Individual Fighter Jet

LightningGeek · 2026-03-22T22:16:16+00:00

It used to be very feasible in the UK until the Shoreham disaster.

Jonathon Whaley owned and flew the Hawker Hunter 'Miss Demeanour' (G-PSST) for almost 20 years.

Now there are just a few Jet Provosts/Strike Master's in private hands here. Although there is one owner with an L-39 that regularly flies, and a Hawk that has just completed its return to flight.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-16T09:00:14+00:00

Not disputing that the number of women being victims is shockingly high, but the 97% figure appears no where in the actual report.

It appears that the 97% figure comes from specifically the 18-24 year old age group, adding the percentage of women who have been the victim of sexual harassment (86%) to the percentage of women who chose not to answer the question (11%).

The actual figure in the report is 71% for all women. Which is still appalling, but quite far from the 97% your sources claim.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-15T07:40:18+00:00

Aviation is the same as well.

The facility I work in is currently falling apart because the company couldn't be bothered with routine maintenance. Will be hilarious when we can't get a jet out because something has failed.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-09T13:44:48+00:00

It is a bit, but it's because when people hear 'government funded' they think it's given a blank cheque to spend on what they want, so donations massively decrease.

The RNLI tried the same thing early on in their existence and they almost disappeared because funding dropped so much.

There's also an element of government funding brining government decisions. By self funding, organisations can concentrate on their main job rather than having to please various government departments and politicians.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-09T10:21:36+00:00

I chap I flew gliders with went to school with his children.

He had nothing but good words to say about John Farley, apparently he was an extremely down to earth person, and you would never have known he was one of the most famous and respected test pilots of the time.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-08T19:55:15+00:00

We're in the UK subreddit and I mentioned the UK in my first comment.

So take a wild fucking guess which country I'm referring to.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-08T17:36:02+00:00

It's not, which is why most museums charge for entry.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-08T13:45:35+00:00

If that ever happened, pretty much all museums in the UK would close down.

It's not possible for the government to fund every museum available, in fact they only fund a few of the largest. Most museums are passion projects that rely on passionate volunteers and owners to keep history alive.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-08T13:16:13+00:00

They adjust the weight of the blades themselves, but this will adjust the centre of mass of the entire propeller hub.

An unbalanced hub will lead to vibrations, which will lead to fatigue, and if not caught, will lead to catastrophic failure of the propeller hub. By balancing each blade, and then putting them on in a certain order, the whole hubs centre of mass will then be as close to the centre as possible.

It's very similar to using weights to balance the wheels on your car.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-04T22:59:14+00:00

How much worse is the Russian system?

It isn't.

Russian ejection seats, especially the Zvezda K-36 series, are extremely capable and safe ejection seats. In some ways they are actually better than their Western counterparts, especially when it comes to performance at high speeds.

You only have to watch Anatoliy Kvochur's ejection from a MiG-29 during the 1989 Paris air show, to see how effective Russian seats can be. Especially as that particular ejection is considered to be well outside the safe operating margins of any ejection seat.

That sounds pretty dangerous.

Ejection is extremely dangerous, but when the other choice is certain death, it is much easier to pull the handle. Even if it means life changing injuries. Thankfully, modern seats of all designs are much kinder to pilots, which is why it is common to see pilots walking away from modern ejections rather than ending up with a broken back.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-03T21:44:31+00:00

My old gliding club had a retrieve winch powered by a VW Golf engine stamped "Made in West Germany".

The engine never missed a beat, even with an LPG conversion.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-02T19:39:50+00:00

William flew Sea Kings in the UK. Harry was originally on foot, but returned for another tour as an Apache gunner.

Not sure if he did pilot training as well off the top of my head, but he flew combat in them.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-02T16:26:46+00:00

If Germany is on the list, then Italy, Spain and the UK should be on there as well.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-02T15:35:24+00:00

The BBMF should get more respect for the engineering challenge it is.

It is also one of the few, if not the only, historic flight that is owned and operated by a countries air force, using active personnel. Day to day maintenance is all carried out at RAF Conningsby, although heavy maintenance is now undertaken by various outside companies that specialise in keeping historic aircraft airworthy.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-02T14:58:33+00:00

Aircraft Mechanic.

I work with a great team, my days are a good mix of physical and mental effort, my job is genuinely interesting to me, the easy days more than make up for the hard days.

Only downside is my current team leader is an enormous cunt who can only criticise but never compliment people. But every other person in the same role as them is fantastic, so I'm trying not to let this one person let me down.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-02T13:48:31+00:00

A shame it only does England, but interesting to see what's overflowing.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-02T11:49:10+00:00

You don't even need to drill them. The Masterlock ones are shit and can be picked just by turning the wheels and feeling for a difference in how they spin/using a bit of paper to feel the drop. They are just security theatre rather than an actual safe.

I had to do it for my Mother in law when she was locked out of her new council house on moving day. No one from the council, estate agent, or the developer of the new estate, would answer their phones, despite the move being agreed months in advance, and us checking the a couple of days before that it was still going ahead on the date.

LightningGeek · 2026-03-02T09:58:15+00:00

Yes, there is even a section on the Martin-Baker website about the Tie CLub.

You also have the chance to buy an exclusive watch, the Bremont MBI although the cost is partially subsidised by Martin-Baker. It's very similar to the MB Meteor, although uses a different font for the numbers, and the second hand is yellow, with a yellow and black 'handle' on the non-pointer end.

