This railway track has recently been granted the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The view is stunning, with the line passing through an amazing 103 tunnels. The fastest way to get to Kalka is to catch the Shatabdi Express, which departs early morning from the New Delhi Railway Station, arriving at Kalka four hours later.

 

The Kalka–Shimla Railway is a 762 mm narrow gauge railway in North-West India travelling along a mostly mountainous route from Kalka to Shimla. It is known for dramatic views of the hills and surrounding villages.

 

Shimla (then spelt Simla) was settled by the British shortly after the first Anglo-Gurkha war, and is located at 2169 m in the foothills of the Himalayas. By the 1830s, Shimla had already developed as a major base for the British.[citation needed] It became the summer capital of British India in 1864, and was also the headquarters of the British army in India. Prior to construction of the railway, communication with the outside world was via village cart.

 

The 1676 mm broad gauge Delhi-Kalka line was opened in 1891. The Kalka–Shimla Railway was constructed on 610 mm narrow gauge tracks by the Delhi-Ambala-Kalka Railway Company commencing in 1898. The 96.54 km line was opened for traffic November 9, 1903. It was inaugurated by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India. Because of the high capital and maintenance costs, coupled with peculiar working conditions, the Kalka–Shimla Railway was allowed to charge fares that were higher than the prevailing tariffs on other lines. However, even this was not good enough to sustain the company, so the Government had to purchase it on January 1. In 1905 the line was regauged to 762 mm gauge under guidelines from the Indian War Department seeking to ensure uniformity in all imperial narrow gauge systems.

 

In mid-August 2007, the government of Himachal Pradesh declared the railway a heritage property in preparation for its review in September.

 

ROUTE

The Kalka–Shimla Railway was built to connect Shimla, the summer capital of India during the British Raj, with the Indian rail system. Now, Shimla is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh and Kalka is a town in the Panchkula district of Haryana. Spectacular scenery along the whole route, and the marvels of its construction, keeps the traveler on this line spell bound. On leaving Kalka, 656 meters above sea level, the railway enters the foothills and immediately commences its climb.

 

The route offers a panoramic feast of the picturesque Himalayas from the Sivalik foot hills at Kalka to several important points such as Dharampur, Solan, Kandaghat, Taradevi, Barog, Salogra, Totu (Jutogh), Summerhill and Shimla at an altitude of 2,076 meters. Interestingly, all the 20 intermediate stations are located right next to bridges, built for the labour constructing the bridges to take rest there. Some of these have now been abandoned being unviable.

 

TUNNELS

Originally 107 tunnels were built on Kalka Shimla Railway Track. In 1930 they were renumbered and four of them were discarded so only 103 were left. In 2006 tunnel number 46 was dismantled so presently only 102 are in use. But tunnel number 103, the last tunnel in Shimla, is still famous as tunnel number 103 as this place has become a famous landmark of the town.

 

The longest tunnel is at Barog, and is associated with local tales and legends. As per a famous story of Colonel Barog, the engineer of this tunnel, had committed suicide here. He started digging the tunnel from both ends and could not align them. So he was fined 1 rupee. He could not stomach up that stigma so shot himself in the incomplete tunnel, which still exists. Chief Engineer H.S. Herlington completed it after the way for constructing this was earmarked by Bhalku, a local sadhu (monk), during 1900- 1903.

 

INFRASTRUCTURE

The line has 864 bridges, one of which is an 18.29 metre (60 ft) plate girder span and steel truss. The others are viaducts with multi-arched galleries like the ancient Roman aqueducts. Bridge No. 493, historically known as the "Arch Gallery", situated between Kandaghat and Kanoh stations, is an arch bridge in three stages, constructed with stone masonry. Bridge No. 226; between Sonwara and Dharampur is an arch gallery bridge having 5 tier galleries of multiple spans, constructed with stone masonry and bridging a deep valley surrounded by high peaks.

 

The railway has a ruling gradient of 1 in 33 or 3%. It has 919 curves, the sharpest being 48 degrees (a radius of 37.47 m). Climbing from 656 meters, the line terminates at an elevation of 2,076 meters at Shimla. The line originally used 21 kg/m rail but this was later relaid to 30 kg/m rail.

 

LOCOMOTIVES

The first locomotives to arrive were two class "B" 0-4-0ST from the famous Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. These were built as 2 ft (610 mm) gauge engines, but were converted to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge in 1901. They were not large enough for the job, and were sold in 1908. They were followed by 10 engines with a 0-4-2T wheel arrangement of a slightly larger design, introduced in 1902. These locomotives weighed 21.5 tons (21.85 tonnes) each, and had 30" (762 mm) driving wheels, and 12"x16" (304.8 mm x 406.4 mm) cylinders. They were later classified into the "B" class by the North Western State Railways. All these locomotives were constructed by the British firm of Sharp, Stewart and Company.

 

Larger locomotives were introduced in the form of a 2-6-2T, of which 30 were built with slight variations between 1904 and 1910. Built by the Hunslet and the North British Locomotive Company, these locomotives were about 35 tons (35.56 tonnes), with 30" (762 mm) drivers and 14"x16" (355.6 mm x 406.4 mm) cylinders. These locomotives, later classed K and K2 by the North Western State Railways, subsequently handled the bulk of the railways traffic during the steam era. A pair of Kitson-Meyer 2-6-2+2-6-2 articulated locomotives, classed TD, were supplied in 1928. They quickly fell into disfavour, as it often took all day for enough freight to be assembled to justify operating a goods train hauled by one of these locomotives. Shippers looking for a faster service started to turn to road transport. These 68 ton (69.09 tonnes) locomotives were soon transferred to the Kangra Valley Railway, and subsequently ended up converted to 1,000 mm metre gauge in Pakistan.

 

Steam operation of regular trains ended 1971.

 

The first diesel locomotives on the Kalka–Shimla Railway, class ZDM-1 by Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik (articulated with two prime movers), started operation in 1955. In the 1970s they were regauged and reclassified as NDM-1, then used on the Matheran Hill Railway.

 

In the 1960s, class ZDM-2 built by Maschinenbau Kiel (MaK) was introduced. These locomotives were later transferred to other lines.

 

Today this line is operated with class ZDM-3 diesel-hydraulic locomotives (522 kW, 50 km/h), built 1970 to 1982 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works with a single cab road switcher body. Six locomotives of the same class were built in 2008/2009 by Central Railway Loco Workshop Parel with updated components and a dual cab body providing better visibility of the track.

 

The railway opened using conventional four-wheel and bogie coaches. The tare weight of these coaches meant that only four of the bogie coaches could be hauled upgrade by the 2-6-2T locomotives. In an effort to increase loadings in 1908 the entire coaching stock was rebuilt as bogie coaches 33' long by 7' wide, using steel frames and bodies. To further save weight the roofs were constructed using aluminium. Savings in weight meant the locomotives could now haul six of the larger coaches, significantly expanding capacity. This was an early example of the use of steel in construction of coaches to reduce the coaches' tare.

 

Goods rolling stock was constructed on a common pressed steel underframe, 30' long and 7' wide. Both open and covered wagons were provided, the open wagons having a capacity of 19 tons and the covered wagons 17.5 tons.

 

WIKIPEDIA

This is an artist's concept of the fastest-rotating star found to date. The massive, bright young star, called VFTS 102, rotates at a million miles per hour, or 100 times faster than our Sun does. Centrifugal forces from this dizzying spin rate have flattened the star into an oblate shape and spun off a disk of hot plasma, seen edge-on in this view from a hypothetical planet.

 

The star may have "spun up" by accreting material from a binary companion star. The rapidly evolving companion later exploded as a supernova. The whirling star lies 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. The Hubble Space Telescope was used to make precise measurements of the star's proper motion across space.

 

For more information: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2011/news-2011-39.html

 

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Kuala Lumpur (/ˈkwɑːləˈlʊmpʊər/ or /-pər/; Malaysian pronunciation: [ˈkwalə ˈlumpʊr]) is the national capital and most populous global city in Malaysia. The city covers an area of 243 km2 and has an estimated population of 1.6 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, covering similar area as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.5 million people as of 2012. It is among the fastest growing metropolitan regions in South-East Asia, in terms of population and economy.

 

Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia. The city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they were moved to Putrajaya in early 1999. Some sections of the judiciary still remain in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is also situated in Kuala Lumpur. Rated as an alpha world city, Kuala Lumpur is the cultural, financial and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a key city. Kuala Lumpur was ranked 48th among global cities by Foreign Policy's 2010 Global Cities Index and was ranked 67th among global cities for economic and social innovation by the 2thinknow Innovation Cities Index in 2010.

 

Kuala Lumpur is defined within the borders of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and is one of three Malaysian Federal Territories. It is an enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

 

Since the 1990s, the city has played host to many international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games and the Formula One Grand Prix. In addition, Kuala Lumpur is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers, which have become an iconic symbol of Malaysia's futuristic development.

 

In May 2015, Kuala Lumpur was officially recognized as one of the New7Wonders Cities together with Vigan City, Doha, Durban, Havana, Beirut, and La Paz.

 

HISTORY

Kuala Lumpur means "muddy confluence", although it is also possible that the name is a corrupted form of an earlier but now unidentifiable forgotten name. It was originally a small settlement of just a few houses at the confluence of Sungai Gombak (previously known as Sungai Lumpur) and Sungai Klang (Klang River). The town of Kuala Lumpur was established circa 1857, when the Malay Chief of Klang, Raja Abdullah bin Raja Jaafar, aided by his brother Raja Juma'at of Lukut, raised funds to hire some Chinese miners from Lukut to open new tin mines here. The miners landed at Kuala Lumpur and continued their journey on foot to Ampang where the first mine was opened. Kuala Lumpur was the furthest point up the Klang River to which supplies could conveniently be brought by boat; it therefore became a collection and dispersal point serving the tin mines. The identity of the founder of Kuala Lumpur has however not been confirmed: Raja Abdullah bin Raja Jaafar and his role in founding the city do not appear in the earliest account of the history of Selangor. On the other hand, the Sumatrans Abdullah Hukum and Sutan Puasa, arrived in Kuala Lumpur at least in 1850. Raja Abdullah only came around 1857 and Yap Ah Loy, also regarded as the founding father of Kuala Lumpur, arrived in 1862. In addition, the Chinese men employed under Raja Abdullah worked in Ampang, 64 kilometres away from the main land. Meanwhile, efficient drainage and irrigation systems (bondar saba) were introduced in Kuala Lumpur by the technologically advanced Mandailing, improving the mining industry.

 

In the early history of Kuala Lumpur, the Minangkabaus of Sumatra were considered to be one of the most important groups of people who involved in trading. Utsman bin Abdullah and Haji Mohamed Taib were influenced tycoon in Kuala Lumpur and surrounding area. Haji Taib, one of the wealthiest figure at that time, was an important person in the early development centre of city: Kampung Baru. Beside as merchants, the Minangkabaus also overwhelmingly on socio-religious figures, such as Utsman bin Abdullah was the first kadi of Kuala Lumpur as well as Muhammad Nur bin Ismail.

 

Although the early miners suffered a high death toll due to the malarial conditions of the jungle, the Ampang mines were successful, and the first tin was exported in 1859. The tin-mining spurred the growth of the town, and miners later also settled in Pudu and Batu. The miners formed gangs among themselves; there were the Hakka-dominated Hai San in Kuala Lumpur, and the Cantonese-dominated Ghee Hin based in Kanching in Ulu Selangor. These two gangs frequently fought to gain control of best tin mines. The leaders of the Chinese community were conferred the title of Kapitan Cina (Chinese headman) by the Malay chief, and Hiu Siew, the owner of a mine in Lukut, was chosen as the first Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur. As one of the first traders to arrive in Ampang (along with Yap Ah Sze), he sold provisions to the miners in exchange for tin.

 

In 1868, Yap Ah Loy was appointed the third Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur. Yap, together with Frank Swettenham, were the two most important figures in the development of Kuala Lumpur in the early days of Kuala Lumpur. In 1880, the state capital of Selangor was moved from Klang to the more strategically advantageous Kuala Lumpur by the colonial administration, and Swettenham was appointed the Resident in 1882. Kuala Lumpur was a small town with buildings made of wood and atap (thatching) that were prone to burn. It suffered from many problems, including the Selangor Civil War which devastated the town; it was also plagued by diseases and constant fires and floods. The war and other setbacks led to a slump which lasted until 1879, when a rise in the price of tin allowed the town to recover.

 

In 1881, a flood swept through the town, following a fire that had engulfed it earlier. As a response, Frank Swettenham, the British Resident of Selangor, required that buildings be constructed of brick and tile.[33] Hence, Kapitan Yap Ah Loy bought a sprawling piece of real estate to set up a brick industry, which spurred the rebuilding of Kuala Lumpur. This place is the eponymous Brickfields. Hence, destroyed atap buildings were replaced with brick and tiled ones. He restructured the building layout of the city. Many of the new brick buildings mirrored those of shop houses in southern China, characterised by "five foot ways" as well as skilled Chinese carpentry work. This resulted in a distinct eclectic shop house architecture typical to this region. Kapitan Yap Ah Loy expand road access in the city significantly, linking up tin mines with the city, these roads include the main arterial roads of the present Ampang Road, Pudu Road and Petaling Street. As Chinese Kapitan, he was vested with wide powers on par with Malay community leaders. He implemented law reforms and introduced new legal measures. He also presided over a small claims court. With a police force of six, he was able to uphold the rule of law. He built a prison that could accommodate 60 prisoners at any time. Kapitan Yap Ah Loy also built Kuala Lumpur's first school and a major tapioca mill in Petaling Street of which the Selangor's Sultan Abdul Samad had an interest.

 

A railway line between Kuala Lumpur and Klang, initiated by Swettenham and completed in 1886, increased accessibility which resulted in the rapid growth of the town. The population grew from 4,500 in 1884 to 20,000 in 1890. As development intensified in the 1880s, it also put pressure on sanitation, waste disposal and other health issues. A Sanitary Board was created on 14 May 1890 which was responsible for sanitation, upkeep of roads, lighting of street and other functions. This would eventually became the Kuala Lumpur Municipal Council. Kuala Lumpur was only 0.65 km2 in 1895, but it expanded to 20 km2 in 1903, and by the time it became a municipality in 1948 it had expanded to 93 km2, and then to 243 km2 in 1974 as a Federal Territory. In 1896, Kuala Lumpur was chosen as the capital of the newly formed Federated Malay States. A mixture of different communities settled in various sections of Kuala Lumpur. The Chinese mainly settled around the commercial centre of Market Square, east of the Klang River, and towards Chinatown. The Malays, Indian Chettiars, and Indian Muslims resided along Java Street (now Jalan Tun Perak). The Padang, now known as Merdeka Square, was the centre of the British administrative offices.

 

During World War II, Kuala Lumpur was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army on 11 January 1942. They occupied the city until 15 August 1945, when the commander in chief of the Japanese Seventh Area Army in Singapore and Malaysia, Seishirō Itagaki, surrendered to the British administration following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kuala Lumpur grew through the war, the rubber and tin commodity crashes and the Malayan Emergency, during which Malaya was preoccupied with the communist insurgency. In 1957, the Federation of Malaya gained its independence from British rule. Kuala Lumpur remained the capital through the formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963.

 

On 13 May 1969, the worst race riots on record in Malaysia took place in Kuala Lumpur. The so-called 13 May Incident refers to the occurrence of violence between members of the Malay and the Chinese communities. The violence was the result of Malaysian Malays being dissatisfied with their socio-political status. The riots resulted in the deaths of 196 people, and led to major changes in the country's economic policy to promote and prioritise Malay economic development over that of the other ethnicities.

 

Kuala Lumpur later achieved city status in 1972, becoming the first settlement in Malaysia to be granted the status after independence. Later, on 1 February 1974, Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory. Kuala Lumpur ceased to be the capital of Selangor in 1978 after the city of Shah Alam was declared the new state capital. On 14 May 1990, Kuala Lumpur celebrated 100 years of local council. The new federal territory Kuala Lumpur flag and anthem were introduced. On 1 February 2001, Putrajaya was declared a Federal Territory, as well as the seat of the federal government. The administrative and judicial functions of the government were shifted from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya. Kuala Lumpur however still retained its legislative function, and remained the home of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (Constitutional King).

 

GEOGRAPHY

The geography of Kuala Lumpur is characterised by the huge Klang Valley. The valley is bordered by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east, several minor ranges in the north and the south and the Strait of Malacca in the west. Kuala Lumpur is a Malay term that translates to "muddy confluence" as it is located at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers.

 

Located in the centre of Selangor state, Kuala Lumpur was previously under the rule of Selangor State Government. In 1974, Kuala Lumpur was separated from Selangor to form the first Federal Territory governed directly by the Malaysian Federal Government. Its location on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which has wider flat land than the east coast, has contributed to its faster development relative to other cities in Malaysia. The municipality of the city covers an area of 243 km2, with an average elevation of 21.95 m.

 

CLOMATE AND WEATHER

Protected by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east and Indonesia's Sumatra Island in the west, Kuala Lumpur has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification Af), which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall, especially during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. Temperatures tend to remain constant. Maximums hover between 32 and 33 °C and have never exceeded 38.5 °C, while minimums hover between 23.4 and 24.6 °C and have never fallen below 14.4 °C. Kuala Lumpur typically receives minimum 2,600 mm of rain annually; June and July are relatively dry, but even then rainfall typically exceeds 131 millimetres per month.

 

Flooding is a frequent occurrence in Kuala Lumpur whenever there is a heavy downpour, especially in the city centre and downstream areas. Smoke from forest fires of nearby Sumatra sometimes cast a haze over the region. It is a major source of pollution in the city together with open burning, emission from motor vehicles and construction work.

 

POLITICS

Kuala Lumpur is home to the Parliament of Malaysia. The hierarchy of authority in Malaysia, in accordance with the Federal Constitution, has stipulated the three branches, of the Malaysian government as consisting of the Executive, Judiciary and Legislative branches. The Parliament consists of the Dewan Negara (Upper House / House of Senate) and Dewan Rakyat (Lower House / House of Representatives).

 

ECONOMY

Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding urban areas form the most industrialised and economically, the fastest growing region in Malaysia. Despite the relocation of federal government administration to Putrajaya, certain government institutions such as Bank Negara Malaysia (National Bank of Malaysia), Companies Commission of Malaysia and Securities Commission as well as most embassies and diplomatic missions have remained in the city.

 

The city remains as the economic and business centre of the country. Kuala Lumpur is a centre for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur is rated as an alpha world city, and is the only global city in Malaysia, according to the Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC). The infrastructure development in the surrounding areas such as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at Sepang, the creation of the Multimedia Super Corridor and the expansion of Port Klang further reinforce the economic significance of the city.

 

Bursa Malaysia or the Malaysia Exchange is based in the city and forms one of its core economic activities. As of 5 July 2013, the market capitalisation stood at US$505.67 billion.

 

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Kuala Lumpur is estimated at RM73,536 million in 2008 with an average annual growth rate of 5.9 percent.[66] The per capita GDP for Kuala Lumpur in 2013 is RM79,752 with an average annual growth rate of 5.6 percent. The total employment in Kuala Lumpur is estimated at around 838,400. The service sector comprising finance, insurance, real estate, business services, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels, transport, storage and communication, utilities, personal services and government services form the largest component of employment representing about 83.0 percent of the total. The remaining 17 percent comes from manufacturing and construction.

 

The average monthly household income for Kuala Lumpur was RM4,105 (USD 1,324) in 1999, up from RM3,371 (USD 1,087) four years prior, making it 66% higher than the national average. In terms of household income distribution, 23.5% of households in the city earned more than RM5,000 (USD 1,613) per month compared to 9.8% for the entire country, while 8.1% earned less than RM1,000 (USD 323) a month.

 

The large service sector is evident in the number of local and foreign banks and insurance companies operating in the city. Kuala Lumpur is poised to become the global Islamic Financing hub with an increasing number of financial institutions providing Islamic Financing and the strong presence of Gulf's financial institutions such as the world's largest Islamic bank, Al-Rajhi Bank and Kuwait Finance House. Apart from that, the Dow Jones & Company is keen to work with Bursa Malaysia to set up Islamic Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs), which would help raise Malaysia's profile in the Gulf. The city has a large number of foreign corporations and is also host to many multi national companies' regional offices or support centres, particularly for finance and accounting, and information technology functions. Most of the countries' largest companies have their headquarters based here and as of December 2007 and excluding Petronas, there are 14 companies that are listed in Forbes 2000 based in Kuala Lumpur.

 

Other important economic activities in the city are education and health services. Kuala Lumpur also has advantages stemming from the high concentration of educational institutions that provide a wide-ranging of courses. Numerous public and private medical specialist centres and hospitals in the city offer general health services, and a wide range of specialist surgery and treatment that caters to locals and tourists.

