Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni, or simply the Buddha, was a sage on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in northeastern India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE.

 

The word Buddha means "awakened one" or "the enlightened one". "Buddha" is also used as a title for the first awakened being in a Yuga era. In most Buddhist traditions, Siddhartha Gautama is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (Pali sammāsambuddha, Sanskrit samyaksaṃbuddha) of the present age. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region. He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala.

 

Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.

 

CONTENTS

HISTORICAL SIDDHARTA GAUTAMA

Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara, the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajasattu, who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara. Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of other influential śramaṇa schools of thoughts like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism, and Ajñana. It was also the age of influential thinkers like Mahavira, Pūraṇa Kassapa , Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalī, Pakudha Kaccāyana, and Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, whose viewpoints the Buddha most certainly must have been acquainted with and influenced by. Indeed, Sariputta and Moggallāna, two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, the skeptic. There is also evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques. While the general sequence of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" is widely accepted, there is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies.

 

The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE. More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all historians.

 

The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the northeastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE. It was either a small republic, in which case his father was an elected chieftain, or an oligarchy, in which case his father was an oligarch. According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, nowadays in modern-day Nepal, and raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu, which may have been in either present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India. He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and died in Kushinagar.

 

No written records about Gautama have been found from his lifetime or some centuries thereafter. One Edict of Asoka, who reigned from circa 269 BCE to 232 BCE, commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to the Buddha's birthplace in Lumbini. Another one of his edicts mentions several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era and which may be the precursors of the Pāli Canon. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and now preserved in the British Library. They are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE.

 

TRADITIONAL BIOGRAPHIES

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā. Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa, and dating around the beginning of the 2nd century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE. The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE. The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra, and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoṣa.

 

From canonical sources, the Jataka tales, the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123) which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātakas retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts. The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as the bodhisattva's descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into his mother's womb.

 

NATURE OF TRADITIONAL DEPICTIONS

In the earliest Buddhists texts, the nikāyas and āgamas, the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience (sabbaññu) nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent (lokottara) being. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, ideas of the Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu. In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made a claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the "higher knowledges" (abhijñā). The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a śramaṇa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty five year career as a teacher.

 

Traditional biographies of Gautama generally include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supra-mundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma". Nevertheless, some of the more ordinary details of his life have been gathered from these traditional sources. In modern times there has been an attempt to form a secular understanding of Siddhārtha Gautama's life by omitting the traditional supernatural elements of his early biographies.

 

Andrew Skilton writes that the Buddha was never historically regarded by Buddhist traditions as being merely human:

It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to skeptical Western pupils), he was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, "superman"; the Buddha himself denied that he was either a man or a god; and in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta he states that he could live for an aeon were he asked to do so.The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist. British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure. Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.

 

BIOGRAPHY

CONCEPTION AND BIRTH

The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal to be the birthplace of the Buddha. He grew up in Kapilavastu. The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, present-day India, or Tilaurakot, present-day Nepal. Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles apart from each other.

 

Gautama was born as a Kshatriya, the son of Śuddhodana, "an elected chief of the Shakya clan", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the family name. His mother, Maya (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten months later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.

 

The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak. Buddha's Birthday is called Buddha Purnima in Nepal and India as he is believed to have been born on a full moon day. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great sadhu. By traditional account, this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. Kondañña, the youngest, and later to be the first arhat other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.

 

While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Suryavansha (Solar dynasty) of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars think that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.

 

Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition. The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic. The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the śramanic Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.

 

EARLY LIFE AND MARRIAGE

Siddhartha was brought up by his mother's younger sister, Maha Pajapati. By tradition, he is said to have been destined by birth to the life of a prince, and had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) built for him. Although more recent scholarship doubts this status, his father, said to be King Śuddhodana, wishing for his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human suffering.

 

When he reached the age of 16, his father reputedly arranged his marriage to a cousin of the same age named Yaśodharā (Pāli: Yasodharā). According to the traditional account, she gave birth to a son, named Rāhula. Siddhartha is said to have spent 29 years as a prince in Kapilavastu. Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Buddhist scriptures say that the future Buddha felt that material wealth was not life's ultimate goal.

