttons :)

Please that would, I can ask the service bods on the group if anyone knows. On closer look at the diagrams it is not the anti-G control as it is mounted on the side of the console between it and the seat. The one major difference between the F-53 and the F-3 or F-6 is the F-53 has air conditioning and a cooler to keep the cockpit at the correct temperature.

On the question about the un-identified object on the starboard console: Well from my manuals it is only on the F-53, the P1 right through to the F6 don't have it, nor is it on the T55. In the F-53 service manual there is nothing directly indicating what it is either, the only thing I can find is reference to a temperature/pressure sensor for the cockpit in that approximate area, and that is not listed on the F6 manual, it could also be to do with the pressure regulator for the anti-G suit as that has pressure feed lines coming up around there too.

F-14D (D for Duck) ;)

Great work, Yes it is an excellent museum, I was last there in the late 90s and it is the Airfield where my father served during WW2 Hope you dint mind that I post a link to the website/ cockpit tour to the English Electric Lightning Appreciation Group on facebook, there are a good few ex lightning pilots that frequent the group.

Great fun caving, especially for those of us with no head for heights ;) Once got trapped in the entrance of Knockan Pot, one of the few potholes rather than caves in Scotland. As I stood on the electron ladder a boulder moved and pinned me against the side of the pot, there was one guy below me and another on the surface, I could not move or the boulder would fall and crush Ivan below me. Ian who was on the surface went and got some more ropes from the caving hut and tied off the boulder. Once it was a bit more stable we passed another electron ladder down to Ivan so he could descend the rest of the way to the bottom and then get round the corner and out the road of the falling debris. The cave was L shaped and Ivan went to the end of the L and after getting me out from the boulder we dropped it to the bottom, scary to say the least and it was my first pot too. We got Ivan out and went and visited a few more caves that day. After that I joined the Scottish Cave Rescue Organisation, in the years I was active with them we never had a call out but we did do a lot of practice rescues. http://www.pj011a0001.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/gsgwebsite/gsgcavesofscot.html http://www.gsg.org.uk/ Bit of history about the caves in this area http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8029340.stm

Mainly 50's through to 90's the transition between carbon based control and silicon ;) but there are a few outliers in early WW2, Oh sod it! all of the above :)

Sci Fi Cargo:

As I've been posting bits and pieces about diving around the Caithness coastline in Scotland, just reading a story on the BBC about another ship lost in this treacherous stretch of water, may the crew all find a safe haven. :( http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-30667084

Would love the Crikey! :) They were stationed at the same airfield that my father was at during WW2 RAF Tangmere. Image from The Westland Whirlwind Fighter Project http://www.whirlwindfighterproject.org/ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Westland-Whirlwind-Fighter-Project/256647147740291?fref=ts

Here you go... http://www.simw.com/jet-rudder-control-module.html

They would steam as fast as practical into the wind, so maybe around 30kt, modern supercarriers are only slightly faster at around 35kt. That is a good reduction on your landing speed, 30kt is about 55km/h so with a 10kt head wind you could take 73km/h off your landing speed.

It can be, tide tables are an essential part of planning a dive, the further you get from the Pentland Firth the easier it is, around Wick where I lived, full flood could be 3kt where up at the Pentland Firth it would be around 16kt. It is a narrow channel between the north coast of Scotland and the Islands of Orkney where the Atlantic tries to force it's way into the North Sea, A few years ago they put a traffic restriction on vessels allowed to sail through the Firth as so many ended up on the rocks. The Caithness and Orkney coastlines are littered with ship wrecks and not all of them that old either. On our way back from Orkney seen this:

Yes generally we had great vis, but during the summer the kelp growth really limited how far you could see, my favourite time to dive was February and March, you could get 20 - 30m of vis then, water temp would be around 11c. What we did have to watch for was the tide...

Going through my late Uncle's photographs I cam a cross one of a favourite dive site of mine. This is just south of Wick on the north east coast of Scotland, the water there is about 22m at it's deepest and there are lots of interesting bits of old cars laying around on the bottom, including the engine and gearbox of a Willys Jeep that was dumped there at the end of WW2. But the pic shows what the locals call Scorrie Island (Seagull Island) there is a tunnel through from the seaward side and is navigable by a small boat, water is about 10 to 15m deep in the tunnel and is a nice feeling to dive through it from one end to the other. Out of pic to the left (north) is another cave with a curtain waterfall covering the entrance, I could get my 16ft boat back into the cave for about 60m or 70m, it is full of sea birds and they don't half make a noise when you enter the cave. Round the headland to the right of the pic lies the SS Rein, a Norwegian steamer that ran aground and sank in the 1930s, at low tide you can stand on the top of the boiler with your head out the water :) Came across notes my friend David D. and I made when researching the Rein to go dive on her.

First landing ... At least I could walk away from it :)

was in the Cubs and the Scouts until I was about 14 when I left and joined the Air Training Corps as I wanted to be a pilot in the RAF. My mother was also in the Scouts, when she retired from them she was County Commissioner for Caithness, that was in the mid 70s, she had been in the Scouts from before WW2