 

There has been growing emphasis to expand the economic scope of the city into other service activities, such as research and development, which supports the rest of the economy of Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has been home for years to important research centres such as the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, the Forest Research Institute Malaysia and the Institute of Medical Research and more research centres are expected to be established in the coming years.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Kuala Lumpur is the most populous city in Malaysia, with a population of 1.6 million in the city proper as of 2010. It has a population density of 6,696 inhabitants per square kilometre , and is the most densely populated administrative district in Malaysia. Residents of the city are colloquially known as KLites. Kuala Lumpur is also the centre of the wider Klang Valley conurbation (covering Petaling Jaya, Klang, Subang Jaya, Shah Alam, Gombak and others) which has an estimated metropolitan population of 7.2–7.5 million as of 2012.

 

Kuala Lumpur's heterogeneous populace includes the country's three major ethnic groups: the Malays, the Chinese and the Indians, although the city also has a mix of different cultures including Eurasians, as well as Kadazans, Ibans and other indigenous races from East Malaysia and Peninsula Malaysia.

 

Historically Kuala Lumpur was a predominantly Chinese, but recently the Bumiputra component of the city has increased substantially and they are now the dominant group. Most of Malays who considered as Bumiputra came from Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia archipelago. The majority of them Javanese, Minangkabaus and Buginese began arriving in Kuala Lumpur in the mid 19th century, in addition to Acehnese who arrived in the late 20th century. The population of Kuala Lumpur was estimated to be around three thousand in 1880 when it was made the capital of Selangor. In the following decade which saw the rebuilding of the town it showed considerable increase, due in large part to the construction of a railway line in 1886 connecting Kuala Lumpur and Klang.

 

A census in 1891 of uncertain accuracy gave a figure of 43,796 inhabitants, 79% of whom were Chinese (71% of the Chinese were Hakka), 14% Malay, and 6% Indian. Another estimate put the population of Kuala Lumpur in 1890 at 20,000. In 1931, 61% of Kuala Lumpur's 111,418 inhabitants were Chinese, and in 1947 63.5%. The Malays however began to settle in the Kuala Lumpur in significant numbers, in part due to government employment, as well as the expansion of the city that absorbed the surrounding rural areas where many Malays lived. between 1947 and 1957 the population of Bumiputras in Kuala Lumpur doubled, increasing from 12.5 to 15%, while the proportion of Chinese dropped. The process continued after Malayan independence with the growth of a largely Malay civil service, and later the implementation of the New Economic Policy which encouraged Malay participation in urban industries and business. In 1980 the population of Kuala Lumpur had reached over a million, with 52% Chinese, 33% Malay, and 15% Indian. From 1980 to 2000 the number of Bumiputras increased by 77%, but the Chinese still outnumbered the Bumiputras in Kuala Lumpur in the 2000 census at 43% compared to Bumiputras at 38%. By the 2010 census, according to the Department of Statistics and excluding non-citizens, the percentage of the Bumiputera population in Kuala Lumpur has reached around 45.9%, with the Chinese population at 43.2% and Indians 10.3%.A notable phenomenon in recent times has been the increase of foreign residents in Kuala Lumpur, which rose from 1% of the city's population in 1980 to about 8% in the 2000 census, and 9.4% in the 2010 census. These figures also do not include a significant number of illegal immigrants. Kuala Lumpur's rapid development has triggered a huge influx of low-skilled foreign workers from Indonesia, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Vietnam into Malaysia, many of whom enter the country illegally or without proper permits.Birth rates in Kuala Lumpur have declined and resulted in the lower proportion of young people falling below 15 years old category from 33% in 1980 to slightly less than 27% in 2000.[69] On the other hand, the working age group of 15–59 increased from 63% in 1980 to 67% in 2000. The elderly age group, 60 years old and above has increased from 4% in 1980 and 1991 to 6% in 2000.

 

Kuala Lumpur is pluralistic and religiously diverse. The city has many places of worship catering to the multi-religious population. Islam is practised primarily by the Malays and the Indian Muslim communities. Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism are practised mainly among the Chinese. Indians traditionally adhere to Hinduism. Some Chinese and Indians also subscribe to Christianity.

 

As of 2010 Census the population of Kuala Lumpur is 46.4% Muslim, 35.7% Buddhist, 8.5% Hindu, 5.8% Christian, 1.1% Taoist or Chinese religion adherent, 2.0% follower of other religions, and 0.5% non-religious.

 

Bahasa Malaysia is the principal language in Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur residents are generally literate in English, with a large proportion adopting it as their first language. It has a strong presence, especially in business and is a compulsory language taught in schools. Cantonese and Mandarin are prominent as they are spoken by the local majority Chinese population. Another major dialect spoken is Hakka. While Tamil is dominant amongst the local Indian population, other Indian languages spoken include Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi and Hindi. Beside the Malay language, there are a variety of languages spoken by Indonesian descent, such as Minangkabau and Javanese.

 

EDUCATION

According to government statistics, Kuala Lumpur has a literacy rate of 97.5% in 2000, the highest rate in any state or territory in Malaysia. In Malaysia, Malay is the language of instruction for most subjects while English is a compulsory subject, but as of 2012, English is still the language of instruction for mathematics and the natural sciences for certain schools. Some schools provide Mandarin and Tamil as languages of instruction for certain subjects. Each level of education demands different skills of teaching and learning ability.Kuala Lumpur contains 13 tertiary education institutions, 79 high schools, 155 elementary schools and 136 kindergartens.

 

WIKIPEDIA

The only Jaguar XJ220 in the world that lived up to its name, being fitted with a stunning V12 engine and making it the world's fastest production car. However, costs, setbacks, a recession or two and a myriad of other problems resulted in the dream becoming a nightmare, and the match of styling and power made in heaven being turned quickly into a BDSM session in hell!

 

The proposal for the Jaguar XJ220 seemed to come right out of nowhere. In 1986 the company was sold to Ford after ownership under British Leyland, and was producing a selection of strange luxury motors including the XJS and the XJ, which, although were very good and highly luxury machines, weren't exactly setting the world on fire.

 

But racing had been put forward to the company before, and racing team owner Tom Walkinshaw encouraged Jaguar to put one of their XJS's into the 1981 European Touring Car Championship, in which they succeeded in winning the competition in 1984. Jaguar had started to provide factory support to racing team Group 44 Racing, who were using the Jaguar-engined XJR-5 in the IMSA GT Championship, supplying V12 engines from 1983 onwards and supporting a Le Mans entry in 1984. Tom Walkinshaw and Jaguar agreed to entering the FIA Group C World Sportscar Championship and developed the XJR-6, which was powered by the Jaguar V12 engine; the car was launched during the 1985 season.

 

TWR took over the IMSA GT Championship operation in 1988 and one model – Jaguar XJR-9 – was launched to compete in both series. The XJR-9, which retained the Jaguar V12 engine, went on to win the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Sportscar Championship in the same year. The poor fuel consumption of the Jaguar V12 combined with new rules restricting refuelling during races forced the replacement of the V12 engine in the XJR-9s successors, the XJR-10 and XJR-11. The normally-aspirated Austin Rover V64V engine, designed for the MG Metro 6R4 had recently been made redundant thanks to the Group B rally ban in 1987, and the design rights were for sale. The compact, lightweight and fuel efficient nature of the small-displacement, turbocharged engine was investigated by TWR, who considered it an ideal basis for a new engine to power the XJR-10 and purchased the design rights from Austin Rover Group.

 

Jaguar and their Director of Engineering, Jim Randle, felt these racing cars were too far removed from the product available to the general public, especially with the rule changes that mandated the replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine in the forthcoming XJR-10 and XJR-11 racing cars. Therefore a project was initiated to design and build a car capable of winning Le Mans "in house", just as the Jaguar C-Type and D-Type had done. The groundwork for the project was undertaken by Randle over Christmas 1987, when he produced a 1:4 scale cardboard model of a potential Group B racing car.

 

The cardboard model was taken into the Jaguar styling studio and two mock-ups were produced. One was said to be reminiscent of the Porsche 956, the other took elements of the then current Jaguar XJ41 project and Malcolm Sayer's work on the stillborn Jaguar XJ13 racing car.

 

The project still had no official support, leaving Randle no option but to put together a team of volunteers to work evenings and weekends in their own time. The team came to be known as "The Saturday Club", and consisted of twelve volunteers. To justify the resources consumed by the project, the XJ220 needed to provide meaningful data to the engineers on handling, aerodynamics, particularly at high speeds, and aluminium structures. These requirements, together with FIA racing regulations and various government regulations governing car design and safety influenced the overall design and engineering direction of the car.

 

The FIA Group B regulations steered the concept towards a mid-engine, four-wheel drive layout, with a Jaguar V12 engine as the power source. The concept car was designed and built at very little cost to Jaguar, as Randle called in favours from component suppliers and engineering companies he and Jaguar had worked with in the past. In return he offered public recognition for their assistance and dangled the possibility of future contracts from Jaguar.

 

The name XJ220 was chosen as a continuation of the naming of the Jaguar XK120, which referred to the top speed of the model in miles per hour. The concept car had a targeted top speed of 220 mph so became the XJ220. The XK120, like the XJ220, was an aluminium-bodied sports car, and when launched was the fastest production car in the world.

 

Jaguar and engine designer Walter Hassan had previously created a 48-valve variant of their V12 engine specifically for motorsport use. It featured a double overhead camshaft layout with four valves per cylinder, compared with the single overhead camshaft and two valves per cylinder of the production engine, which was used in the Jaguar XJ and Jaguar XJS models at the time.

 

TWR and Cosworth had manufactured a number of these racing V12 engines during the 1980s and they had been raced competitively, with a 7-litre version of this engine featuring in the Le Mans winning Silk Cut Jaguar XJR-9. Five of these engines still existed, all of which were fitted with dry sump lubrication. These engines were chosen and considered to be especially useful as the dry sump would lower the vehicle's centre of gravity. The displacement of the V12 was set at 6.2L for the XJ220.

 

Jaguar had little experience with four-wheel drive systems at the time, having previously only produced rear-wheel drive cars. Randle approached Tony Rolt's company, FF Developments to design the transmission and four-wheel drive system for the XJ220, with Rolt's son Stuart running the project. Tony Rolt was the Technical Director of Ferguson Research, where he was heavily involved in the design of the four-wheel drive system used in the Jensen FF, the first sports car to be fitted with such a transmission. Tony Rolt also had a long involvement with Jaguar, winning the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans with the factory works team driving the Jaguar C-Type.

 

The mid-engine complicated the design of the four-wheel drive system, and an innovative solution was needed to get drive from the rear of the engine to the front wheels. The chosen design took the front-wheel drive from the central differential on the rear transaxle and sent it through the V in the centre of the engine using a quill drive, before joining an inverted differential. The clutch was a twin-plate unit designed by AP Racing.

 

The design brief for the exterior restricted the use of aerodynamic aids, and aimed for a stylish yet functional body similar to the Jaguar D-Type. Drag and lift were limited at the envisioned ground clearance for road use, but the design allowed for additional downforce when the car was set up for racing; the body produced around 3,000 lb of downforce at 200 mph. The design was also intended to have a variable rear wing that folded into the bodywork at lower speeds. Aerodynamic work was undertaken at the Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel using a 1:4 scale model, as the project was unable to budget for a full-scale mock-up.

 

The bodywork for the concept car displayed in 1988 was hand built from aluminium by Park Sheet Metal, a specialist automotive engineering company that manufactures concept cars and low-volume, niche models for various manufacturers, including Bentley. QCR Coatings undertook final painting of the bodyshell in silver. The concept also featured electrically operated scissor doors and a transparent engine cover to show off the V12 engine.

 

The concept car had a Connolly Leather-trimmed interior produced by Callow & Maddox, and was fitted with front and rear heated windscreens, electric windows, air conditioning, heated electrically adjustable seats with an Alpine Electronics CD player. The dashboard was supplied by Veglia.

 

The concept car was completed in the early hours of 18 October 1988, the day it was due to be unveiled at the British International Motor Show, being held at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.

 

Jaguar's marketing department had allocated space on their stand at the motor show for the XJ220, but had not seen the vehicle until its arrival. Jaguar chairman John Egan and Roger Putnam, who was in charge of Jaguar's racing activities, were shown the vehicle the week before the motor show and signed off on the concept, allowing its unveiling. The car received an overwhelmingly positive reception by public and press, and a number of wealthy Jaguar enthusiasts handed over blank cheques to secure a purchase option should the XJ220 concept go into production. Ferrari displayed their F40 model at the same event; an estimated 90,000 additional visitors came to see the Jaguar and Ferrari cars.

 

The XJ220 was not initially intended to be a production car, but, following the reception of the concept and financial interest from serious buyers, a feasibility study was carried out by teams from TWR and Jaguar. Its conclusion was that such a car would be technically feasible, and that it would be financially viable. The announcement of a limited production run of 220 to 350 cars came on 20 December 1989. The list price on 1 January 1990 was £290,000 exclusive of value added tax, options and delivery charges, but by 1992 that had increased considerably owing to indexation of contracts. The offer was four times oversubscribed, and deposits of £50,000 exclusive of Value Added Tax (VAT) were taken from around 1400 customers; first deliveries were planned for mid-1992.

 

What Jaguar didn't reckon on was that the 1990's were going to get off to a very bad start, with a good old fashioned recession to usher in the new decade. This, combined with the various downgrades that would have to follow to make the car road legal, would result in the Jaguar XJ220 giving the company and the customers headaches in more ways than one.

 

In 1991, the company constructed a new £4 million factory at Wykham Mill, Bloxham, for the single purpose of building the XJ220, the plant being opened by the late Princess Diana. But, in order to comply with a variety of road legislation, engineering requirements resulted in significant changes to the specification of the XJ220, most notably replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine by a turbocharged V6 engine.This downgraded engine made that desirable rocket car more run-of-the-mill, and many pulled back their deposits.

 

At the same time the economy collapsed and when the first production cars left the factory in 1992, many of the original potential buyers who had put down their hefty deposits found that they couldn't afford it, and wanted their money back. Many of them cited the fact that the four wheel drive, V12 had been downgraded to a two wheel drive, V6, and thus they weren't getting what they paid for. The result was that Jaguar went so far as to take their customers to court, and forced them to buy a car they no longer wanted, the problem being exacerbated by the fact that in 1993, the McLaren F1 took the title of world's fastest production car, was available with the V12 and all things it promised, and was much smaller and more manageable than the bulky XJ220.

 

A total of just 275 cars were produced by the time production ended, 22 of their LHD models never being sold, each with a retail price of £470,000 in 1992, probably one of the biggest automotive flops in motoring history, right up there with the DeLorean and the Edsel. But this would later be advantageous for many, as this pedigree 'worlds-fastest-car' machine would go in later years for a much lower price. £150,000 mind you, but it's a lot better buying the one's that weren't sold at this reduced price, than at the initial asking price back in 1992. Therefore buyers were able to procure themselves a first-hand XJ220, for half the price, a representative saving of nearly £250,000.

 

Today the XJ220's are rare beasts indeed, rarely coming out to play due largely to their expensive upkeep, heavy fuel consumption and sheer size. But keep your eyes open in some of the more affluent neighbourhoods, be they Dubai, Beverley Hills, or the South of France, and chances are you'll be able to find one.

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The only Jaguar XJ220 in the world that lived up to its name, being fitted with a stunning V12 engine and making it the world's fastest production car. However, costs, setbacks, a recession or two and a myriad of other problems resulted in the dream becoming a nightmare, and the match of styling and power made in heaven being turned quickly into a BDSM session in hell!

 

The proposal for the Jaguar XJ220 seemed to come right out of nowhere. In 1986 the company was sold to Ford after ownership under British Leyland, and was producing a selection of strange luxury motors including the XJS and the XJ, which, although were very good and highly luxury machines, weren't exactly setting the world on fire.

 

But racing had been put forward to the company before, and racing team owner Tom Walkinshaw encouraged Jaguar to put one of their XJS's into the 1981 European Touring Car Championship, in which they succeeded in winning the competition in 1984. Jaguar had started to provide factory support to racing team Group 44 Racing, who were using the Jaguar-engined XJR-5 in the IMSA GT Championship, supplying V12 engines from 1983 onwards and supporting a Le Mans entry in 1984. Tom Walkinshaw and Jaguar agreed to entering the FIA Group C World Sportscar Championship and developed the XJR-6, which was powered by the Jaguar V12 engine; the car was launched during the 1985 season.

 

TWR took over the IMSA GT Championship operation in 1988 and one model – Jaguar XJR-9 – was launched to compete in both series. The XJR-9, which retained the Jaguar V12 engine, went on to win the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Sportscar Championship in the same year. The poor fuel consumption of the Jaguar V12 combined with new rules restricting refuelling during races forced the replacement of the V12 engine in the XJR-9s successors, the XJR-10 and XJR-11. The normally-aspirated Austin Rover V64V engine, designed for the MG Metro 6R4 had recently been made redundant thanks to the Group B rally ban in 1987, and the design rights were for sale. The compact, lightweight and fuel efficient nature of the small-displacement, turbocharged engine was investigated by TWR, who considered it an ideal basis for a new engine to power the XJR-10 and purchased the design rights from Austin Rover Group.

 

Jaguar and their Director of Engineering, Jim Randle, felt these racing cars were too far removed from the product available to the general public, especially with the rule changes that mandated the replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine in the forthcoming XJR-10 and XJR-11 racing cars. Therefore a project was initiated to design and build a car capable of winning Le Mans "in house", just as the Jaguar C-Type and D-Type had done. The groundwork for the project was undertaken by Randle over Christmas 1987, when he produced a 1:4 scale cardboard model of a potential Group B racing car.

 

The cardboard model was taken into the Jaguar styling studio and two mock-ups were produced. One was said to be reminiscent of the Porsche 956, the other took elements of the then current Jaguar XJ41 project and Malcolm Sayer's work on the stillborn Jaguar XJ13 racing car.

 

The project still had no official support, leaving Randle no option but to put together a team of volunteers to work evenings and weekends in their own time. The team came to be known as "The Saturday Club", and consisted of twelve volunteers. To justify the resources consumed by the project, the XJ220 needed to provide meaningful data to the engineers on handling, aerodynamics, particularly at high speeds, and aluminium structures. These requirements, together with FIA racing regulations and various government regulations governing car design and safety influenced the overall design and engineering direction of the car.

 

The FIA Group B regulations steered the concept towards a mid-engine, four-wheel drive layout, with a Jaguar V12 engine as the power source. The concept car was designed and built at very little cost to Jaguar, as Randle called in favours from component suppliers and engineering companies he and Jaguar had worked with in the past. In return he offered public recognition for their assistance and dangled the possibility of future contracts from Jaguar.

 

The name XJ220 was chosen as a continuation of the naming of the Jaguar XK120, which referred to the top speed of the model in miles per hour. The concept car had a targeted top speed of 220 mph so became the XJ220. The XK120, like the XJ220, was an aluminium-bodied sports car, and when launched was the fastest production car in the world.

 

Jaguar and engine designer Walter Hassan had previously created a 48-valve variant of their V12 engine specifically for motorsport use. It featured a double overhead camshaft layout with four valves per cylinder, compared with the single overhead camshaft and two valves per cylinder of the production engine, which was used in the Jaguar XJ and Jaguar XJS models at the time.

 

TWR and Cosworth had manufactured a number of these racing V12 engines during the 1980s and they had been raced competitively, with a 7-litre version of this engine featuring in the Le Mans winning Silk Cut Jaguar XJR-9. Five of these engines still existed, all of which were fitted with dry sump lubrication. These engines were chosen and considered to be especially useful as the dry sump would lower the vehicle's centre of gravity. The displacement of the V12 was set at 6.2L for the XJ220.

 

Jaguar had little experience with four-wheel drive systems at the time, having previously only produced rear-wheel drive cars. Randle approached Tony Rolt's company, FF Developments to design the transmission and four-wheel drive system for the XJ220, with Rolt's son Stuart running the project. Tony Rolt was the Technical Director of Ferguson Research, where he was heavily involved in the design of the four-wheel drive system used in the Jensen FF, the first sports car to be fitted with such a transmission. Tony Rolt also had a long involvement with Jaguar, winning the 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans with the factory works team driving the Jaguar C-Type.

 

The mid-engine complicated the design of the four-wheel drive system, and an innovative solution was needed to get drive from the rear of the engine to the front wheels. The chosen design took the front-wheel drive from the central differential on the rear transaxle and sent it through the V in the centre of the engine using a quill drive, before joining an inverted differential. The clutch was a twin-plate unit designed by AP Racing.