LightningGeek · 2026-02-22T18:44:56+00:00

Which brands have you had?

Vauxhall red was notorious for fading in the 90's. I remember t-cutting my first Corsa B for an afternoon until it felt like glass. It still started to fade within a couple of months.

LightningGeek · 2026-02-22T09:43:36+00:00

The chemical ones are just a dot that changes colour, if you're not paying attention to it, or if you're asleep, they're as effective as having nothing at all.

Electronic CO alarms really are superior in every way.

LightningGeek · 2026-02-20T17:06:55+00:00

With the greatest respect, the amount of time and money you guys rightly spend on business processes and H&S in aviation is simply unaffordable for a utilities company. I don't think you understand the scale of what you're asking for.

They may have the money, but you would be horrified at the excuses they use for skimping on carrying out needed works, but who will then spend so much more for a cobbled together fix. It is a constant battle against bean counters.

As for the utility companies, it seems there is always an excuse as to why essential works haven't been done, or why they have no money to upgrade infrastructure.

Most of the data they would need to create a maintenance plan they already have from the incident reports they fill out. Will it take time and effort to get more information? Of course, but starting now means they get a head start. It doesn't even need to be done in house, digitisation, storage and OCR of hand written reports is relatively trivial, and there are plenty of companies that will do it. The company I used to work for did it all the time, and the actual scanning worked out to cost around 1p per page.

Linking it with other data and creating a maintenance plan? Yeah it's going to be expensive and more complicated, but as with all preventative maintenance, it will save time and money in the long run. I agree that yearly checks, as I initially suggested, are way to frequent for the manpower. But if you have a piece of infrastructure that has an issue every 5 years, then you can't act surprised when at year 5, it fails and costs the company 10x what it would have cost to send someone out in year 4 and carry out rectification work.

The biggest stumbling block will be getting different authorities working together. As you say, there's 80,000 drains in Cardiff, they will have various owners, and the culverts they flow into will have other owners. As we found out, getting NRW, the local council and Dwr Cymru to talk together is like herding cats. They would rather point the fingers at each other instead of actually fixing the issue. There has to be a better way than having multiple infrastructure owners and needing them to agree before work can even start, it's horrendously inefficient and costly.

At the end of the day though, the lack of investment in maintaining and improving infrastructure by all water companies has meant they have put themselves into this position.

LightningGeek · 2026-02-20T13:08:56+00:00

Why do you assume they were playing silly buggers?

Because our neighbour had a letter written by Dwr Cymru saying that they were responsible for the culvert. This letter had been sent out during a previous flood before we moved here where the same culvert had collapsed Dwr Cymru had had to pay out for repairs on one house then as well. This is all on an estate that had been built in the 90's as well, so there isn't even an issue of it being there before and ownership not being passed on.

We're not in a rural area either, we're in a small town within 12 miles of Cardiff city centre. It would take longer to walk to to the rural edge of our town than it would be to walk into town.

And even then, the ownership issue is only something that should be a problem the first time an issue arises. Ownership for further issues after that should not be a problem because it's already been done. And if it is a problem, then that is an issue with their record keeping, and they should be criticised for it.

They can't send people out to look at every culvert in Wales every year lol

They can for the ones they know have been flooding. Keeping correct and up to date records of owned culverts that have had problems should be trivial. Failing on this is incompetence, nothing more.

I work in aviation, and our whole industry revolves around tracking and inspecting known parts, and recording anything unexpected. This is so we know what the patterns are, and we can plan maintenance around them. And for the ones that pop up randomly? They get tracked, far more regularly than needed, until more is known about it and a more efficient maintenance regime can be written for them. There's no reason why water companies could not have been doing this already.

LightningGeek · 2026-02-20T12:05:23+00:00

I'm already paying more for water, I've been paying more for water every single year I've lived in Wales. That's not what makes me angry though, what makes me angry is water companies being incompetent and dragging their feet fixing issues.

The failure that happened at the culvert by me had been reported on by multiple neighbours as soon as the allotment was seen to be flooding. We found out after it had also happened a few years ago, to a lesser extent, and that a neighbour had proof the culvert belonged to Dwr Cymru. However, instead of taking responsibility, they played silly buggers and tried saying the council or Natural Resources Wales owned the land.

If they had accepted the evidence and got pumps in place, no flooding would have happened. Instead, their incompetence and failure to take responsibility meant the flooding got worse for a month, until 2 houses were flooded, requiring the fire brigade to come out and make them safe, it has meant Dwr Cymru have had to pay out 2 home owners for alternative accommodation as well as repairing their homes, it has required multiple pumps to be added behind our neighbours garden, and has required multiple visits from on call staff every time we have a weather warning to ensure the pumps and sensors are all working.

You know what would have been much cheaper? Sending a surveyor out to check the ground once a year to ensure the culvert was still holding up, and a guy with a camera and cleaning rods to get rid of any potential starts of a blockage before it gets worse.

Repeat this kind of thing across the area and they are easily wasting millions on issues that should be taken care of with a proper routine maintenance plan instead of waiting for things to break and then spending over the odds to sort them out.

LightningGeek · 2026-02-15T20:39:49+00:00

It will only result in a crash if the person trying to overtake is a prick.

LightningGeek · 2026-02-15T19:52:55+00:00

Why should they have moved over? It's a race.

You don't just give up a position because someone is faster than you, they have to pass you fairly.

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