 

The design brief for the exterior restricted the use of aerodynamic aids, and aimed for a stylish yet functional body similar to the Jaguar D-Type. Drag and lift were limited at the envisioned ground clearance for road use, but the design allowed for additional downforce when the car was set up for racing; the body produced around 3,000 lb of downforce at 200 mph. The design was also intended to have a variable rear wing that folded into the bodywork at lower speeds. Aerodynamic work was undertaken at the Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel using a 1:4 scale model, as the project was unable to budget for a full-scale mock-up.

 

The bodywork for the concept car displayed in 1988 was hand built from aluminium by Park Sheet Metal, a specialist automotive engineering company that manufactures concept cars and low-volume, niche models for various manufacturers, including Bentley. QCR Coatings undertook final painting of the bodyshell in silver. The concept also featured electrically operated scissor doors and a transparent engine cover to show off the V12 engine.

 

The concept car had a Connolly Leather-trimmed interior produced by Callow & Maddox, and was fitted with front and rear heated windscreens, electric windows, air conditioning, heated electrically adjustable seats with an Alpine Electronics CD player. The dashboard was supplied by Veglia.

 

The concept car was completed in the early hours of 18 October 1988, the day it was due to be unveiled at the British International Motor Show, being held at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.

 

Jaguar's marketing department had allocated space on their stand at the motor show for the XJ220, but had not seen the vehicle until its arrival. Jaguar chairman John Egan and Roger Putnam, who was in charge of Jaguar's racing activities, were shown the vehicle the week before the motor show and signed off on the concept, allowing its unveiling. The car received an overwhelmingly positive reception by public and press, and a number of wealthy Jaguar enthusiasts handed over blank cheques to secure a purchase option should the XJ220 concept go into production. Ferrari displayed their F40 model at the same event; an estimated 90,000 additional visitors came to see the Jaguar and Ferrari cars.

 

The XJ220 was not initially intended to be a production car, but, following the reception of the concept and financial interest from serious buyers, a feasibility study was carried out by teams from TWR and Jaguar. Its conclusion was that such a car would be technically feasible, and that it would be financially viable. The announcement of a limited production run of 220 to 350 cars came on 20 December 1989. The list price on 1 January 1990 was £290,000 exclusive of value added tax, options and delivery charges, but by 1992 that had increased considerably owing to indexation of contracts. The offer was four times oversubscribed, and deposits of £50,000 exclusive of Value Added Tax (VAT) were taken from around 1400 customers; first deliveries were planned for mid-1992.

 

What Jaguar didn't reckon on was that the 1990's were going to get off to a very bad start, with a good old fashioned recession to usher in the new decade. This, combined with the various downgrades that would have to follow to make the car road legal, would result in the Jaguar XJ220 giving the company and the customers headaches in more ways than one.

 

In 1991, the company constructed a new £4 million factory at Wykham Mill, Bloxham, for the single purpose of building the XJ220, the plant being opened by the late Princess Diana. But, in order to comply with a variety of road legislation, engineering requirements resulted in significant changes to the specification of the XJ220, most notably replacement of the Jaguar V12 engine by a turbocharged V6 engine.This downgraded engine made that desirable rocket car more run-of-the-mill, and many pulled back their deposits.

 

At the same time the economy collapsed and when the first production cars left the factory in 1992, many of the original potential buyers who had put down their hefty deposits found that they couldn't afford it, and wanted their money back. Many of them cited the fact that the four wheel drive, V12 had been downgraded to a two wheel drive, V6, and thus they weren't getting what they paid for. The result was that Jaguar went so far as to take their customers to court, and forced them to buy a car they no longer wanted, the problem being exacerbated by the fact that in 1993, the McLaren F1 took the title of world's fastest production car, was available with the V12 and all things it promised, and was much smaller and more manageable than the bulky XJ220.

 

A total of just 275 cars were produced by the time production ended, 22 of their LHD models never being sold, each with a retail price of £470,000 in 1992, probably one of the biggest automotive flops in motoring history, right up there with the DeLorean and the Edsel. But this would later be advantageous for many, as this pedigree 'worlds-fastest-car' machine would go in later years for a much lower price. £150,000 mind you, but it's a lot better buying the one's that weren't sold at this reduced price, than at the initial asking price back in 1992. Therefore buyers were able to procure themselves a first-hand XJ220, for half the price, a representative saving of nearly £250,000.

 

Today the XJ220's are rare beasts indeed, rarely coming out to play due largely to their expensive upkeep, heavy fuel consumption and sheer size. But keep your eyes open in some of the more affluent neighbourhoods, be they Dubai, Beverley Hills, or the South of France, and chances are you'll be able to find one.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The P-51H (NA-126) was the final production Mustang, embodying the experience gained in the development of the lightweight XP-51F and XP-51G aircraft. This aircraft, brought the development of the Mustang to a peak as one of the fastest production piston-engine fighters to see service in WWII.

In July of 1943, U.S. Army approved a contract with North American Aviation to design and build a lightweight P-51. Designated NA-105, 5 aircraft were to be built and tested. Edgar Schmued, chief of design at NAA, began this design early in 1943. He, in February of 1943, left the U.S. on a two-month trip to England. He was to visit the Supermarine factory and the Rolls Royce factory to work on his lightweight project.

 

Rolls Royce had designed a new version of the Merlin, the RM.14.SM, which was proposed to increase the manifold pressure to 120 (from 67 max) and thus improve military emergency horsepower to 2,200. Schmued was very eager to use this powerplant, since the new Merlin was not heavier than the earlier models. In order to exploit the new engine to the maximum, he visited the engineers at Rolls Royce in Great Britain. However, British fighters were by tendency lighter than their U.S. counterparts and Schmued also asked for detailed weight statements from Supermarine concerning the Spitfire. Supermarine did not have such data, so they started weighing all the parts they could get a hold of and made a report. It revealed that the British had design standards that were not as strict in some areas as the U.S, and American landing gear, angle of attack and side engine design loads were by tendency higher. When Schmued returned, he began a new design of the P-51 Mustang that used British design loads, shaving off weight on any part that could yield. The result was an empty weight reduction by 600 pounds, what would directly translate into more performance.

 

This design effort led to a number of lightweight Mustang prototypes, designated XP-51F, XP-51G and XP-51J. After their testing, the production version, NA-126 a.k.a. P-51H, was closest to the XP-51F. The project began in April 1944 and an initial contract for 1,000 P-51Hs was approved on June 30, 1944, which was soon expanded.

The P-51H used the V-1650-9 engine, a modified version of the new Merlin RM.14.SM that included Simmons automatic supercharger boost control with water injection, allowing War Emergency Power as high as 2,218 hp (1,500 kW) and a continuous output of up to 1,490 hp (1.070 kW).

Even though the P-51H looked superficially like a slightly modified P-51D, it was effectively a completely new design. External differences to the P-51D included lengthening and deepening the fuselage and increasing the height of the tailfin, which reduced, together with a lower fuel load in the fuselage tank, the tendency to yaw. The landing gear was simplified and lightened. The canopy resembled the P-51D bubble top style, over a raised pilot's position. The armament was retained but service access to the guns and ammunition was improved, including the introduction of ammunition cassettes that made reloading easier and quicker. With the new airframe several hundred pounds lighter, extra power, and a more streamlined radiator, the P-51H was faster than the P-51D, able to reach 472 mph (760 km/h; 410 kn) at 21,200 ft (6,500 m), making it one of the fastest piston engine aircraft in WWII.

 

The high-performance P-51H was designed to complement the P-47N as the primary aircraft for the invasion of Japan, with 2,000 ordered to be manufactured at NAA’s Inglewood plant. Variants of the P-51H with different versions of the Merlin engine were produced in limited numbers, too, in order to ramp up production and deliveries to frontline units. These included the P-51L, which was similar to the P-51H but utilized the V-1650-11 engine with a modified fuel system, rated at maximum 2,270 hp (1,690 kW), and the P-51M, or NA-124. The P-51M, of which a total of 1629 was ordered, was built in Dallas and utilized the V-1650-9A engine. This variant was optimized for operations at low and medium altitude and lacked water injection, producing less maximum power at height. However, it featured attachment points for up to ten unguided HVAR missiles under the outer wings as well as improved armor protection for the pilot against low-caliber weapons esp. from ground troops, which ate up some of the light structure’s weight benefit.

 

Most P-51H and L were issued to USAF units, while the P-51M and some Hs were delivered to allied forces in the Pacific TO, namely Australia and New Zealand. Only a few aircraft arrived in time to become operational until the end of hostilities, and even less became actually involved in military actions during the final weeks of fighting in the Pacific.

 

The RAAF received only a handful P-51Hs, since Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) had recently started license production of the P-51D (as CA-18) and the RAAF rather focused on this type. However, there were plans in early 1945 to build the P-51H locally as the CA-21, too, but this never came to fruition.

 

New Zealand ordered a total of 370 P-51 Mustangs of different variants to supplement its Vought F4U Corsairs in the PTO, which were primarily used as fighter-bombers. Scheduled deliveries were for an initial batch of 30 P-51Ds, followed by 137 more P-51Ds and 203 P-51Ms. The first RNZAF P-51Ms arrived in April 1945 and were allocated to 3 Squadron as well as to the Flight Leaders School in Ardmore (near Auckland in Northern New Zealand) for conversion training. The machines arrived as knocked-down kits via ship in natural metal finish, but the operational machines were, despite undisputed Allied air superiority, immediately camouflaged in field workshops to protect the airframes from the harsh and salty environment, esp. on the New Guinean islands. The RNZAF Mustangs also received quick identification markings in the form of white tail surfaces and white bands on the wings and in front of and behind the cockpit, in order to avoid any confusion with the Japanese Ki-61 “Hien” (Tony) and Ki-84 (Frank) fighters which had a similar silhouette and frequently operated in a natural metal finish.

During the final weeks of the conflict, the RNZAF only scored three air victories: two Japanese reconnaissance flying boats were downed and a single Ki-84 fighter was shot down in a dogfight over Bougainville. Most combat situations of 3 Squadron were either fighter escorts for F4U fighter bombers or close air support and attacks against Japanese strongholds or supply ships.

 

After the war, many USAF P-51Hs were immediately retired or handed over to reserve units. The surviving P-51Js were, due to their smaller production numbers, were mostly donated to foreign air forces in the course of the Fifties, in order to standardize the US stock. Despite its good performance, the P-51H/J/M did not take part in the Korean War. Instead, the (by the time re-designated) F-51D was selected, as it was available in much greater numbers and had a better spares supply situation. It was considered as a proven commodity and perceived to be stouter against ground fire – a misconception, because the vulnerable ventral liquid cooling system caused heavy losses from ground fire. The alternative P-47 would have been a more effective choice. The last American F-51H Mustangs were retired from ANG units in 1957, but some of its kin in foreign service soldiered on deep into the Sixties. The F-51D even lasted into the Eigthies in military service!

 

After the end of hostilities in the PTO, the RNZAF’s forty-two operational P-51Ms met different fates: The twenty-six survivors, which had reached frontline service in New Guinea, were directly scrapped on site, because their transfer back to New Zealand was not considered worthwhile. Those used for training in New Zealand were stored, together with the delivered P-51Ds, or, together with yet unbuilt kits, sent back to the United States.

In 1951, when New Zealand’s Territorial Air Force (TAF) was established, only the stored P-51D Mustangs were revived and entered service in the newly established 1 (Auckland), 2 (Wellington), 3 (Canterbury), and 4 (Otago) squadrons. Due to the small number, lack of spares and communality with the P-51D, the remaining mothballed RNZAF F-51Ms were eventually scrapped, too.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 33’ 4” (10.173 m)

Wingspan: 37‘ (11.28 m)

Height: 13‘ 8” (4.17 m) with tail wheel on ground, vertical propeller blade

Wing area: 235 sq ft (21.83 m²)

Airfoil: NAA/NACA 45-100 / NAA/NACA 45-100

Empty weight: 7.180 lb (3,260 kg)

Gross weight: 9,650 lb (4,381 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 11,800 lb (5,357 kg)

Fuel capacity: 255 US gal (212 imp gal; 964 l)

Aspect ratio: 5.83

 

Powerplant:

1× Packard (Rolls Royce) V-1650-9A Merlin 12-cylinder liquid cooled engine, delivering 1,380 hp

(1,030 kW) at sea level, driving a 4-blade constant-speed Aeroproducts 11' 1" Unimatic propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 465 mph (750 km/h; 407 kn) at 18,000 ft (5,500 m)

Cruise speed: 362 mph (583 km/h, 315 kn)

Stall speed: 100 mph (160 km/h, 87 kn)

Range: 855 mi (1,375 km, 747 nm) with internal fuel

1,200 mi (1,930 km, 1,050 nmi) with external tanks

Service ceiling: 30,100 ft (9,200 m)

Rate of climb: 3,200 ft/min (16.3 m/s) at sea level

Wing loading: 30.5 lb/sq ft (149 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.19 hp/lb (315 W/kg)

Lift-to-drag ratio: 14.6

Recommended Mach limit 0.8

 

Armament:

6× 0.50 caliber (12.7mm) AN/M2 Browning machine guns with a total of 1,880 rounds

2× underwing hardpoints for drop tanks or bombs of 500 pounds (227 kg) caliber each,

or 6 or 10 5” (127 mm) T64 HVAR rockets

  

The kit and its assembly:

A relatively simple project, a whiffy color variant based on RS Model’s 1:72 P-51H kit – which I quickly turned into a P-51M, which was planned as mentioned in the background, but never produced in real life.

The model was strictly built OOB, and while this short-run kit goes together quite well, I encountered some problems along the way:

- There are massive and long ejector pin markers, sometimes in very confined locations like the radiator intake. Without a mini drill, getting rid of them is very difficult

- Somehow the instructions for the cockpit are not correct; I put the parts into place as indicated, and the pilot’s seat ended up way too far forward in the fuselage

- The canopy, while clear, is pretty thick and just a single piece, so that you have to cut the windscreen off by yourself if you want to show the otherwise very nice cockpit.

- The separated windscreen section itself includes a piece of the cowling in front of the window panes, which makes its integration into the fuselage a tricky affair. However, this IMHO not-so-perfect construction became a minor blessing because the separated windscreen turned out to be a little too narrow for the fuselage – it had to be glued forcibly to the fuselage (read: with superglue), and the section in front of the window panes offered enough hidden area to safely apply the glue on the clear piece.

- While there are some resin parts included like weighted wheels, it is beyond me why tiny bits like the underwing pitot or most delicate landing gear parts have been executed in resin, as flat parts of a resin block that makes it IMHO impossible to cut them out from.

- The tail wheel is a messy three-piece construction of resin and IP parts, with a flimsy strut that’s prone to break already upon cutting the part from the IP sprue. Furthermore, there’s no proper location inside of the fuselage to mount it. Guess and glue!

- The fit of the stabilizers is doubtful; it’s probably best to get rid of their locator pins and glue them directly onto the fuselage

- The propeller consists of a centerpiece with the blades, which is enclosed by two spinner halves (front and back). This results in a visible seam between them that is not easy to fill/PSR away

 

On the positive side I must say that the engraved surface details, the cockpit interior and the landing gear are very nice, and there is even the complete interior of the radiator and its tunnel included. PSR requirements are also few, even though you won’t get along well without cosmetic bodywork.

 

The only personal modification is a styrene tube inside of the nose for the propeller, which was mounted onto a metal axis for free rotation; OOB, the propeller is not moveable at all and is to be glued directly to the fuselage.

While the kit comes with optional ordnance (six HVARs or a pair of 500 lb bombs, both in resin), I just used the bomb pylons and left them empty, for a clean look.

  

Painting and markings:

Even though the model was a quick build, finding a suitable color concept took a while; I had a whiffy P-51H on my agenda for a long time (since the RS Models kit came out), and my initial plan was to create an Australian aircraft. This gradually changed to an RNZAF aircraft during the last weeks of WWII in the PTO, and evolved from an NMF finish (initial and IMHO most logical idea) through am Aussie-esque green/brown camouflage to a scheme I found for a P-40: a trainer that was based in New Zealand and (re)painted in domestic colors, namely in Foliage Green, Blue Sea Grey and Sky. This might sound like a standard RAF aircraft, but in the end the colors and markings make this Mustang look pretty exotic, just as the P-51H looks like a Mustang that is “not quite right”.

 

The Foliage Green is Humbrol 195 (Dark Green Satin, actually RAL 6020 Chrome Oxide Green), which offers IMHO a good compromise between the tone’s rather bluish hue and yellow shades – I find it to be a better match than the frequently recommended FS 34092, because RAL 6020 is darker. The RNZAF “Blue Sea Grey”, also known as “Pacific Blue” or “Ocean Blue”, is a more obscure tone, which apparently differed a lot from batch to batch and weathered dramatically from a bluish tone (close to FS 35109 when fresh) to a medium grey. I settled for Humbrol 144 (FS 35164; USN Intermediate Blue), which is rumored to come close to the color in worn state.

The undersides were painted with Humbrol 23 (RAF Duck Egg Blue), which I found to be a suitable alternative to the more greenish RAF Sky, even though it’s a pretty light interpretation.

Tail and spinner were painted white, actually a mix of Humbrol 22 (Gloss White) and 196 (Light Grey, RAL 7035) so that there would be some contrast room left for post-shading with pure white.

The interior of cockpit and landing gear wells was painted with zinc chromate primer yellow (Humbrol 81), while the landing gear struts became Humbrol 56 (Aluminum Dope). The radiator ducts received an interior in aluminum (Revell 99).

 

In order to simulate wear and tear as well as the makeshift character of the camouflage I painted the wings’ leading edges and some other neuralgic areas in aluminum (Revell 99, too) first, before the basic camouflage tones were added in a somewhat uneven fashion, with the metallized areas showing through.

Once dry, the model received an overall washing with thinned black ink and a through dry-brushing treatment with lighter shades of the basic tones (including Humbrol 30, 122 and 145) for post-panel-shading and weathering, esp. on the upper surfaces.

 

The decals are a mix from a Rising Decals sheet for various RNZAF aircraft (which turned out to be nicely printed, but rather thin so that they lacked opacity and rigidity), and for the tactical markings I stuck to the RNZAF practice of applying just a simple number or letter code to frontline aircraft instead of full RAF-style letter codes. The latter were used only on aircraft based on home soil, since the RNZAF’s frontline units had a different organization with an aircraft pool allocated to the squadrons. Through maintenance these circulated and were AFAIK not rigidly attached to specific units, hence there was no typical two-letter squadron code applied to them, just single ID letters or numbers, and these were typically painted on the aircraft nose and/or the fin, not on the fuselage next to the roundel. The nose art under the cockpit is a mix of markings from P-40s and F4Us.

 

The white ID bands on fuselage and wings are simple white decal strips from TL-Modellbau. While this, together with the all-white tail, might be overdone and outdated towards mid-1945, I gave the Kiwi-Mustang some extra markings for a more exciting look – and the aircraft’s profile actually reminds a lot of the Ki-61, so that they definitely make sense.

 

Towards the finish line, some additional dry-brushing with grey and silver was done, soot stains were added with graphite to the exhaust areas and the machine gun ports, and the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

  

After the recent, massive YA-14 kitbashing project, this Mustang was – despite some challenges of the RS Models kit itself – a simple and quick “relief” project, realized in just a couple of days. Despite being built OOB, the result looks quite exotic, both through the paint scheme with RNZAF colors, but also through the unusual roundels and the striking ID markings (for a Mustang). I was skeptical at first, but the aircraft looks good and the camouflage in RNZAF colors even proved to be effective when set into the right landscape context (beauty pics).

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This photo appeared in the following ideotrope albums:

 

Southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu - February 2008 - On the road in India

At Thanksgiving Rudi reminded me of a grim statistic regarding Indian traffic: India has 4% (or is it 5?) of the world's motor vehicles and 25% of the world's traffic fatalities. Even having visited India once before, I couldn't imagine the chaos and frequent danger of being on the road. Of course the conditions we encountered ran the gamut from smooth, quiet country lanes where our tandem was the fastest on the road to unbelievable chaos where it felt like a bit of a miracle to make it through the day.

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

Coastal Kerala

We arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport at about 4am and cycled out of the "city" 26 hours later. The city hardly ended. During our first three days of pedaling, I'm not sure that we were ever out of sight of people and buildings. Perhaps we shouldn't have found this surprising. Kerala has the highest population density of any state in India. And within the state the highest density is found in the southern half of the state on the flat strip of land between the sea and the hills - exactly where we rode the first three days. We mostly avoided the fast traffic of the main road, usually riding a road closer to the coast. The network of paved roads is dense. There are many possibilities.

It wasn't always easy to follow these roads, and I can think of three funny incidents from these first three days:

We were on a narrow road with a fair bit of bus traffic. We noticed lighter traffic. Suddenly the road ended, and we looked across 100m of water with no bridge. Thinking we had missed a turn, we backtracked and quickly came to the spot where the buses turn around. Locals directed us back to the water and down a sandy single track where we loaded onto an oversized canoe with a motorcyclist and another bicyclist. Two men poled the craft across, and soon we were on our way again.

Further north on a similar narrow road we somehow managed to miss the main fork. The road continued to narrow and narrow until we were on a three-foot wide dirt track between two walls. Still we continued and cycled right into someone's yard! All found it amusing.</li?

In another section we had been warned that the coastal road was a bit broken in places and we'd have to push the bike so we weren't surprised to come upon a sandy single track. It was surprising to come upon a mahout on his elephant traveling in the opposite direction on this track. It was very sandy off the track and thinking the elephant would have an easier time of it than we would I kept on the track. The mahout hollered at us, and we were quite close before we ducked out of the way!

Cardamom Hills

After three days of riding to Alappuzha we were ready to try anything besides the Kerala coastal strip so we headed east into the hills. In less than 10km we came to the most peaceful, beautiful riding that we'd seen up to that point. Of course it all wasn't like that, but we had made a good choice.

We rode for three days to get to the Kumily/Thekkadi/Periyar tourist area and two more to get to more beautiful, more touristy, and higher Munnar. We climbed a lot on four of those days, but the roads were well-graded and simply by luck rather than any planning we only had a couple climbs that lasted more than 15km. On the other hand after climbing out of Munnar, we descended about 70km down to Kurichikottai. That would have been a brutal climb.

Through the hills and mountains we pedaled in misty, forested areas where all we could hear was the sounds of monkeys and birds. I thought of Jack Zuzack and the sounds he recorded on his 'round the world trip. We also rode through cardamom (these are the Cardamom Hills after all), rubber, tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, and coconut. The tea plantations were particularly beautiful as they seem to glow a translucent green.

The Tamil Nadu plains

Along the road from Munnar we met David who invited us to stay with his family in Kurichikottai, our first night in Tamil Nadu. David's from Kerala but came to Tamil Nadu to help the locals with basic health care and sanitation. He explained that most people don't have toilets in their houses in Tamil Nadu and we'd see many people using the side of the roads as a toilet in the morning. We spent the next two weeks riding in Tamil Nadu and indeed that's one thing I'll remember from our early morning riding there.

In spite of that, the riding in Tamil Nadu was more enjoyable than coastal Kerala. There were lots of wide-open spaces, beautiful agriculture areas, good roads, light traffic, compact cities. Also the weather was more comfortable since it was drier than Kerala. (Overall the weather on the whole trip was good. We never wanted a/c at night. Most of the day was warm, but it felt pretty hot from 1-4pm. We'd try not to be riding then.)

We visited a number of temple towns in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Madurai, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari. These places are on the Hindu pilgrimage circuit and except for Sivakasi and Tirunelveli were crowded with pilgrims.

Any place that's popular for Indians to visit is absolutely chaotic on the weekends. We experienced this in Munnar and Kanniyakumari, both places that we stayed a few days. Once the weekend crowds went home, we enjoyed the relative tranquility of these towns.

Sivakasi is famous for being a production center for fireworks. We ended up visiting the city because we met Jack Reed on the grounds of the Ghandi Museum in Madurai. He invited us to Sivakasi. Jack's friend, Sami, managed to arrange a tour of a cracker factory for the four of us. Seeing the workers and the working conditions was the most moving experience of the trip. The "factories" - though there's nothing automated about them - are scattered out on the hot plain away from the city and away from each other. The factory we visited consisted of about 20 small (4mx4mx4m), widely-spaced buildings. Each building has at least four doors which are always opened during work hours. There's no electricity. The design - good ventilation, many escape routes, widely-spaced buildings - is to prevent accidents. The workers are paid by the piece and earn about $3/day for this boring, repetitive, dangerous work. They're in constant contact with the chemicals in the fireworks - though some jobs looked much worse than others - and must fully wash before leaving the premises (to keep the unhealthy, volatile chemicals out of their homes). It was the closest thing I've seen to a sweat shop. Two women asked me to take them to my home, the only time that happened during this trip. That said, the workers appeared to genuinely return our smiles, and I'm afraid they're paid more than the average wage in India, perhaps even double (?).

The culinary journey

During our first trip to India, we spent two months in the north - Rajastan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal - and loved the food. Then we spent a month in the Andaman Islands where there is mostly South Indian food. We were introduced to a whole new Indian cuisine, and we loved it! Indeed both of us prefer South Indian food to North Indian. The South Indian food is lighter, less oily, and less rich. It's food that can be eaten every day - not like what's served at the Indian restaurants in Boulder.

For breakfast we'd order a bread or rice dish - often appam in Kerala, idli or pongal in Tamil Nadu. Both states had dosa, puri, porotha, puttu, ottappam as well. The breads are served with curries and chutneys, and in fancier restaurants different breads were served with different sides. Egg curry was a popular breakfast option in Kerala, and many places would offer omelets as well. All except the most basic restaurants would offer tea (chai) and coffee. There wasn't much difference between dinner and breakfast unless we'd go to a fancier restaurant and order specific made-to-order curries.

Lunch is an all-you-can-eat affair based on rice. In Tamil Nadu banana leafs are used as plates, but I don't think we saw that a single time in Kerala. Silverware is not used. The rice comes with a number of vegetable sides, pickled stuff, papadam, and a pudding for dessert. Waiters come by with dal, sambar, and curd to pour over the rice, and they're constantly dumping more vegetables and rices onto your plate. The food was continually tasty. The one complaint would be that it was somewhat repetitive.

Kovalam and Mumbai

20km before completing our loop in Thiruvananthapuram we spent a couple days at the beach resort of Kovalam. I was impressed. The beaches were beautiful and clean with very mellow waves that were easy and fun to bodysurf. The main beach (Lighthouse) is tastefully developed, and there's still fisherman pulling in their catch. I can see why Europeans fly to India just to visit Kovalam.

On our flight home we took advantage of a 10 hour layover in Mumbai to make a quick dash into the city. We went straight to the Gateway of India and barely caught it in the last light of the day. I had hoped to do a little walking tour, but it's hard to appreciate the architecture in the dark. The most memorable part of this excursion will be the incredibly crowded train coming back from Churchgate to Andheri at 10 on a Saturday night. The doors to the trains don't close, and folks hang out the sides. People carry their bags above their heads because there's no room between the packed bodies. There isn't even enough room for everyone's feet on the floor. People stood on my feet, and I stood on other feet. At the stations it's required to jump off while the train is moving to avoid being pushed back on by the mass attemping to squeeze on. Not being experienced jumping off moving trains, Julie and I were a bit nervous when our stop was approaching. I followed the example of the person in front of me, and a helpful passenger gave Julie an arm to help her balance as she stumbled onto the platform. In spite of the chaos everyone was helpful, good-natured, and polite. Farewell, India.

The route: Thiruvananthapuram, Varkala, Karunagappally, Alappuzha, Kanjirappally, Peerumade, Thekkadi, Nedumkandam, Munnar, Kurichikottai, Palani, Kodaikanal Road, Madurai, Sivakasi, Surandai, Tirunelveli, Tiruchchendur, Kanniyakumari, Kovalam, Thiruvananthapuram.

Link to less selective photo album

Kerala and Tamil Nadu - all photos - Link to trip description

  

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+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The P-51H (NA-126) was the final production Mustang, embodying the experience gained in the development of the lightweight XP-51F and XP-51G aircraft. This aircraft, brought the development of the Mustang to a peak as one of the fastest production piston-engine fighters to see service in WWII.

In July of 1943, U.S. Army approved a contract with North American Aviation to design and build a lightweight P-51. Designated NA-105, 5 aircraft were to be built and tested. Edgar Schmued, chief of design at NAA, began this design early in 1943. He, in February of 1943, left the U.S. on a two-month trip to England. He was to visit the Supermarine factory and the Rolls Royce factory to work on his lightweight project.

 

Rolls Royce had designed a new version of the Merlin, the RM.14.SM, which was proposed to increase the manifold pressure to 120 (from 67 max) and thus improve military emergency horsepower to 2,200. Schmued was very eager to use this powerplant, since the new Merlin was not heavier than the earlier models. In order to exploit the new engine to the maximum, he visited the engineers at Rolls Royce in Great Britain. However, British fighters were by tendency lighter than their U.S. counterparts and Schmued also asked for detailed weight statements from Supermarine concerning the Spitfire. Supermarine did not have such data, so they started weighing all the parts they could get a hold of and made a report. It revealed that the British had design standards that were not as strict in some areas as the U.S, and American landing gear, angle of attack and side engine design loads were by tendency higher. When Schmued returned, he began a new design of the P-51 Mustang that used British design loads, shaving off weight on any part that could yield. The result was an empty weight reduction by 600 pounds, what would directly translate into more performance.

 

This design effort led to a number of lightweight Mustang prototypes, designated XP-51F, XP-51G and XP-51J. After their testing, the production version, NA-126 a.k.a. P-51H, was closest to the XP-51F. The project began in April 1944 and an initial contract for 1,000 P-51Hs was approved on June 30, 1944, which was soon expanded.

The P-51H used the V-1650-9 engine, a modified version of the new Merlin RM.14.SM that included Simmons automatic supercharger boost control with water injection, allowing War Emergency Power as high as 2,218 hp (1,500 kW) and a continuous output of up to 1,490 hp (1.070 kW).

Even though the P-51H looked superficially like a slightly modified P-51D, it was effectively a completely new design. External differences to the P-51D included lengthening and deepening the fuselage and increasing the height of the tailfin, which reduced, together with a lower fuel load in the fuselage tank, the tendency to yaw. The landing gear was simplified and lightened. The canopy resembled the P-51D bubble top style, over a raised pilot's position. The armament was retained but service access to the guns and ammunition was improved, including the introduction of ammunition cassettes that made reloading easier and quicker. With the new airframe several hundred pounds lighter, extra power, and a more streamlined radiator, the P-51H was faster than the P-51D, able to reach 472 mph (760 km/h; 410 kn) at 21,200 ft (6,500 m), making it one of the fastest piston engine aircraft in WWII.

 

The high-performance P-51H was designed to complement the P-47N as the primary aircraft for the invasion of Japan, with 2,000 ordered to be manufactured at NAA’s Inglewood plant. Variants of the P-51H with different versions of the Merlin engine were produced in limited numbers, too, in order to ramp up production and deliveries to frontline units. These included the P-51L, which was similar to the P-51H but utilized the V-1650-11 engine with a modified fuel system, rated at maximum 2,270 hp (1,690 kW), and the P-51M, or NA-124. The P-51M, of which a total of 1629 was ordered, was built in Dallas and utilized the V-1650-9A engine. This variant was optimized for operations at low and medium altitude and lacked water injection, producing less maximum power at height. However, it featured attachment points for up to ten unguided HVAR missiles under the outer wings as well as improved armor protection for the pilot against low-caliber weapons esp. from ground troops, which ate up some of the light structure’s weight benefit.

 

Most P-51H and L were issued to USAF units, while the P-51M and some Hs were delivered to allied forces in the Pacific TO, namely Australia and New Zealand. Only a few aircraft arrived in time to become operational until the end of hostilities, and even less became actually involved in military actions during the final weeks of fighting in the Pacific.

 

The RAAF received only a handful P-51Hs, since Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) had recently started license production of the P-51D (as CA-18) and the RAAF rather focused on this type. However, there were plans in early 1945 to build the P-51H locally as the CA-21, too, but this never came to fruition.

 

New Zealand ordered a total of 370 P-51 Mustangs of different variants to supplement its Vought F4U Corsairs in the PTO, which were primarily used as fighter-bombers. Scheduled deliveries were for an initial batch of 30 P-51Ds, followed by 137 more P-51Ds and 203 P-51Ms. The first RNZAF P-51Ms arrived in April 1945 and were allocated to 3 Squadron as well as to the Flight Leaders School in Ardmore (near Auckland in Northern New Zealand) for conversion training. The machines arrived as knocked-down kits via ship in natural metal finish, but the operational machines were, despite undisputed Allied air superiority, immediately camouflaged in field workshops to protect the airframes from the harsh and salty environment, esp. on the New Guinean islands. The RNZAF Mustangs also received quick identification markings in the form of white tail surfaces and white bands on the wings and in front of and behind the cockpit, in order to avoid any confusion with the Japanese Ki-61 “Hien” (Tony) and Ki-84 (Frank) fighters which had a similar silhouette and frequently operated in a natural metal finish.

During the final weeks of the conflict, the RNZAF only scored three air victories: two Japanese reconnaissance flying boats were downed and a single Ki-84 fighter was shot down in a dogfight over Bougainville. Most combat situations of 3 Squadron were either fighter escorts for F4U fighter bombers or close air support and attacks against Japanese strongholds or supply ships.

 

After the war, many USAF P-51Hs were immediately retired or handed over to reserve units. The surviving P-51Js were, due to their smaller production numbers, were mostly donated to foreign air forces in the course of the Fifties, in order to standardize the US stock. Despite its good performance, the P-51H/J/M did not take part in the Korean War. Instead, the (by the time re-designated) F-51D was selected, as it was available in much greater numbers and had a better spares supply situation. It was considered as a proven commodity and perceived to be stouter against ground fire – a misconception, because the vulnerable ventral liquid cooling system caused heavy losses from ground fire. The alternative P-47 would have been a more effective choice. The last American F-51H Mustangs were retired from ANG units in 1957, but some of its kin in foreign service soldiered on deep into the Sixties. The F-51D even lasted into the Eigthies in military service!

 

After the end of hostilities in the PTO, the RNZAF’s forty-two operational P-51Ms met different fates: The twenty-six survivors, which had reached frontline service in New Guinea, were directly scrapped on site, because their transfer back to New Zealand was not considered worthwhile. Those used for training in New Zealand were stored, together with the delivered P-51Ds, or, together with yet unbuilt kits, sent back to the United States.

In 1951, when New Zealand’s Territorial Air Force (TAF) was established, only the stored P-51D Mustangs were revived and entered service in the newly established 1 (Auckland), 2 (Wellington), 3 (Canterbury), and 4 (Otago) squadrons. Due to the small number, lack of spares and communality with the P-51D, the remaining mothballed RNZAF F-51Ms were eventually scrapped, too.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 33’ 4” (10.173 m)

Wingspan: 37‘ (11.28 m)

Height: 13‘ 8” (4.17 m) with tail wheel on ground, vertical propeller blade

Wing area: 235 sq ft (21.83 m²)

Airfoil: NAA/NACA 45-100 / NAA/NACA 45-100

Empty weight: 7.180 lb (3,260 kg)

Gross weight: 9,650 lb (4,381 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 11,800 lb (5,357 kg)

Fuel capacity: 255 US gal (212 imp gal; 964 l)

Aspect ratio: 5.83

 

Powerplant:

1× Packard (Rolls Royce) V-1650-9A Merlin 12-cylinder liquid cooled engine, delivering 1,380 hp

(1,030 kW) at sea level, driving a 4-blade constant-speed Aeroproducts 11' 1" Unimatic propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 465 mph (750 km/h; 407 kn) at 18,000 ft (5,500 m)

Cruise speed: 362 mph (583 km/h, 315 kn)

Stall speed: 100 mph (160 km/h, 87 kn)

Range: 855 mi (1,375 km, 747 nm) with internal fuel

1,200 mi (1,930 km, 1,050 nmi) with external tanks

Service ceiling: 30,100 ft (9,200 m)

Rate of climb: 3,200 ft/min (16.3 m/s) at sea level

Wing loading: 30.5 lb/sq ft (149 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.19 hp/lb (315 W/kg)

Lift-to-drag ratio: 14.6

Recommended Mach limit 0.8

 

Armament:

6× 0.50 caliber (12.7mm) AN/M2 Browning machine guns with a total of 1,880 rounds

2× underwing hardpoints for drop tanks or bombs of 500 pounds (227 kg) caliber each,

or 6 or 10 5” (127 mm) T64 HVAR rockets

  

The kit and its assembly:

A relatively simple project, a whiffy color variant based on RS Model’s 1:72 P-51H kit – which I quickly turned into a P-51M, which was planned as mentioned in the background, but never produced in real life.

The model was strictly built OOB, and while this short-run kit goes together quite well, I encountered some problems along the way:

- There are massive and long ejector pin markers, sometimes in very confined locations like the radiator intake. Without a mini drill, getting rid of them is very difficult

- Somehow the instructions for the cockpit are not correct; I put the parts into place as indicated, and the pilot’s seat ended up way too far forward in the fuselage

- The canopy, while clear, is pretty thick and just a single piece, so that you have to cut the windscreen off by yourself if you want to show the otherwise very nice cockpit.

- The separated windscreen section itself includes a piece of the cowling in front of the window panes, which makes its integration into the fuselage a tricky affair. However, this IMHO not-so-perfect construction became a minor blessing because the separated windscreen turned out to be a little too narrow for the fuselage – it had to be glued forcibly to the fuselage (read: with superglue), and the section in front of the window panes offered enough hidden area to safely apply the glue on the clear piece.

- While there are some resin parts included like weighted wheels, it is beyond me why tiny bits like the underwing pitot or most delicate landing gear parts have been executed in resin, as flat parts of a resin block that makes it IMHO impossible to cut them out from.

- The tail wheel is a messy three-piece construction of resin and IP parts, with a flimsy strut that’s prone to break already upon cutting the part from the IP sprue. Furthermore, there’s no proper location inside of the fuselage to mount it. Guess and glue!

- The fit of the stabilizers is doubtful; it’s probably best to get rid of their locator pins and glue them directly onto the fuselage

- The propeller consists of a centerpiece with the blades, which is enclosed by two spinner halves (front and back). This results in a visible seam between them that is not easy to fill/PSR away

 

On the positive side I must say that the engraved surface details, the cockpit interior and the landing gear are very nice, and there is even the complete interior of the radiator and its tunnel included. PSR requirements are also few, even though you won’t get along well without cosmetic bodywork.

 

The only personal modification is a styrene tube inside of the nose for the propeller, which was mounted onto a metal axis for free rotation; OOB, the propeller is not moveable at all and is to be glued directly to the fuselage.

While the kit comes with optional ordnance (six HVARs or a pair of 500 lb bombs, both in resin), I just used the bomb pylons and left them empty, for a clean look.

  

Painting and markings:

Even though the model was a quick build, finding a suitable color concept took a while; I had a whiffy P-51H on my agenda for a long time (since the RS Models kit came out), and my initial plan was to create an Australian aircraft. This gradually changed to an RNZAF aircraft during the last weeks of WWII in the PTO, and evolved from an NMF finish (initial and IMHO most logical idea) through am Aussie-esque green/brown camouflage to a scheme I found for a P-40: a trainer that was based in New Zealand and (re)painted in domestic colors, namely in Foliage Green, Blue Sea Grey and Sky. This might sound like a standard RAF aircraft, but in the end the colors and markings make this Mustang look pretty exotic, just as the P-51H looks like a Mustang that is “not quite right”.

 

The Foliage Green is Humbrol 195 (Dark Green Satin, actually RAL 6020 Chrome Oxide Green), which offers IMHO a good compromise between the tone’s rather bluish hue and yellow shades – I find it to be a better match than the frequently recommended FS 34092, because RAL 6020 is darker. The RNZAF “Blue Sea Grey”, also known as “Pacific Blue” or “Ocean Blue”, is a more obscure tone, which apparently differed a lot from batch to batch and weathered dramatically from a bluish tone (close to FS 35109 when fresh) to a medium grey. I settled for Humbrol 144 (FS 35164; USN Intermediate Blue), which is rumored to come close to the color in worn state.

The undersides were painted with Humbrol 23 (RAF Duck Egg Blue), which I found to be a suitable alternative to the more greenish RAF Sky, even though it’s a pretty light interpretation.

Tail and spinner were painted white, actually a mix of Humbrol 22 (Gloss White) and 196 (Light Grey, RAL 7035) so that there would be some contrast room left for post-shading with pure white.

The interior of cockpit and landing gear wells was painted with zinc chromate primer yellow (Humbrol 81), while the landing gear struts became Humbrol 56 (Aluminum Dope). The radiator ducts received an interior in aluminum (Revell 99).

 

In order to simulate wear and tear as well as the makeshift character of the camouflage I painted the wings’ leading edges and some other neuralgic areas in aluminum (Revell 99, too) first, before the basic camouflage tones were added in a somewhat uneven fashion, with the metallized areas showing through.

Once dry, the model received an overall washing with thinned black ink and a through dry-brushing treatment with lighter shades of the basic tones (including Humbrol 30, 122 and 145) for post-panel-shading and weathering, esp. on the upper surfaces.

 

The decals are a mix from a Rising Decals sheet for various RNZAF aircraft (which turned out to be nicely printed, but rather thin so that they lacked opacity and rigidity), and for the tactical markings I stuck to the RNZAF practice of applying just a simple number or letter code to frontline aircraft instead of full RAF-style letter codes. The latter were used only on aircraft based on home soil, since the RNZAF’s frontline units had a different organization with an aircraft pool allocated to the squadrons. Through maintenance these circulated and were AFAIK not rigidly attached to specific units, hence there was no typical two-letter squadron code applied to them, just single ID letters or numbers, and these were typically painted on the aircraft nose and/or the fin, not on the fuselage next to the roundel. The nose art under the cockpit is a mix of markings from P-40s and F4Us.

 

The white ID bands on fuselage and wings are simple white decal strips from TL-Modellbau. While this, together with the all-white tail, might be overdone and outdated towards mid-1945, I gave the Kiwi-Mustang some extra markings for a more exciting look – and the aircraft’s profile actually reminds a lot of the Ki-61, so that they definitely make sense.

 

Towards the finish line, some additional dry-brushing with grey and silver was done, soot stains were added with graphite to the exhaust areas and the machine gun ports, and the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

  

After the recent, massive YA-14 kitbashing project, this Mustang was – despite some challenges of the RS Models kit itself – a simple and quick “relief” project, realized in just a couple of days. Despite being built OOB, the result looks quite exotic, both through the paint scheme with RNZAF colors, but also through the unusual roundels and the striking ID markings (for a Mustang). I was skeptical at first, but the aircraft looks good and the camouflage in RNZAF colors even proved to be effective when set into the right landscape context (beauty pics).

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The P-51H (NA-126) was the final production Mustang, embodying the experience gained in the development of the lightweight XP-51F and XP-51G aircraft. This aircraft, brought the development of the Mustang to a peak as one of the fastest production piston-engine fighters to see service in WWII.

In July of 1943, U.S. Army approved a contract with North American Aviation to design and build a lightweight P-51. Designated NA-105, 5 aircraft were to be built and tested. Edgar Schmued, chief of design at NAA, began this design early in 1943. He, in February of 1943, left the U.S. on a two-month trip to England. He was to visit the Supermarine factory and the Rolls Royce factory to work on his lightweight project.

 

Rolls Royce had designed a new version of the Merlin, the RM.14.SM, which was proposed to increase the manifold pressure to 120 (from 67 max) and thus improve military emergency horsepower to 2,200. Schmued was very eager to use this powerplant, since the new Merlin was not heavier than the earlier models. In order to exploit the new engine to the maximum, he visited the engineers at Rolls Royce in Great Britain. However, British fighters were by tendency lighter than their U.S. counterparts and Schmued also asked for detailed weight statements from Supermarine concerning the Spitfire. Supermarine did not have such data, so they started weighing all the parts they could get a hold of and made a report. It revealed that the British had design standards that were not as strict in some areas as the U.S, and American landing gear, angle of attack and side engine design loads were by tendency higher. When Schmued returned, he began a new design of the P-51 Mustang that used British design loads, shaving off weight on any part that could yield. The result was an empty weight reduction by 600 pounds, what would directly translate into more performance.

 

This design effort led to a number of lightweight Mustang prototypes, designated XP-51F, XP-51G and XP-51J. After their testing, the production version, NA-126 a.k.a. P-51H, was closest to the XP-51F. The project began in April 1944 and an initial contract for 1,000 P-51Hs was approved on June 30, 1944, which was soon expanded.

The P-51H used the V-1650-9 engine, a modified version of the new Merlin RM.14.SM that included Simmons automatic supercharger boost control with water injection, allowing War Emergency Power as high as 2,218 hp (1,500 kW) and a continuous output of up to 1,490 hp (1.070 kW).

Even though the P-51H looked superficially like a slightly modified P-51D, it was effectively a completely new design. External differences to the P-51D included lengthening and deepening the fuselage and increasing the height of the tailfin, which reduced, together with a lower fuel load in the fuselage tank, the tendency to yaw. The landing gear was simplified and lightened. The canopy resembled the P-51D bubble top style, over a raised pilot's position. The armament was retained but service access to the guns and ammunition was improved, including the introduction of ammunition cassettes that made reloading easier and quicker. With the new airframe several hundred pounds lighter, extra power, and a more streamlined radiator, the P-51H was faster than the P-51D, able to reach 472 mph (760 km/h; 410 kn) at 21,200 ft (6,500 m), making it one of the fastest piston engine aircraft in WWII.

 

The high-performance P-51H was designed to complement the P-47N as the primary aircraft for the invasion of Japan, with 2,000 ordered to be manufactured at NAA’s Inglewood plant. Variants of the P-51H with different versions of the Merlin engine were produced in limited numbers, too, in order to ramp up production and deliveries to frontline units. These included the P-51L, which was similar to the P-51H but utilized the V-1650-11 engine with a modified fuel system, rated at maximum 2,270 hp (1,690 kW), and the P-51M, or NA-124. The P-51M, of which a total of 1629 was ordered, was built in Dallas and utilized the V-1650-9A engine. This variant was optimized for operations at low and medium altitude and lacked water injection, producing less maximum power at height. However, it featured attachment points for up to ten unguided HVAR missiles under the outer wings as well as improved armor protection for the pilot against low-caliber weapons esp. from ground troops, which ate up some of the light structure’s weight benefit.

 

Most P-51H and L were issued to USAF units, while the P-51M and some Hs were delivered to allied forces in the Pacific TO, namely Australia and New Zealand. Only a few aircraft arrived in time to become operational until the end of hostilities, and even less became actually involved in military actions during the final weeks of fighting in the Pacific.

 

The RAAF received only a handful P-51Hs, since Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) had recently started license production of the P-51D (as CA-18) and the RAAF rather focused on this type. However, there were plans in early 1945 to build the P-51H locally as the CA-21, too, but this never came to fruition.

 

New Zealand ordered a total of 370 P-51 Mustangs of different variants to supplement its Vought F4U Corsairs in the PTO, which were primarily used as fighter-bombers. Scheduled deliveries were for an initial batch of 30 P-51Ds, followed by 137 more P-51Ds and 203 P-51Ms. The first RNZAF P-51Ms arrived in April 1945 and were allocated to 3 Squadron as well as to the Flight Leaders School in Ardmore (near Auckland in Northern New Zealand) for conversion training. The machines arrived as knocked-down kits via ship in natural metal finish, but the operational machines were, despite undisputed Allied air superiority, immediately camouflaged in field workshops to protect the airframes from the harsh and salty environment, esp. on the New Guinean islands. The RNZAF Mustangs also received quick identification markings in the form of white tail surfaces and white bands on the wings and in front of and behind the cockpit, in order to avoid any confusion with the Japanese Ki-61 “Hien” (Tony) and Ki-84 (Frank) fighters which had a similar silhouette and frequently operated in a natural metal finish.

During the final weeks of the conflict, the RNZAF only scored three air victories: two Japanese reconnaissance flying boats were downed and a single Ki-84 fighter was shot down in a dogfight over Bougainville. Most combat situations of 3 Squadron were either fighter escorts for F4U fighter bombers or close air support and attacks against Japanese strongholds or supply ships.

 

After the war, many USAF P-51Hs were immediately retired or handed over to reserve units. The surviving P-51Js were, due to their smaller production numbers, were mostly donated to foreign air forces in the course of the Fifties, in order to standardize the US stock. Despite its good performance, the P-51H/J/M did not take part in the Korean War. Instead, the (by the time re-designated) F-51D was selected, as it was available in much greater numbers and had a better spares supply situation. It was considered as a proven commodity and perceived to be stouter against ground fire – a misconception, because the vulnerable ventral liquid cooling system caused heavy losses from ground fire. The alternative P-47 would have been a more effective choice. The last American F-51H Mustangs were retired from ANG units in 1957, but some of its kin in foreign service soldiered on deep into the Sixties. The F-51D even lasted into the Eigthies in military service!

 

After the end of hostilities in the PTO, the RNZAF’s forty-two operational P-51Ms met different fates: The twenty-six survivors, which had reached frontline service in New Guinea, were directly scrapped on site, because their transfer back to New Zealand was not considered worthwhile. Those used for training in New Zealand were stored, together with the delivered P-51Ds, or, together with yet unbuilt kits, sent back to the United States.

In 1951, when New Zealand’s Territorial Air Force (TAF) was established, only the stored P-51D Mustangs were revived and entered service in the newly established 1 (Auckland), 2 (Wellington), 3 (Canterbury), and 4 (Otago) squadrons. Due to the small number, lack of spares and communality with the P-51D, the remaining mothballed RNZAF F-51Ms were eventually scrapped, too.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 33’ 4” (10.173 m)

Wingspan: 37‘ (11.28 m)

Height: 13‘ 8” (4.17 m) with tail wheel on ground, vertical propeller blade

Wing area: 235 sq ft (21.83 m²)

Airfoil: NAA/NACA 45-100 / NAA/NACA 45-100

Empty weight: 7.180 lb (3,260 kg)

Gross weight: 9,650 lb (4,381 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 11,800 lb (5,357 kg)

Fuel capacity: 255 US gal (212 imp gal; 964 l)

Aspect ratio: 5.83

 

Powerplant:

1× Packard (Rolls Royce) V-1650-9A Merlin 12-cylinder liquid cooled engine, delivering 1,380 hp

(1,030 kW) at sea level, driving a 4-blade constant-speed Aeroproducts 11' 1" Unimatic propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 465 mph (750 km/h; 407 kn) at 18,000 ft (5,500 m)

Cruise speed: 362 mph (583 km/h, 315 kn)

Stall speed: 100 mph (160 km/h, 87 kn)

Range: 855 mi (1,375 km, 747 nm) with internal fuel

1,200 mi (1,930 km, 1,050 nmi) with external tanks

Service ceiling: 30,100 ft (9,200 m)

Rate of climb: 3,200 ft/min (16.3 m/s) at sea level

Wing loading: 30.5 lb/sq ft (149 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.19 hp/lb (315 W/kg)

Lift-to-drag ratio: 14.6

Recommended Mach limit 0.8

 

Armament:

6× 0.50 caliber (12.7mm) AN/M2 Browning machine guns with a total of 1,880 rounds

2× underwing hardpoints for drop tanks or bombs of 500 pounds (227 kg) caliber each,

or 6 or 10 5” (127 mm) T64 HVAR rockets

  

The kit and its assembly:

A relatively simple project, a whiffy color variant based on RS Model’s 1:72 P-51H kit – which I quickly turned into a P-51M, which was planned as mentioned in the background, but never produced in real life.

The model was strictly built OOB, and while this short-run kit goes together quite well, I encountered some problems along the way:

- There are massive and long ejector pin markers, sometimes in very confined locations like the radiator intake. Without a mini drill, getting rid of them is very difficult

- Somehow the instructions for the cockpit are not correct; I put the parts into place as indicated, and the pilot’s seat ended up way too far forward in the fuselage

- The canopy, while clear, is pretty thick and just a single piece, so that you have to cut the windscreen off by yourself if you want to show the otherwise very nice cockpit.

- The separated windscreen section itself includes a piece of the cowling in front of the window panes, which makes its integration into the fuselage a tricky affair. However, this IMHO not-so-perfect construction became a minor blessing because the separated windscreen turned out to be a little too narrow for the fuselage – it had to be glued forcibly to the fuselage (read: with superglue), and the section in front of the window panes offered enough hidden area to safely apply the glue on the clear piece.

- While there are some resin parts included like weighted wheels, it is beyond me why tiny bits like the underwing pitot or most delicate landing gear parts have been executed in resin, as flat parts of a resin block that makes it IMHO impossible to cut them out from.

- The tail wheel is a messy three-piece construction of resin and IP parts, with a flimsy strut that’s prone to break already upon cutting the part from the IP sprue. Furthermore, there’s no proper location inside of the fuselage to mount it. Guess and glue!

- The fit of the stabilizers is doubtful; it’s probably best to get rid of their locator pins and glue them directly onto the fuselage

- The propeller consists of a centerpiece with the blades, which is enclosed by two spinner halves (front and back). This results in a visible seam between them that is not easy to fill/PSR away

 

On the positive side I must say that the engraved surface details, the cockpit interior and the landing gear are very nice, and there is even the complete interior of the radiator and its tunnel included. PSR requirements are also few, even though you won’t get along well without cosmetic bodywork.

 

The only personal modification is a styrene tube inside of the nose for the propeller, which was mounted onto a metal axis for free rotation; OOB, the propeller is not moveable at all and is to be glued directly to the fuselage.

While the kit comes with optional ordnance (six HVARs or a pair of 500 lb bombs, both in resin), I just used the bomb pylons and left them empty, for a clean look.

  

Painting and markings:

Even though the model was a quick build, finding a suitable color concept took a while; I had a whiffy P-51H on my agenda for a long time (since the RS Models kit came out), and my initial plan was to create an Australian aircraft. This gradually changed to an RNZAF aircraft during the last weeks of WWII in the PTO, and evolved from an NMF finish (initial and IMHO most logical idea) through am Aussie-esque green/brown camouflage to a scheme I found for a P-40: a trainer that was based in New Zealand and (re)painted in domestic colors, namely in Foliage Green, Blue Sea Grey and Sky. This might sound like a standard RAF aircraft, but in the end the colors and markings make this Mustang look pretty exotic, just as the P-51H looks like a Mustang that is “not quite right”.

 

The Foliage Green is Humbrol 195 (Dark Green Satin, actually RAL 6020 Chrome Oxide Green), which offers IMHO a good compromise between the tone’s rather bluish hue and yellow shades – I find it to be a better match than the frequently recommended FS 34092, because RAL 6020 is darker. The RNZAF “Blue Sea Grey”, also known as “Pacific Blue” or “Ocean Blue”, is a more obscure tone, which apparently differed a lot from batch to batch and weathered dramatically from a bluish tone (close to FS 35109 when fresh) to a medium grey. I settled for Humbrol 144 (FS 35164; USN Intermediate Blue), which is rumored to come close to the color in worn state.

The undersides were painted with Humbrol 23 (RAF Duck Egg Blue), which I found to be a suitable alternative to the more greenish RAF Sky, even though it’s a pretty light interpretation.

Tail and spinner were painted white, actually a mix of Humbrol 22 (Gloss White) and 196 (Light Grey, RAL 7035) so that there would be some contrast room left for post-shading with pure white.

The interior of cockpit and landing gear wells was painted with zinc chromate primer yellow (Humbrol 81), while the landing gear struts became Humbrol 56 (Aluminum Dope). The radiator ducts received an interior in aluminum (Revell 99).

 

In order to simulate wear and tear as well as the makeshift character of the camouflage I painted the wings’ leading edges and some other neuralgic areas in aluminum (Revell 99, too) first, before the basic camouflage tones were added in a somewhat uneven fashion, with the metallized areas showing through.

Once dry, the model received an overall washing with thinned black ink and a through dry-brushing treatment with lighter shades of the basic tones (including Humbrol 30, 122 and 145) for post-panel-shading and weathering, esp. on the upper surfaces.

 

The decals are a mix from a Rising Decals sheet for various RNZAF aircraft (which turned out to be nicely printed, but rather thin so that they lacked opacity and rigidity), and for the tactical markings I stuck to the RNZAF practice of applying just a simple number or letter code to frontline aircraft instead of full RAF-style letter codes. The latter were used only on aircraft based on home soil, since the RNZAF’s frontline units had a different organization with an aircraft pool allocated to the squadrons. Through maintenance these circulated and were AFAIK not rigidly attached to specific units, hence there was no typical two-letter squadron code applied to them, just single ID letters or numbers, and these were typically painted on the aircraft nose and/or the fin, not on the fuselage next to the roundel. The nose art under the cockpit is a mix of markings from P-40s and F4Us.

 

The white ID bands on fuselage and wings are simple white decal strips from TL-Modellbau. While this, together with the all-white tail, might be overdone and outdated towards mid-1945, I gave the Kiwi-Mustang some extra markings for a more exciting look – and the aircraft’s profile actually reminds a lot of the Ki-61, so that they definitely make sense.

 

Towards the finish line, some additional dry-brushing with grey and silver was done, soot stains were added with graphite to the exhaust areas and the machine gun ports, and the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

  

After the recent, massive YA-14 kitbashing project, this Mustang was – despite some challenges of the RS Models kit itself – a simple and quick “relief” project, realized in just a couple of days. Despite being built OOB, the result looks quite exotic, both through the paint scheme with RNZAF colors, but also through the unusual roundels and the striking ID markings (for a Mustang). I was skeptical at first, but the aircraft looks good and the camouflage in RNZAF colors even proved to be effective when set into the right landscape context (beauty pics).

Found this used Minolta 35-80 zoom macro lens for only $30.00 (USD) It is surprisingly sharp. Not the fastest lens but good for some outdoor work.

Fastest Spy plane

fastest way how to get over a girlfriend best how to get my ex girlfriend back back together back ==>

92 honest-to-goodness rear wheel horsepower in a perfectly set-up package that weighs less than 300 pounds. Arguably the fastest DB1 in North America and likely the only one set-up for serious track day work.

 

Noted moto journalist, Chief Instructor at Yamaha Champions Riding School and Sport Riding Techniques author Nick Ienatsch rode the bike at Mosport last week and had this to say: "Buy it. My experience on Steve's DB-1 at Mosport couldn't have been more positive. He rolled it off the trailer Saturday morning, we rode the hell out of it all weekend, and he rode it back onto the trailer Sunday night. All Steve did was add gas. Bulletproof and extremely fun, surprisingly quick...probably the fourth-quickest lap time in the fast group at DOCC. The motor pulls strong, the bike sounds right and the chassis is sorted and composed at the limit. The problems? All the new sport bikes in the way during lapping!!"

 

The machine started out as a pretty tired and far removed from stock DB1 that was brought over from Europe by the previous owner and as such, it made an excellent candidate for a full-on hot-rod. The bike was completely stripped-down and I started on the process of renewing all the rolling chassis components and rebuilding the motor over a period of 22 months. The end result is an absolute riot on the race track – really sharp handling as would be expected with a platform as short as the DB1, but with excellent stability. With 93hp and 63ftlbs of torque, the little bike goes like a scalded cat. Given that the Montjuich cams are being used, I would have expected a more peaky delivery, but the Meyers Performance 790 kit beefed-up the bottom end significantly. As you can see by the dyno chart in the pics, peak torque is at 6,500rpm and there’s usable stuff as low as 5,500.

 

I’ve ridden the bike at the Ducati Owners Club events at Mosport in July 2013 and May 2014 as well as at NHIS in October 2013 - and have been amazed at how well the whole package worked at speed. The DB1 Is surprisingly comfortable and easy to ride fast – and absolutely gorgeous sounding. My log shows 6 hours of riding time on the motor and I just completed a full post-track day service.

 

Here are the specs on the build:

 

Chassis:

 

DB1 chassis, swing arm with new swing arm pin, motor mount spacers and steering head bearings / races

Custom battery box with a Shorai L-ion battery – also mounts the Kokusan ignitors, solenoid and new regulator

Custom mounts for Dyna 3-ohm coils

Custom oil cooler mount, Starlight hoses with Earls fittings

Custom oil cooler and feed/return adapters

Carbon fiber dash

Domino quick action throttle

Custom built Stadium shock with rebound + hi/lo speed compression adjustment

Rebuilt DB1 series Marzocchi M1Rs

PM 17” spun aluminum wheels with Pirelli Superbike Slicks (SC1 front and SC2 rear)

300mm EBC full floating rotors with Brembo P3034 calipers and Menani caliper adapters

Braided steel hydraulic lines

Custom rear caliper mount and Brembo racing 2-piston caliper

Milled footpeg hangers

AFAM lightweight front & rear sprockets

Brembo 996 brake and clutch pumps

Airtech bodywork (this is the first pull they did off the mold and is much lighter than normal

Paint by Peach Pit (Robbi Nigl)

Custom wiring harness

Aluminum & titanium fasteners throughout

loudbike open NCR replica exhaust in 304 stainless

 

Motor:

 

750 F1 (Montjuich) base with Meyers Performance 12:1 790cc kit

Lightened clutch basket, clutch housing, primaries, flywheel and clutch cover

JPrecision heads (Stage IV Pantah) with new valves, guides & seats

Montjuich ("P") cams with Bucchi adjustable pulleys – timing set at 102.5 degrees at lobe centers)

Malossi 41mm carbs

Modified Old Racing Spares cam end covers

Top-end lubrication via cam end cover feed

Exact Fit timing belts

New Kokusan pick-ups

Aluminum & Titanium fasteners throughout

Dyno tuned to 93hp and 63ftlbs of torque (I terminated the pulls at 8,500rpm, so there’s more on tap)

 

Please check out the dyno pull videos at www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tVaaTTa3jA&feature=share&amp... and www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hU55YhUYY&feature=share&amp... . Note that I was still fooling around with jetting in the first video, so you can see the stumble as the motor came out of the lower rpm range. The final jetting set up has the motor pulling cleanly from 4,000rpm. The 2nd video is one of the heat cycle sessions as I was breaking the motor in. You can also track the progress of the build on my blog:

 

loudbike.blogs.com/loud_bike/2013/08/mosport-part-1-the-b...

 

loudbike.blogs.com/loud_bike/2013/07/1985-bimota-db1-race...

 

loudbike.blogs.com/loud_bike/2013/03/1985-bimota-db1-race...

 

loudbike.blogs.com/loud_bike/2012/12/the-bimota-db1.html

 

loudbike.blogs.com/loud_bike/2012/05/ducati-750-tt1-and-b...

 

loudbike.blogs.com/loud_bike/2011/12/winter-2011-loudbike...

 

And finally, there are hi-rez copies of the pics used in this listing at: www.flickr.com/photos/loudbike/sets/72157634524192692/ To get to the hi-rez images, select one and then click on the icon in the lower right of the page (three white dots) and select view all sizes from the drop-down menu.

 

There are a few surface cracks developing in the bodywork that are most visible in the hi-rez pics (it’s inevitable; the bodywork is paper-thin except in the main support area between the four mounting studs).

 

This is a fully-sorted track bike that’s ready to go. Add gas, tickle the carbs, push the starter button and have at it!

 

This is a rare and unique machine. Consider that a standard DB1 in decent shape will fetch north of $19k: add 30 reliable HP, knock almost 60lbs off the curb weight, upgrade the wheels, suspension & brakes and you get a sense for what it would cost to build this machine. Reserve has been set accordingly.

 

I'm happy to assisting world-wide shipping. My customers have used the following companies with very good results:

 

North American shipments:

Adam or Jacqui

TFX International Specialized Vehicle Transport

11 City View Drive

Etobicoke. ON M9W 5A5

Canada

Phone 416.243.8531

Fax 416.243.8886

www.tfxinternational.com

 

Mackie Auto Transport

933 Bloor St. W.

Oshawa, ON, Canada L1J 5Y7

1-905-728-2400

 

e-mail: motorcyclemoves@mackiegroup.com

 

International shipments:

Tony or Amanda

Inter-Par Logistics Inc.

3845 Nashua Drive

Mississauga, ON L4V 1R3

Tel.: 905-678-1288

Fax: 905-678-1289

e-mail: tl@inter-par.com or sc@inter-par.com

 

Questions? Please feel free to send me an email at steve@loudbike.com - or you can call me anytime at 1-613-230-7448.

 

NOW ON eBay

 

- See more at: loudbike.blogs.com/vintage_cycles_for_sale/#sthash.1wwAYs...

www.loudbike.com

Fastest Time of Day, from 1981 after painting the Screamin Eagle 1. then we hit the road and did our Mutual hobby, this was an event put on by the New Mexico Corvette Association group, event held in Santa Fe, the both of us shared the Mens / Ladies fastest time of day, but more than that those of the Family and friends requested for me to share some of what ever photographs we had. as with any recorded photo it represents, precious moments. the tow rig, 1964 GMC V6 305 cubic inch 4 on the floor, with granny Low. purchase price $ 1,500 1975, I added the steel bed and ramps, did all the welding and fabrication, to include an extra fuel cell, 20 gallons now the capacity 38 gallons, In 1983 we updated to a one ton dually . 64 GMC our trusty ride from Colorado to Florida. and many points in between. the added compartments for spares, rear ends for the eagle, extra tires / wheels. service parts, standard and specialty. guesstimate total mileage in our possession about 68 K miles. we also had air, stereo, CB and Porto potty. but the memories and stories, aplenty ! the beauty is when we got the 1983 1-ton, this sold for $ 1,500. Memories keep us younger, this also part of my vintage photo collection, Photo restoration, one nephew, collects Family photo images. 2021 the togetherness = 54 years, Still Love Ya in the Air !!

Fastest Spy plane

This is a photograph from the Rathfarnham 5KM Road Race and Fun Run which took place in Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin, Ireland on Sunday 28th September 2013 at 10:00. This is one of the most popular runs in South County Dublin and is held in support of St. Luke's Cancer Hospital, Rathgar. This year's race attracted over 1,300 participants and the run is open to runners, joggers and walkers. The course is one of the fastest 5ks in the country with a downhill start and finish. This is an excellently organised race with marhsalling at every junction and Garda enforced road closures for the duration of the race. This race was held on a beautiful autumn morning. There was little or no breeze and there was mild temperatures of around 15C for the race.

 

This is a photograph which is part of a large set of photographs taken at the 1KM and 4KM mark on the course. The entire set of photographs can be found here on our Flickr profile at the following link: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157647710188747/

  

Timing and event management was provided by Precision Timing. Results are available on their website at www.precisiontiming.net/result.aspx?v=2100 with additional material available on their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/davidprecisiontiming?fref=ts) See their promotional video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-7_TUVwJ6Q

 

The race starts at the easterly side of the N81 Tempelogue Road and Springfield Avenue. The start area is shown here on Google StreetView (goo.gl/maps/kg7FY). The race follows Springfield Avenue along the side of Bushy Park. The race overlaps the final kilometer and the finish as it proceeds to the Rathfarnham Road (Shown here Google Streetview goo.gl/maps/gRrI6). The route heads north on Rathfarnham road as there is a very gentle incline until the junction with the Temleogue Road is reached and runners make a sharp left turn onto the N81 (shown here Google StreetView goo.gl/maps/51S2t). The race then heads south along Templeogue Road where the runners can see the course unfold straight infront of them. The race turns left at Springfield Avenue again (start area) and the final Kilometer is as the first to the finish area (Google Streetview goo.gl/maps/1R08S) just before the Rathfarnham Road Junction. Overall this course is a flat and fast course. There is a net gain of 15M over the whole course with slightly downhill gradients at the start and towards the finish. The course is completely left-handed which makes for favourable conditions. All being equal the course provides an excellent opportunity for every from elite competitors to joggers to set a fast time for themselves.

 

Some Useful Links

2014 Results on Precision Timing www.precisiontiming.net/result.aspx?v=2211

2013 race on Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=dglr_F4O4Z8

Location Map: Start Area: goo.gl/maps/kg7FY (Google Streetview) and Finish Area: goo.gl/maps/1R08S (Google StreetView)

The 2013 Rathfarnham 5KM Race Results on Precision Timing: www.precisiontiming.net/result/racetimer?v=%252Fen%252Fra...

Race Headquarters are situated in Terenure College (Google StreetView goo.gl/maps/e0ou9)

The Rathfarnham 5KM 2013 Event Page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/events/118419535019548/

The Map My Run Course Outline Trace for the 2013 Course: www.mapmyrun.com/ie/dublin-l/rathfarnham-5k-run-sunday-29...

Rathfarnham Athletic Club Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/rathfarnham.ac

Rathfarnham Athletic Club Webpage: www.athleticsrathfarnham.ie/

Rathfarnham 5KM Page on the Rathfarnham Athletic Club Website: www.athleticsrathfarnham.ie/rathfarnham-5k

Nominated Charity for the 2013 Event - St. Luke's Cancer Hospital, Rathgar, Dublin: www.friendsofstlukes.ie/

YouTube Video of the Course Record from 2010 being set: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u73tgrp2Yo

Friends of St. Luke's Cancer Hospital Page about the 2013 race: www.friendsofstlukes.ie/news-events/rathfarnham-5k-run.16...

Racepix.com - Photographs from the 2013 Event: www.racepix.com/Rathfarnham-5km/pictures/979/

Racepix.com - Photographs from the 2012 Event: www.racepix.com/Rathfarnham-5km/pictures/789/

Lindie Naughton's Photographs from the 2013 Event: lindie.zenfolio.com/p927428726

Lindie Naughton's Photographs from the 2011 Event: lindie.zenfolio.com/p512606508

A wonderful archieve of results from the race dating back to 1998: www.athleticsrathfarnham.ie/rathfarnham-5k/rathfarnham-5k...

  

Can I use these photographs directly from Flickr on my social media account(s)?

 

Yes - of course you can! Flickr provides several ways to share this and other photographs in this Flickr set. You can share to: email, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJournal, and Wordpress and Blogger blog sites. Your mobile, tablet, or desktop device will also offer you several different options for sharing this photo page on your social media outlets.

 

We take these photographs as a hobby and as a contribution to the running community in Ireland. Our only "cost" is our request that if you are using these images: (1) on social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter,LinkedIn, Google+, etc or (2) other websites, blogs, web multimedia, commercial/promotional material that you must provide a link back to our Flickr page to attribute us.

 

This also extends the use of these images for Facebook profile pictures. In these cases please make a separate wall or blog post with a link to our Flickr page. If you do not know how this should be done for Facebook or other social media please email us and we will be happy to help suggest how to link to us.

 

I want to download these pictures to my computer or device?

 

You can download the photographic image here direct to your computer or device. This version is the low resolution web-quality image. How to download will vary slight from device to device and from browser to browser. However - look for a symbol with three dots 'ooo' or the link to 'View/Download' all sizes. When you click on either of these you will be presented with the option to download the image. Remember just doing a right-click and "save target as" will not work on Flickr.

 

I want get full resolution, print-quality, copies of these photographs?

 

If you just need these photographs for online usage then they can be used directly once you respect their Creative Commons license and provide a link back to our Flickr set if you use them. For offline usage and printing all of the photographs posted here on this Flickr set are available free, at no cost, at full image resolution.

 

Please email petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com with the links to the photographs you would like to obtain a full resolution copy of. We also ask race organisers, media, etc to ask for permission before use of our images for flyers, posters, etc. We reserve the right to refuse a request.

 

In summary please remember when requesting photographs from us - If you are using the photographs online all we ask is for you to provide a link back to our Flickr set or Flickr pages. You will find the link above clearly outlined in the description text which accompanies this photograph. Taking these photographs and preparing them for online posting does take a significant effort and time. We are not posting photographs to Flickr for commercial reasons. If you really like what we do please spread the link around your social media, send us an email, leave a comment beside the photographs, send us a Flickr email, etc. If you are using the photographs in newspapers or magazines we ask that you mention where the original photograph came from.

 

I would like to contribute something for your photograph(s)?

Many people offer payment for our photographs. As stated above we do not charge for these photographs. We take these photographs as our contribution to the running community in Ireland. If you feel that the photograph(s) you request are good enough that you would consider paying for their purchase from other photographic providers or in other circumstances we would suggest that you can provide a donation to any of the great charities in Ireland who do work for Cancer Care or Cancer Research in Ireland.

 

We use Creative Commons Licensing for these photographs

We use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License for all our photographs here in this photograph set. What does this mean in reality?

The explaination is very simple.

Attribution- anyone using our photographs gives us an appropriate credit for it. This ensures that people aren't taking our photographs and passing them off as their own. This usually just mean putting a link to our photographs somewhere on your website, blog, or Facebook where other people can see it.

ShareAlike – anyone can use these photographs, and make changes if they like, or incorporate them into a bigger project, but they must make those changes available back to the community under the same terms.

 

Creative Commons aims to encourage creative sharing. See some examples of Creative Commons photographs on Flickr: www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

 

I ran in the race - but my photograph doesn't appear here in your Flickr set! What gives?

 

As mentioned above we take these photographs as a hobby and as a voluntary contribution to the running community in Ireland. Very often we have actually ran in the same race and then switched to photographer mode after we finished the race. Consequently, we feel that we have no obligations to capture a photograph of every participant in the race. However, we do try our very best to capture as many participants as possible. But this is sometimes not possible for a variety of reasons:

 

     ►You were hidden behind another participant as you passed our camera

     ►Weather or lighting conditions meant that we had some photographs with blurry content which we did not upload to our Flickr set

     ►There were too many people - some races attract thousands of participants and as amateur photographs we cannot hope to capture photographs of everyone

     ►We simply missed you - sorry about that - we did our best!

  

You can email us petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com to enquire if we have a photograph of you which didn't make the final Flickr selection for the race. But we cannot promise that there will be photograph there. As alternatives we advise you to contact the race organisers to enquire if there were (1) other photographs taking photographs at the race event or if (2) there were professional commercial sports photographers taking photographs which might have some photographs of you available for purchase. You might find some links for further information above.

 

Don't like your photograph here?

That's OK! We understand!

 

If, for any reason, you are not happy or comfortable with your picture appearing here in this photoset on Flickr then please email us at petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com and we will remove it as soon as possible. We give careful consideration to each photograph before uploading.

 

I want to tell people about these great photographs!

Great! Thank you! The best link to spread the word around is probably http://www.flickr.com/peterm7/sets

  

Summit is the fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the TOP500 list, which ranks global computing systems. Summit is the third ORNL system to top this list, preceded by the Jaguar and Titan supercomputers. Representatives from ORNL, IBM, NVIDIA, Red Hat, and Mellanox Technologies accepted the award at the ISC High Performance conference in Frankfurt, Germany.

 

+ Read more: www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-s-summit-supercomputer-named-world...

 

Image credit: NVIDIA

Spirit of Australia is a speed boat built by Ken Warby that broke and set the world water speed record on 8 October 1978. It is still the fastest boat!

 

If you want to see more micro-MOC (with instructions), check out the following book, for which I contributed some models:

 

Tiny LEGO Wonders - www.nostarch.com/tinylegowonders

 

Or check out my rebrickable page:

rebrickable.com/designer/Clark_Taylor/

Click here to see full shoot and details about the car on the Vossen website!

 

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Vossen Wheels

Vossen Instagram (@vossen)

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"The Chiron is the fastest, most powerful, and exclusive production super sports car in Bugatti’s history. Its sophisticated design, innovative technology, and iconic, performance-oriented form make it a unique masterpiece of art, form and technique, that pushes boundaries beyond imagination. Bugatti owes its distinctive character to a family of artists and engineers, and has always strived to offer the extraordinary, the unrivalled, the best. Every element of the Chiron is a combination of reminiscence to its history and the most innovative technology. The result is a unique creation of enduring value, and breathtaking automotive accomplishment..."

 

Source: Bugatti

  

Photographed in London, United Kingdom.

  

____________________________________________________

 

Marcin Wojciechowski Photography

 

Marcinek_55 Instagram

SPORTS604 VOLLEYBALL PLAYOFFS 2010

 

Sponsored by Red Bull & Terracotta Modern Chinese Restaurant

 

photos by Ron Sombion Gallery & PacBlue Printing

 

www.Sports604.com

www.RedBull.ca

www.TerracottaVancouver.com

 

www.PacBluePrinting.com

www.RonSombilonGallery.com

  

About Sports604 -Basketball-Bowling, Dodgeball-Volleyball-California Kickball

 

"Vancouver's Fastest Growing Recreational Sports League"

 

Sports604 leagues aim to cover all the fundamentals of league play: structure, competitiveness, recreation, exercise and fun!

 

Levels range from beginners to seasoned vets. Not to mention, we do it with a bit of style. Not only do we include team t-shirts as a part of the registration fee, we love to rock in our socks to music! Yup, we crank up the volume when the whistle blows so everyone can get hyped before they play and groove while they play

     

.

This is a photograph from the annual St. Coca's AC 5KM Road Race 2013 which was held in Kilcock, Co. Kildare, Ireland at 20:00 on Friday 27th June 2013. This superb road race is now firmly established again as one of the fastest and best organised road races of it's kind in Leinster. The course is left handed and starts outside the 'Bawn Og' St. Coca's AC track. It then proceeds around a well known local walking route around Laragh and in the closing kilometer runs parallel to the Royal Canal into the finish at the railway station. The members of St. Coca's AC and the many volunteers from the local community must be given great praise for organising another fantastic night of racing for runners, joggers, and walkers. The 5KM course is very flat with the exception of short incline up a motorway overpass and makes its way along narrow country lanes sheltered on either side by hedgerows. The weather was dry and humid and this made a good evening for an enjoyable night for everyone with a large crowd gathering at the finish to cheer on participants. Over 400 people participated in the race. There was a fantastic spread of refreshments (cakes, biscuits, sandwiches and hot drinks) in the school afterwards.

 

We have a large set of photographs from the event today. The full set is accessible at: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157645423471903/

 

Timing and event management was provided by Precision Timing. Results are available on their website at www.precisiontiming.net/result/racetimer with additional material available on their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/davidprecisiontiming?fref=ts) See their promotional video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-7_TUVwJ6Q

 

Reading on a Smartphone or tablet? Don't forget to scroll down further to read more about this race and see important Internet links to other information about the race! You can also find out how to access and download these photographs.

 

Some Useful Links

2014 St. Coca's 5KM Results www.precisiontiming.net/result.aspx?v=2056

GPS Trace of the 5KM Course (course hasn't changed in a few years) connect.garmin.com/activity/194011978

 

St. Coca's AC Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/stcocas.ac?ref=ts&fref=ts

St. Coca's Race Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/stcocas.roadrace?ref=ts&fref=ts

Start/finish area on Google Maps [Start: www.google.ie/maps/@53.397601,-6.675909,15z Finish: goo.gl/maps/3kPKq] are all within easy access of race HQ and the local village.

Google Streetview of the Location of the Race Finish: goo.gl/maps/3kPKq

 

Our Flickr Photograph Set of the St. Coca's 5KM 2013: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157634382263872/

Our Flickr Photograph Set of the St. Coca's 5KM 2012: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157630347296616/

Our Flickr Photograph Set of the St. Coca's 5KM 2011: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157627042558602/

 

The Boards.ie Discussion Forum Thread about the Race in 2014: www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057223729

The Boards.ie Discussion Forum Thread about the Race in 2013: www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056954512

Read the Irish Heart Foundation Booklet on the "Slí na Sláinte" which the race encorporates: www.irishheart.ie/media/pub/slinaslainte/maps/kilcock.pdf

 

Can I use these photographs directly from Flickr on my social media account(s)?

 

Yes - of course you can! Flickr provides several ways to share this and other photographs in this Flickr set. You can share to: email, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJournal, and Wordpress and Blogger blog sites. Your mobile, tablet, or desktop device will also offer you several different options for sharing this photo page on your social media outlets.

 

We take these photographs as a hobby and as a contribution to the running community in Ireland. Our only "cost" is our request that if you are using these images: (1) on social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter,LinkedIn, Google+, etc or (2) other websites, blogs, web multimedia, commercial/promotional material that you must provide a link back to our Flickr page to attribute us.

 

This also extends the use of these images for Facebook profile pictures. In these cases please make a separate wall or blog post with a link to our Flickr page. If you do not know how this should be done for Facebook or other social media please email us and we will be happy to help suggest how to link to us.

 

I want to download these pictures to my computer or device?

 

You can download the photographic image here direct to your computer or device. This version is the low resolution web-quality image. How to download will vary slight from device to device and from browser to browser. However - look for a symbol with three dots 'ooo' or the link to 'View/Download' all sizes. When you click on either of these you will be presented with the option to download the image. Remember just doing a right-click and "save target as" will not work on Flickr.

 

I want get full resolution, print-quality, copies of these photographs?

 

If you just need these photographs for online usage then they can be used directly once you respect their Creative Commons license and provide a link back to our Flickr set if you use them. For offline usage and printing all of the photographs posted here on this Flickr set are available free, at no cost, at full image resolution.

 

Please email petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com with the links to the photographs you would like to obtain a full resolution copy of. We also ask race organisers, media, etc to ask for permission before use of our images for flyers, posters, etc. We reserve the right to refuse a request.

 

In summary please remember when requesting photographs from us - If you are using the photographs online all we ask is for you to provide a link back to our Flickr set or Flickr pages. You will find the link above clearly outlined in the description text which accompanies this photograph. Taking these photographs and preparing them for online posting does take a significant effort and time. We are not posting photographs to Flickr for commercial reasons. If you really like what we do please spread the link around your social media, send us an email, leave a comment beside the photographs, send us a Flickr email, etc. If you are using the photographs in newspapers or magazines we ask that you mention where the original photograph came from.

 

I would like to contribute something for your photograph(s)?

Many people offer payment for our photographs. As stated above we do not charge for these photographs. We take these photographs as our contribution to the running community in Ireland. If you feel that the photograph(s) you request are good enough that you would consider paying for their purchase from other photographic providers or in other circumstances we would suggest that you can provide a donation to any of the great charities in Ireland who do work for Cancer Care or Cancer Research in Ireland.

 

We use Creative Commons Licensing for these photographs

We use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License for all our photographs here in this photograph set. What does this mean in reality?

The explaination is very simple.

Attribution- anyone using our photographs gives us an appropriate credit for it. This ensures that people aren't taking our photographs and passing them off as their own. This usually just mean putting a link to our photographs somewhere on your website, blog, or Facebook where other people can see it.

ShareAlike – anyone can use these photographs, and make changes if they like, or incorporate them into a bigger project, but they must make those changes available back to the community under the same terms.

 

Creative Commons aims to encourage creative sharing. See some examples of Creative Commons photographs on Flickr: www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

 

I ran in the race - but my photograph doesn't appear here in your Flickr set! What gives?

 

As mentioned above we take these photographs as a hobby and as a voluntary contribution to the running community in Ireland. Very often we have actually ran in the same race and then switched to photographer mode after we finished the race. Consequently, we feel that we have no obligations to capture a photograph of every participant in the race. However, we do try our very best to capture as many participants as possible. But this is sometimes not possible for a variety of reasons:

 

     ►You were hidden behind another participant as you passed our camera

     ►Weather or lighting conditions meant that we had some photographs with blurry content which we did not upload to our Flickr set

     ►There were too many people - some races attract thousands of participants and as amateur photographs we cannot hope to capture photographs of everyone

     ►We simply missed you - sorry about that - we did our best!

  

You can email us petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com to enquire if we have a photograph of you which didn't make the final Flickr selection for the race. But we cannot promise that there will be photograph there. As alternatives we advise you to contact the race organisers to enquire if there were (1) other photographs taking photographs at the race event or if (2) there were professional commercial sports photographers taking photographs which might have some photographs of you available for purchase. You might find some links for further information above.

 

Don't like your photograph here?

That's OK! We understand!

 

If, for any reason, you are not happy or comfortable with your picture appearing here in this photoset on Flickr then please email us at petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com and we will remove it as soon as possible. We give careful consideration to each photograph before uploading.

 

I want to tell people about these great photographs!

Great! Thank you! The best link to spread the word around is probably http://www.flickr.com/peterm7/sets

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This is a photograph from the annual St. Coca's AC 5KM Road Race 2013 which was held in Kilcock, Co. Kildare, Ireland at 20:00 on Friday 27th June 2013. This superb road race is now firmly established again as one of the fastest and best organised road races of it's kind in Leinster. The course is left handed and starts outside the 'Bawn Og' St. Coca's AC track. It then proceeds around a well known local walking route around Laragh and in the closing kilometer runs parallel to the Royal Canal into the finish at the railway station. The members of St. Coca's AC and the many volunteers from the local community must be given great praise for organising another fantastic night of racing for runners, joggers, and walkers. The 5KM course is very flat with the exception of short incline up a motorway overpass and makes its way along narrow country lanes sheltered on either side by hedgerows. The weather was dry and humid and this made a good evening for an enjoyable night for everyone with a large crowd gathering at the finish to cheer on participants. Over 400 people participated in the race. There was a fantastic spread of refreshments (cakes, biscuits, sandwiches and hot drinks) in the school afterwards.

 

We have a large set of photographs from the event today. The full set is accessible at: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157645423471903/

 

Timing and event management was provided by Precision Timing. Results are available on their website at www.precisiontiming.net/result/racetimer with additional material available on their Facebook page (www.facebook.com/davidprecisiontiming?fref=ts) See their promotional video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-7_TUVwJ6Q

 

Reading on a Smartphone or tablet? Don't forget to scroll down further to read more about this race and see important Internet links to other information about the race! You can also find out how to access and download these photographs.

 

Some Useful Links

2014 St. Coca's 5KM Results www.precisiontiming.net/result.aspx?v=2056

GPS Trace of the 5KM Course (course hasn't changed in a few years) connect.garmin.com/activity/194011978

 

St. Coca's AC Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/stcocas.ac?ref=ts&fref=ts

St. Coca's Race Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/stcocas.roadrace?ref=ts&fref=ts

Start/finish area on Google Maps [Start: www.google.ie/maps/@53.397601,-6.675909,15z Finish: goo.gl/maps/3kPKq] are all within easy access of race HQ and the local village.

Google Streetview of the Location of the Race Finish: goo.gl/maps/3kPKq

 

Our Flickr Photograph Set of the St. Coca's 5KM 2013: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157634382263872/

Our Flickr Photograph Set of the St. Coca's 5KM 2012: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157630347296616/

Our Flickr Photograph Set of the St. Coca's 5KM 2011: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157627042558602/

 

The Boards.ie Discussion Forum Thread about the Race in 2014: www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057223729

The Boards.ie Discussion Forum Thread about the Race in 2013: www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056954512

Read the Irish Heart Foundation Booklet on the "Slí na Sláinte" which the race encorporates: www.irishheart.ie/media/pub/slinaslainte/maps/kilcock.pdf

 

Can I use these photographs directly from Flickr on my social media account(s)?

 

Yes - of course you can! Flickr provides several ways to share this and other photographs in this Flickr set. You can share to: email, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJournal, and Wordpress and Blogger blog sites. Your mobile, tablet, or desktop device will also offer you several different options for sharing this photo page on your social media outlets.

 

We take these photographs as a hobby and as a contribution to the running community in Ireland. Our only "cost" is our request that if you are using these images: (1) on social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter,LinkedIn, Google+, etc or (2) other websites, blogs, web multimedia, commercial/promotional material that you must provide a link back to our Flickr page to attribute us.

 

This also extends the use of these images for Facebook profile pictures. In these cases please make a separate wall or blog post with a link to our Flickr page. If you do not know how this should be done for Facebook or other social media please email us and we will be happy to help suggest how to link to us.

 

I want to download these pictures to my computer or device?

 

You can download the photographic image here direct to your computer or device. This version is the low resolution web-quality image. How to download will vary slight from device to device and from browser to browser. However - look for a symbol with three dots 'ooo' or the link to 'View/Download' all sizes. When you click on either of these you will be presented with the option to download the image. Remember just doing a right-click and "save target as" will not work on Flickr.

 

I want get full resolution, print-quality, copies of these photographs?

 

If you just need these photographs for online usage then they can be used directly once you respect their Creative Commons license and provide a link back to our Flickr set if you use them. For offline usage and printing all of the photographs posted here on this Flickr set are available free, at no cost, at full image resolution.

 

Please email petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com with the links to the photographs you would like to obtain a full resolution copy of. We also ask race organisers, media, etc to ask for permission before use of our images for flyers, posters, etc. We reserve the right to refuse a request.

 

In summary please remember when requesting photographs from us - If you are using the photographs online all we ask is for you to provide a link back to our Flickr set or Flickr pages. You will find the link above clearly outlined in the description text which accompanies this photograph. Taking these photographs and preparing them for online posting does take a significant effort and time. We are not posting photographs to Flickr for commercial reasons. If you really like what we do please spread the link around your social media, send us an email, leave a comment beside the photographs, send us a Flickr email, etc. If you are using the photographs in newspapers or magazines we ask that you mention where the original photograph came from.

 

I would like to contribute something for your photograph(s)?

Many people offer payment for our photographs. As stated above we do not charge for these photographs. We take these photographs as our contribution to the running community in Ireland. If you feel that the photograph(s) you request are good enough that you would consider paying for their purchase from other photographic providers or in other circumstances we would suggest that you can provide a donation to any of the great charities in Ireland who do work for Cancer Care or Cancer Research in Ireland.

 

We use Creative Commons Licensing for these photographs

We use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License for all our photographs here in this photograph set. What does this mean in reality?

The explaination is very simple.

Attribution- anyone using our photographs gives us an appropriate credit for it. This ensures that people aren't taking our photographs and passing them off as their own. This usually just mean putting a link to our photographs somewhere on your website, blog, or Facebook where other people can see it.

ShareAlike – anyone can use these photographs, and make changes if they like, or incorporate them into a bigger project, but they must make those changes available back to the community under the same terms.

 

Creative Commons aims to encourage creative sharing. See some examples of Creative Commons photographs on Flickr: www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

 

I ran in the race - but my photograph doesn't appear here in your Flickr set! What gives?

 

As mentioned above we take these photographs as a hobby and as a voluntary contribution to the running community in Ireland. Very often we have actually ran in the same race and then switched to photographer mode after we finished the race. Consequently, we feel that we have no obligations to capture a photograph of every participant in the race. However, we do try our very best to capture as many participants as possible. But this is sometimes not possible for a variety of reasons:

 

     ►You were hidden behind another participant as you passed our camera

     ►Weather or lighting conditions meant that we had some photographs with blurry content which we did not upload to our Flickr set

     ►There were too many people - some races attract thousands of participants and as amateur photographs we cannot hope to capture photographs of everyone

     ►We simply missed you - sorry about that - we did our best!

  

You can email us petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com to enquire if we have a photograph of you which didn't make the final Flickr selection for the race. But we cannot promise that there will be photograph there. As alternatives we advise you to contact the race organisers to enquire if there were (1) other photographs taking photographs at the race event or if (2) there were professional commercial sports photographers taking photographs which might have some photographs of you available for purchase. You might find some links for further information above.

 

Don't like your photograph here?

That's OK! We understand!

 

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South African player AB de Villiers became the fastest batsman to reach 8000 One Day International (ODI) runs on 26 August 2015. de Villiers achieved the record during the 3rd ODI against New Zealand in Durban.South Africa won the match by 62 runs and also won the series by 2-1.

AB De Villiers,... www.sharegk.com/curent-affairs/latest/ab-de-villiers-brok...

 

‪#‎gk‬ ‪‪#‎EntranceExam‬ ‪#‎OnlineTest‬ ‪#‎Aptitude‬‬

Credits: NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Bart Dehaese

ანა ლომინაძემ (საქართველო) ბორკილითა და ჯაჭვით ხელფეხშეკრულ მდგომარეობაში 25 მეტრი გაცურა 21.76 წამში, 2014 წლის 3 აპრილს, დიღმის საცურაო აუზზე (თბილისი, საქართველო).

 

Ana Lominadze (Georgia) swam 25 meters in 21.76 seconds while wearing the handcuffs and leg irons on 3 April 2014, at the Dighomi Swimming Pool in Tbilisi, Georgia.

SONY DSC

Fastest way to build six pack abs

The Fastest Path to Zero Summit at the Ross School of Business on Central Campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI on April 8, 2019.

 

Photo: Joseph Xu/Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing

Bird of prey - Golden eagle - Tonka

The Golden Eagle is one of the largest, fastest, nimblest raptors in North America. Lustrous gold feathers gleam on the back of its head and neck; a powerful beak and talons advertise its hunting prowess. The golden eagle is one of the best-known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle.

 

Sometimes seen attacking large mammals, or fighting off coyotes or bears in defense of its prey and young, the Golden Eagle has long inspired both reverence and fear.

 

The golden eagle is a very large, dark brown raptor with broad wings, ranging from 26 to 40 inches in length and from 6 to over 7ft wingspan!

 

The voice of the golden eagle is considered weak, high and shrill, even being emphatically described as “quite pathetic” and “puppy-like”, considering the formidable size and nature of the species, "Silent but deadly"

 

The golden eagle is not threatened at the species level but efforts need to be taken to prevent extinctions . Within the United States, the golden eagle is legally protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. (see below for additional info)*

 

Hope you enjoyed my pics!

 

All rights reserved ©Pix.by.PegiSue

www.flickr.com/photos/pix-by-pegisue/

~Protect animals and wild life habitat around the World‎! ~

 

Taken @ San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Escondido, CA

 

*The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act:

The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 668-668c), enacted in 1940, and amended several times since then, prohibits anyone, without a permit issued by the Secretary of the Interior, from "taking" bald eagles, including their parts, nests, or eggs. The Act provides criminal penalties for persons who "take, possess, sell, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, at any time or any manner, any bald eagle ... [or any golden eagle], alive or dead, or any part, nest, or egg thereof." The Act defines "take" as "pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, molest or disturb."

-USFWS: Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act

 

fastest and also the longest multi-launch roller coaster in the world

Day 2 of Brands Hatch Brit Car into The Night and after a thrilling set of Qualifying and Racing Yesterday All Drivers were Ready Once again to Challenge the Circuit.

 

Some Drivers from the Previous Day were Seen Packing Up and Heading Home after a Brilliant Days Racing while Others were Just Arriving and Getting their Machines Prepared for The Race Track.

 

With an Action Packed Day to look forward to and Lots of Action for Both Qualifying and Racing Lets take a Look and See who is up First and Ready to Challenge This Almighty Indy Circuit.

 

Avon Tyres Intermarque Silhouettes-(Qualifying Results)

 

First Up onto the Circuit was The Intermarque Silhouettes and Thease Machines are Very Quick and Built to be as Light Weight as Possible by Using a Space Frame Chassis and a Fibreglass Body.

 

Lets Find out who Qualified were and Who Managed to Take Pole Position for Race 1.

 

In First Place Securing Pole Position and The Fastest Lap was (Danny Hun) in his Ford Autoxross Fiesta ST with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.454 and a Top Speed of 70.76mph. Great Lap there Danny Really Keeping that Car on the Track and Taking a Strong Pole Position.

 

In Second Place was (Pat Kiely) in his Vauxhall Tigra with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.813 and a Top Speed of 70.35mph. Brilliant Drive there Pat Nice Work and Fantastic Second Place on the Grid for Race 1.

 

In Third Place was (Malcom Blackman) in his Vauxhall Tigra with a Best Lap Time of 1:03.883 and a Top Speed of 68.07mph. Well Done Malcom a Massive Charge to Earn that P3 Spot on the Gird Lets Hope it can be turned into a Race Win Come Race 1.

 

What an Exciting End to Qualifying with the Likes of Danny Pat and Malcom All Looking Ready to Go for Race 1 but out of The Three Who Will be Able to Turn their Qualifying Position into a Race Win? Lets Find Out.

  

Avon Tyres Intermarque Silhouettes-(Race 1 Results)

 

After an Intense Battle During Qualifying which saw the Likes of Danny Hun take a Dominant Pole Position with Pat Kiely Second and Malcom Blackman Third this Grid is Looking to be Very Big and Very Fast. Lets Find Out Who Won and Who took Glory in the First Race of The Day.

 

In First Place Taking The Victory Was (Malcom Blackman) in his Vauxhall Tigra with a Best Lap Time of 57.507 and an Average Speed of 54.53mph. Congratulations Malcom Fantastic Drive and A Well Deserved Win in that Beautifully Prepared Vauxhall.

 

In Second Place was (Danny Hun) in his Ford Autoxross Fiesta ST with a Best Lap Time of 57.789 and an Average Speed of 54.49mph. Amazing Work there Danny Brilliant Drive and a Well Deserved P2 Finish over the Line.

 

In Third Place was (Pat Kiely) in his Vauxhall Tigra with a Best Lap Time of 57.346 and an Average Speed of 54.48mph. Great Work Pat Really Pushing Hard and Almost Catching Danny Hun Just Before The End by 0.157 Seconds there.

 

What a Fantastic First Race of The Day for The Intermarque Silhouettes with Some Incredible Winners in the Likes of Malcom Danny and Pat All Taking Superb Victories for their Respective Teams.

 

With Race 2 Coming Up Next Who will be the One to Retain their Crown at the Top of The Standings and Can the Likes of Pat and Danny Possibly Improve and start Putting Pressure on Malcom who Currently Reins Supreme?

 

Lets Find Out

 

Avon Tyres Intermarque Silhouettes-(Race 2 Results)

 

Race 2 and One Last Chance for The Top 3 To Battle it out and See who can Take Either Back to Back Victories at Brands Hatch or Who can Possibly Disrupt the Win Streak Currently Set by Malcom.

 

In First Place Taking The Last Victory was (Steve Burrows) in his Vauxhall Tigra with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.432 and an Average Speed of 69.99mph. Congratulations Steve What a Brilliant Bit of Driving there in Very Wet and Dark Conditions to Beat Malcom and Take Home a Fantastically Deserved Win.

 

In Second Place was (Dave York) in his Vauxhall Tigra with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.329 and an Average Speed of 69.59mph. Amazing Work there Dave Really Pushing that Vauxhall for All it was Worth and Doing Very Well to Keep it on the Damp and Slippery Track for a Superb P2 on the Podium.

 

In Third Place was (Malcom Blackman) in his Vauxhall Tigra with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.343 and an Average Speed of 69.50mph. Well Driven there Malcom Great Drive and A Really Good Finish in P3 from an Amazing Weekend of Racing.

 

What a Fantastic Weekend for The Intermarque Silhouettes and So many Amazing Winners in the Likes of Danny Pat Malcom Dave and Steve Who All Showed Incredible Wet Weather Skills and Kept there Cars Going to Take some Superb Victories. Well Done to All of the Other Drivers too Who Fought Hard on Track. Keep Pushing for that Victory and Good Luck.

 

BMR Super Saloons & CMMCS Tin-Tops-(Qualifying Results)

 

Next Up on to The Race Track was The Super Saloons and Tin Tops and Thease Machines not Only Have Incredible Liveries and Looks but they Also Pack a lot of Power and Variety in the Types of Race Cars and How they Handle.

 

From the Ford Escort WRC to the Peugeot 306 and even the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 10 Each Car and Driver Have a Certain Driving Style that can Either Mean the Difference Between a Loss or a Victory on the Race Track.

 

Lets Get to Qualifying and See Who Took Pole

 

In First Place Taking Pole Position and The Best Lap Was (Rod Birley) in his Ford Escort WRC with a Best Lap Time of 58.886 and a Top Speed of 73.84mph. Brilliant Drive from Birley as a Home Hero of Brands Hatch He Always Knows How to Take Almost Any Car and Get it onto Pole Position Fantastic Drive.

 

In Second Place was (Chris Basset) in his Peugeot 306 with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.040 and a Top Speed of 72.42mph. Fantastic Drive there Chris Pushing that Peugeot Hard for a Well Deserved P2 Finish Well Done.

 

In Third Place was (Nick Sutton) in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 10 with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.904 and a Top Speed of 70.24mph. Brilliant Drive there Nick Really Working Hard and Getting that Beautiful Lancer Evo into P3 on the Gird.

 

A Fantastic Qualifying Session for Tin Tops and Super Saloons with some Very Fast and Experienced Drivers in Rod Chris and Nick all Pushing their Machinery Hard and Gunning for a Victory. With Race 1 Just Around the Corner it will be Interesting to See who can Take the Victory and who can Defend their Position from the other Drivers who will no Doubt Be Ready and Waiting to Attack.

 

BMR Super Saloons & CMMCS Tin-Tops-(Race 1 Results)

 

In First Place Taking the Victory and The Fastest Lap was (Rod Birley) in his Ford Escort WRC with a Best Lap Time of 1:02.316 and an Average Speed of 57.41mph. Congratulations Rod a Really Incredible Bit of Driving in those Rain Soaked Conditions to take Home a Victory that the Whole Family will be Really Proud of. Amazing Drive.

 

In Second Place was (Steve Dann) in his VW Scirocco with a Best Lap Time of 1:02.502 and an Average Speed of 57.35mph. Great Driving there from Steve Taking the Fight Right to Birley at The End and Almost Catching him for the Race Win. Non the Less a Very Well Deserved P2 Finish.

 

In Third Place was (Nick Wall) in his Renault Clio with a Best Lap Time of 1:04.877 and an Average Speed of 55.89mph. Brilliant work there Nick A Fantastic P3 Finish in Conditions that were Very Challenging Indeed.

 

What an Incredible Race this was to Witness with the Start Being Behind the Safety Car before All of the Driver put their foot down and Went for it in conditions where at Times the Spray made it Impossible to see Anything.

 

A Big Congratulations to the likes of Rod Steve and Nick who All Drove Incredibly and Really Showed Everyone who the Rain Masters were around the Indy Circuit. A Big Congratulations to All of the Other Drivers too Who also Showed Incredible Bravery and Skill Navigating their way Around and Claiming some Incredible Victories of their own.

 

With Race 2 Coming Up Next will Rod be able to Hold onto his 1st Place Finish or Will the Likes of Nick and Steve Try to Take that 1st Place away from Rod? and Who Else May be able to Challenge this Trio of Fast and Capable Drivers.

 

Lets Find Out

 

BMR Super Saloons & CMMCS Tin-Tops-(Race 2 Results)

 

With The Circuit Now Entering Night fall it was Getting Very Difficult for The Drivers to see which will add a New Challenge to this Race. Will the Likes of Rod Birley be Able to Win Once Again?

 

In First Place Taking the Win and Fastest Lap was (Rod Birley) in his Ford Escort WRC with a Best Lap Time of 1:00.960 and an Average Speed of 60.83mph. Amazing Work there Rod Driven like a True Champion and a Fantastic Home Win to Add to the Already Incredible Win Streak at Brands Hatch.

 

In Second Place was (Nick Sutton) in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 10 with a Best Lap Time of 59.429 and an Average Speed of 60.74mph. Great Drive from Nick Once Again Showing his Brave and Fantastic Skills even at Night When the Lights go Out. Well Done.

 

In Third Place was (Steve Dann) in his VW Scirocco with a Best Lap Time of 1:02.227 and an Average Speed of 60.48mph. Nice Work Steve Really Good Drive for P3 Showing some Incredible Speed and Commitment Thought the Race.

 

What an Amazing Race from the Super Saloons and Tin Tops with some Incredible Drives and Victories from the likes of Rod Nick Sutton Nick Wall and Steve All Pushing Hard and Achieving Some Incredible Victories.

 

Well Done to All of the Other Drivers out there Racing too You All did a Fantastic Job and Looking Forward to seeing you All out there Again Doing what you Love and Sharing a Passion for Motorsport.

 

Dunlop Mini Winter Challenge supported by Mini Spares (Race 2 Results)

 

The Mini's were Up Next and After Some Incredible Racing Yesterday which Saw the Likes of Rupert Deeth Take 1st with Scott Kendall 2nd and Colin Peacock 3rd it was Going to be an Intense Battle at the Front of the Field.

 

The Likes of Endaf Owens was Also Prepared after an Engine Failure During Yesterdays Race Which Many thought would put him out of Contention for Today..........However With Some Incredible Overnight Work by Him and His Fellow Mechanics as well as a Late Night Trip to Wales and Back to Pick Up a Spare Engine, Endaf and His Dedicated Team Have Managed to Get his Car Ready for Race 2. Truly a Phenomenal Achievement. Lets Hope for Better Luck this Time.

 

Lets Get to the Action

 

In First Place Taking Victory and The Fastest Lap was (Endaf Owens) in his Mini Miglia 1298 with a Best Lap Time of 55.033 and an Average Speed of 67.78mph. Incredible Drive there Endaf Coming Back from Yesterday with an Engine Failure to Win the First Race of Sunday is Truly The Drive of a Champion. Incredible Work.

 

In Second Place was (Rupert Deeth) in his Mini Miglia 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 54.925 and an Average Speed of 67.72mph. Another Heroic Drive from Rupert Really Putting Pressure on Endaf the Entire Race and the two of them being in a Class of their Own way out in Front. Amazing Drive there Rupert.

 

In Third Place was (Scott Kendall) in his Mini Miglia 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 55.618 and an Average Speed of 67.34mph. Great Drive there From Scott Racing Hard and Doing a Fantastic Job of Defending that P3 Spot. A Very Well Deserved Third Place Finish.

 

What a Race from The Dunlop Mini Winter Challenge and with One More Race to go The Game is on for Anybody to take on the Likes of Scott Endaf and Rupert for Victory. Lets Find Out what Race 3 Brings and if Endaf can Make it 2 out of 3 Wins to Finish what Has Been a Phenomenal Weekend of Racing for the Mini's.

 

Dunlop Mini Winter Challenge supported by Mini Spares (Race 3 Results)

 

The Final Race for The Mini's and with Endaf Owens on an Incredible Charge will he be able to Withstand The Pressure coming from Rupert Deeth and Take Victory Once More?

 

In First Place taking the Final Win and Fastest Lap was (Endaf Owens) in his Mini Miglia 1298 with a Best Lap Time of 1:02.979 and an Average Speed of 60.65mph. Congratulations Endaf Another Superb Victory for Today and What an Incredible Come Back From Yesterday. He and His Family as well as His Race Engineers and Mechanics will be Very Proud of Him This Weekend that's for sure.

 

In Second Place was (Joe Thompson) in his Mini Miglia 1300 with a Best Lap Time of 1:03.571 and an Average Speed of 60.40mph. Brilliant Driving from Joe and a Really Excellent Performance in Very Dark and Dreary Conditions for a P2 Finish.

 

In Third Place was (Rupert Deeth) in his Mini Miglia 1293 with a Best Lap Time of 1:03.433 and an Average Speed of 59.93mph. Very Well Done Rupert a Fantastic P3 Finish To End the Weekends Racing and some Incredible Battles thought the Weekend with Endaf too. Well Done.

 

What a Weekend it has been for The Dunlop Mini Winter Challenge with Some Incredible Drives from the Likes of Endaf Rupert Joe and Scott all Taking Amazing Victories. Well Done to all of the other Competitors too you All did a Fantastic Job and Good Luck for the Next Time Out. Hope to See you All again Next Year for More High Speed and Close Racing Action.

 

Ginetta Junior Championship-(Qualifying 2 Results)

 

Now it was Time for the Return of the Ginetta Junior Championship onto the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit and after Some Intense and Close Racing Yesterday Each Driver was Ready to Go for Victory Once Again.

 

Currently Josh Rowledge Liam Mcneilly and Max Dodds are The Top 3 Finishers from Yesterdays Race and with Another Qualifying Session Ready and Waiting Will they be able to Put themselves Back at the Front of the Grid or Will a New set of Driver work to Challenge them?

 

In First Place Taking Pole Position and The Fastest Lap was (Tom Edgar) in his GBR R Racing with a Best Lap Time of 1:05.449 and a Top Speed of 66.44mph. Congratulations Tom Taking Pole Position and Ensuring a Front Row Start. Brilliant Lap.

 

In Second Place was (Aqil Alibhai) in his RSA Elite Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 1:05.832 and a Top Speed of 66.05mph. Great Work there from Aqil Taking P2 on the Gird and Some Impressive Car Control thought Qualifying. A Well Deserved P2.

 

In Third Place was (Joe Warhurst) in his GBR Elite Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 1:05.964 and a Top Speed of 65.92mph. Brilliant Drive there Joe Keeping that Car Nicely Positioned Thought the Lap to ensure a Smooth and Yet Confident P3 Spot on the Gird.

 

A Great Second Qualifying Session for the Ginetta Junior Drivers with Three New Drivers in the likes of Tom Aqil and Joe All Looking to take that Glory Come The Next Race. But Who will be able to turn that Impressive Qualifying Lap into a Victory?

 

We Will Have to Wait and See.

 

Ginetta Junior Championship-(Qualifying 2 Second Fastest Results)

 

After an Intense Qualifying Session which saw the Likes of Tom Edgar Aqil Alibhai and Joe Warhurst Taking the Top Three Spots it was Time for them to do it One More Time in a Second Heat for Qualifying. Who will be on Top This Time and will the likes of both Joe and Aqil take that P1 Spot away from Tom?

 

In First Place Taking The Pole was (Tom Edgar) in his GBR R Racing with a Best Lap Time of 1:05.453 and a Top Speed of 66.43mph. Superb Job Once Again from Tom who manages to Hold onto that All Important P1 Position. Brilliant Drive there Tom.

 

In Second Place was (Joe Warhurst) in his GBR Elite Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 1:06.089 and a Top Speed of 65.79mph. Fantastic work Joe Pushing Hard and Taking that P2 Spot away from Aqil Alibhai.

 

In Third Place was (Aqil Alibhai) in his RSA Elite Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 1:06.284 and a Top Speed of 65.60mph. Nice Work there Aqil P3 and a Really Good Effort Against the Likes of both Joe and Tom.

 

What Another Intense Qualifying Session with the Top Three In Tom Joe and Aqil All Pushing Hard and Swapping Positions thought Second Qualifying. What Will the First of Two Races Bring Today and Who will be the First to take Victory?

 

Ginetta Junior Championship-(Race 3 Results)

 

In First Place Taking The Victory was (Aqil Alibhai) in his RSA Elite Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 59.381 and an Average Speed of 71.48mph. Congratulations Aqil A Really Well Deserved Win and Some Incredible Driving to take the Race Win. Well and Truly Deserved.

 

In Second Place was (Max Doods) in his GBR Assetto Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 59.284 and an Average Speed of 71.21mph. Brilliant Driving from Max Pushing Himself and The Car Thought the Race to take Home a Fantastic P2 Finish.

 

In Third Place was (Liam Mcneilly) in his GBR Fox Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 59.426 and an Average Speed of 71.12mph. Brilliant Driving Liam P3 and The Final Spot on The Podium.

 

A Fantastic Race with Two New Winners in the Likes of Max and Liam and a Huge Congratulations to Aqil for that Incredible Victory after Overtaking both Liam and Max During the Race to take Victory. Good Luck to All other Drivers too and Lets see what the Final Race Brings.

  

Ginetta Junior Championship-(Race 4 Results)

 

The Final Race for Ginetta Juniors and One Last Time for One Driver to Stand on the Top Step of the Podium. After Some Fantastic Drives from the likes of Max Aqil Liam Tom and Joe who will be able to take that Last All Important Victory?

 

In First Place Taking The Final Victory was (Liam Mcneilly) in his GBR Fox Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 1:07.685 and an Average Speed of 45.65mph. Congratulations Liam Brilliant Final Drive and a Really Great way to End a Perfect Weekend. Your Family and Friends will be Really Proud of you.

 

In Second Place was (Aqil Alibhai) in his RSA Elite Motorsport with a Best Lap Time of 1:07.749 and an Average Speed of 45.62mph. Awesome work there Aqil Another Very Good Battle at the Front of the Field and a Great P2 Finish to End the Weekend with a Smile.

 

In Third Place was (Sonny Smith) in his GBR R Racing with a Best Lap Time of 1:07.784 and an Average Speed of 45.59mph. Congratulations Sonny P3 and a Really Superb Job Defending from the Likes of Max Behind thought the Race.

 

A Brilliant Weekend for The Ginetta Junior Championship With So Many Fantastic Drivers in the likes of Liam Aqil and Sonny as well as Max and Liam These Young Drivers are Going to do Really Well in Future Top Level Motorsport. A big Congratulations to All of you and to the Other Drivers in the Field Keep Pushing and Working Hard Never Stop Trying.

 

Britcar Endurance Championship-(Race 1 Results)

 

As The Light Fell away from the Circuit The Britcar Endurance Championship made its way out onto the circuit with Lights a Blaze and a lot of Energy coming from both the Drivers and their Cars This was Going to be a Race of Endurance and Car Management thought the 45 Minutes of the Race.

 

During Qualifying Yesterday The Team of

 

Valluga's Carl Cavers/Sean Doyle took Pole with

 

Valluga's Ian Humphries/Benji Hetherington in Second while

 

Nial Bradley Took Third.

 

With a Quick set of Warm Up Laps Over it was Time for The Brit car's to make their way out onto the Track and Get Ready for two Races of Endurance to Decide the Britcar Champion of 2021.

 

In First Place Taking the Victory was (Valluga's) Ian Humphries and Benji Hetherington in their Porsche 718 GT4 Club sport with a Best Lap Time of 50.023 and an Average Speed of 70.37mph. Congratulations both Ian and Benji a Fantastic Win in Very Tricky and Tiering Circumstances thought the 45 Minutes.

 

In Second Place was (Nial Bradley) in his BMW M3 E46 with a Best Lap Time of 50.799 and an Average Speed of 70.34mph. Brilliant work there Nial Keeping the Pressure on for both Ian and Benji at the front of the Pack. a Very Committed Drive for P2.

 

In Third Place was (Valluga's) Carl Cavers and Sean Doyle in their Porsche 718 GT4 Club sport with a Best Lap Time of 50.016 and an Average Speed of 70.34mph. Congratulations Carl and Sean Brilliant Drives from both of you and a Well Deserved P3 Finish after an Intense Battle with Team Hard's Eric Bolton in P4.

 

What an Intense First Race for the Britcar Endurance Championship with the Likes of Ian Humphries and Benji Hetherington Taking the Spoils while Nial Bradley Finishes Second and Carl Cavers and Sean Doyle Finish Third.

 

With Only One Race Left who will be the Victor and Take Home Glory? Lets Find Out.

 

Britcar Endurance Championship-(Race 2 Results FINAL)

 

In First Place Taking the Final Race Win of the Day and The Fastest Lap was (Steve Rothery) in his Peugeot 308 with a Best Lap Time of 58.289 and an Average Speed of 66.59mph. Congratulations Steve a Really Phenomenal Drive to take The Final Win of the Weekend for Britcar. Brilliantly Driven and Nicely Controlled.

 

In Second Place was (Valluga's) Ian Humphries and Carl Cavers in their Porsche 718 GT4 Club Sport with a Best Lap Time of 57.414 and an Average Speed of 66.46mph. Great Work there by both the likes of Ian and Carl to Bring there car Home in P2. A Wonderful Way to End the Weekend and the Championship.

 

In Third Place was (Spires Motorsport's) Anton Spies in his Renault Clio Gen 4 with a Best Lap Time of 1:01.189 and an Average Speed of 64.37mph. A Very Heroic Drive from Anton Pushing His Renault Hard and Ensuring He Defends that All Important Final Spot on the Podium. Great Job.

 

What a Weekend it has been for the Britcar Endurance Championship with Many Fantastic Teams and Drivers in the Likes of (Valluga's) Ian Humphries Carl Cavers Benji Hetherington and the Likes of (Spire Motorsports) Anton Spires and Steve Rothery.

 

Brilliant Driving from All of you and a Really Big Congratulations to The Final Race Winner Steve Rothery.

 

A Fantastic Weekend with Many Talented and Incredible Drivers All Pushing Hard and Doing what they Love on the Race Track. Congratulations to All of the Race Winners.

 

See You All Again Next Year!

                                    

proven method heartache and loneliness after a breakup fastest how do you get your ex girlfriend back proven method to get your ex back ==>

Who says St. Bernards aren't fast? :)

 

Far from sharp, but too funny not to share. Not a sight many people are privileged to witness :)

ანა ლომინაძემ (საქართველო) ბორკილითა და ჯაჭვით ხელფეხშეკრულ მდგომარეობაში 25 მეტრი გაცურა 21.76 წამში, 2014 წლის 3 აპრილს, დიღმის საცურაო აუზზე (თბილისი, საქართველო).

 

Ana Lominadze (Georgia) swam 25 meters in 21.76 seconds while wearing the handcuffs and leg irons on 3 April 2014, at the Dighomi Swimming Pool in Tbilisi, Georgia.

This railway track has recently been granted the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The view is stunning, with the line passing through an amazing 103 tunnels. The fastest way to get to Kalka is to catch the Shatabdi Express, which departs early morning from the New Delhi Railway Station, arriving at Kalka four hours later.

 

The Kalka–Shimla Railway is a 762 mm narrow gauge railway in North-West India travelling along a mostly mountainous route from Kalka to Shimla. It is known for dramatic views of the hills and surrounding villages.

 

Shimla (then spelt Simla) was settled by the British shortly after the first Anglo-Gurkha war, and is located at 2169 m in the foothills of the Himalayas. By the 1830s, Shimla had already developed as a major base for the British.[citation needed] It became the summer capital of British India in 1864, and was also the headquarters of the British army in India. Prior to construction of the railway, communication with the outside world was via village cart.

 

The 1676 mm broad gauge Delhi-Kalka line was opened in 1891. The Kalka–Shimla Railway was constructed on 610 mm narrow gauge tracks by the Delhi-Ambala-Kalka Railway Company commencing in 1898. The 96.54 km line was opened for traffic November 9, 1903. It was inaugurated by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India. Because of the high capital and maintenance costs, coupled with peculiar working conditions, the Kalka–Shimla Railway was allowed to charge fares that were higher than the prevailing tariffs on other lines. However, even this was not good enough to sustain the company, so the Government had to purchase it on January 1. In 1905 the line was regauged to 762 mm gauge under guidelines from the Indian War Department seeking to ensure uniformity in all imperial narrow gauge systems.

 

In mid-August 2007, the government of Himachal Pradesh declared the railway a heritage property in preparation for its review in September.

 

ROUTE

The Kalka–Shimla Railway was built to connect Shimla, the summer capital of India during the British Raj, with the Indian rail system. Now, Shimla is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh and Kalka is a town in the Panchkula district of Haryana. Spectacular scenery along the whole route, and the marvels of its construction, keeps the traveler on this line spell bound. On leaving Kalka, 656 meters above sea level, the railway enters the foothills and immediately commences its climb.

 

The route offers a panoramic feast of the picturesque Himalayas from the Sivalik foot hills at Kalka to several important points such as Dharampur, Solan, Kandaghat, Taradevi, Barog, Salogra, Totu (Jutogh), Summerhill and Shimla at an altitude of 2,076 meters. Interestingly, all the 20 intermediate stations are located right next to bridges, built for the labour constructing the bridges to take rest there. Some of these have now been abandoned being unviable.

 

TUNNELS

Originally 107 tunnels were built on Kalka Shimla Railway Track. In 1930 they were renumbered and four of them were discarded so only 103 were left. In 2006 tunnel number 46 was dismantled so presently only 102 are in use. But tunnel number 103, the last tunnel in Shimla, is still famous as tunnel number 103 as this place has become a famous landmark of the town.

 

The longest tunnel is at Barog, and is associated with local tales and legends. As per a famous story of Colonel Barog, the engineer of this tunnel, had committed suicide here. He started digging the tunnel from both ends and could not align them. So he was fined 1 rupee. He could not stomach up that stigma so shot himself in the incomplete tunnel, which still exists. Chief Engineer H.S. Herlington completed it after the way for constructing this was earmarked by Bhalku, a local sadhu (monk), during 1900- 1903.

 

INFRASTRUCTURE

The line has 864 bridges, one of which is an 18.29 metre (60 ft) plate girder span and steel truss. The others are viaducts with multi-arched galleries like the ancient Roman aqueducts. Bridge No. 493, historically known as the "Arch Gallery", situated between Kandaghat and Kanoh stations, is an arch bridge in three stages, constructed with stone masonry. Bridge No. 226; between Sonwara and Dharampur is an arch gallery bridge having 5 tier galleries of multiple spans, constructed with stone masonry and bridging a deep valley surrounded by high peaks.

 

The railway has a ruling gradient of 1 in 33 or 3%. It has 919 curves, the sharpest being 48 degrees (a radius of 37.47 m). Climbing from 656 meters, the line terminates at an elevation of 2,076 meters at Shimla. The line originally used 21 kg/m rail but this was later relaid to 30 kg/m rail.

 

LOCOMOTIVES

The first locomotives to arrive were two class "B" 0-4-0ST from the famous Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. These were built as 2 ft (610 mm) gauge engines, but were converted to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge in 1901. They were not large enough for the job, and were sold in 1908. They were followed by 10 engines with a 0-4-2T wheel arrangement of a slightly larger design, introduced in 1902. These locomotives weighed 21.5 tons (21.85 tonnes) each, and had 30" (762 mm) driving wheels, and 12"x16" (304.8 mm x 406.4 mm) cylinders. They were later classified into the "B" class by the North Western State Railways. All these locomotives were constructed by the British firm of Sharp, Stewart and Company.

 

Larger locomotives were introduced in the form of a 2-6-2T, of which 30 were built with slight variations between 1904 and 1910. Built by the Hunslet and the North British Locomotive Company, these locomotives were about 35 tons (35.56 tonnes), with 30" (762 mm) drivers and 14"x16" (355.6 mm x 406.4 mm) cylinders. These locomotives, later classed K and K2 by the North Western State Railways, subsequently handled the bulk of the railways traffic during the steam era. A pair of Kitson-Meyer 2-6-2+2-6-2 articulated locomotives, classed TD, were supplied in 1928. They quickly fell into disfavour, as it often took all day for enough freight to be assembled to justify operating a goods train hauled by one of these locomotives. Shippers looking for a faster service started to turn to road transport. These 68 ton (69.09 tonnes) locomotives were soon transferred to the Kangra Valley Railway, and subsequently ended up converted to 1,000 mm metre gauge in Pakistan.

 

Steam operation of regular trains ended 1971.

 

The first diesel locomotives on the Kalka–Shimla Railway, class ZDM-1 by Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik (articulated with two prime movers), started operation in 1955. In the 1970s they were regauged and reclassified as NDM-1, then used on the Matheran Hill Railway.

 

In the 1960s, class ZDM-2 built by Maschinenbau Kiel (MaK) was introduced. These locomotives were later transferred to other lines.

 

Today this line is operated with class ZDM-3 diesel-hydraulic locomotives (522 kW, 50 km/h), built 1970 to 1982 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works with a single cab road switcher body. Six locomotives of the same class were built in 2008/2009 by Central Railway Loco Workshop Parel with updated components and a dual cab body providing better visibility of the track.

 

The railway opened using conventional four-wheel and bogie coaches. The tare weight of these coaches meant that only four of the bogie coaches could be hauled upgrade by the 2-6-2T locomotives. In an effort to increase loadings in 1908 the entire coaching stock was rebuilt as bogie coaches 33' long by 7' wide, using steel frames and bodies. To further save weight the roofs were constructed using aluminium. Savings in weight meant the locomotives could now haul six of the larger coaches, significantly expanding capacity. This was an early example of the use of steel in construction of coaches to reduce the coaches' tare.

 

Goods rolling stock was constructed on a common pressed steel underframe, 30' long and 7' wide. Both open and covered wagons were provided, the open wagons having a capacity of 19 tons and the covered wagons 17.5 tons.

 

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