 

RENUNCIATION AND ASCETIC LIFE

At the age of 29, the popular biography continues, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Channa explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome aging, sickness, and death by living the life of an ascetic.

 

Accompanied by Channa and riding his horse Kanthaka, Gautama quit his palace for the life of a mendicant. It's said that, "the horse's hooves were muffled by the gods" to prevent guards from knowing of his departure.

 

Gautama initially went to Rajagaha and began his ascetic life by begging for alms in the street. After King Bimbisara's men recognised Siddhartha and the king learned of his quest, Bimbisara offered Siddhartha the throne. Siddhartha rejected the offer, but promised to visit his kingdom of Magadha first, upon attaining enlightenment.

 

He left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit teachers of yogic meditation. After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama (Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), he was asked by Kalama to succeed him. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practice, and moved on to become a student of yoga with Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra). With him he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, and was again asked to succeed his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied, and again moved on.

 

Siddhartha and a group of five companions led by Kaundinya are then said to have set out to take their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenment through deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising self-mortification. After nearly starving himself to death by restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he collapsed in a river while bathing and almost drowned. Siddhartha was rescued by a village girl named Sujata and she gave him some payasam (a pudding made from milk and jaggery) after which Siddhartha got back some energy. Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's ploughing. He attained a concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing, the jhāna.

 

AWAKENING

According to the early Buddhist texts, after realizing that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way - a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path, as was identified and described by the Buddha in his first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.

 

Following this incident, Gautama was famously seated under a pipal tree - now known as the Bodhi tree - in Bodh Gaya, India, when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth. Kaundinya and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, left. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained Enlightenment. According to some traditions, this occurred in approximately the fifth lunar month, while, according to others, it was in the twelfth month. From that time, Gautama was known to his followers as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").

 

According to Buddhism, at the time of his awakening he realized complete insight into the cause of suffering, and the steps necessary to eliminate it. These discoveries became known as the "Four Noble Truths", which are at the heart of Buddhist teaching. Through mastery of these truths, a state of supreme liberation, or Nirvana, is believed to be possible for any being. The Buddha described Nirvāna as the perfect peace of a mind that's free from ignorance, greed, hatred and other afflictive states, or "defilements" (kilesas). Nirvana is also regarded as the "end of the world", in that no personal identity or boundaries of the mind remain. In such a state, a being is said to possess the Ten Characteristics, belonging to every Buddha.

 

According to a story in the Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1) - a scripture found in the Pāli and other canons - immediately after his awakening, the Buddha debated whether or not he should teach the Dharma to others. He was concerned that humans were so overpowered by ignorance, greed and hatred that they could never recognise the path, which is subtle, deep and hard to grasp. However, in the story, Brahmā Sahampati convinced him, arguing that at least some will understand it. The Buddha relented, and agreed to teach.

 

FORMATION OF THE SANGHA

After his awakening, the Buddha met Taphussa and Bhallika — two merchant brothers from the city of Balkh in what is currently Afghanistan - who became his first lay disciples. It is said that each was given hairs from his head, which are now claimed to be enshrined as relics in the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon, Burma. The Buddha intended to visit Asita, and his former teachers, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, to explain his findings, but they had already died.

 

He then travelled to the Deer Park near Varanasi (Benares) in northern India, where he set in motion what Buddhists call the Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to the five companions with whom he had sought enlightenment. Together with him, they formed the first saṅgha: the company of Buddhist monks.

 

All five become arahants, and within the first two months, with the conversion of Yasa and fifty four of his friends, the number of such arahants is said to have grown to 60. The conversion of three brothers named Kassapa followed, with their reputed 200, 300 and 500 disciples, respectively. This swelled the sangha to more than 1,000.

 

TRAVELS AND TEACHING

For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and southern Nepal, teaching a diverse range of people: from nobles to servants, murderers such as Angulimala, and cannibals such as Alavaka. Although the Buddha's language remains unknown, it's likely that he taught in one or more of a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which Pali may be a standardization.

 

The sangha traveled through the subcontinent, expounding the dharma. This continued throughout the year, except during the four months of the Vāsanā rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarely traveled. One reason was that it was more difficult to do so without causing harm to animal life. At this time of year, the sangha would retreat to monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them.

 

The first vassana was spent at Varanasi when the sangha was formed. After this, the Buddha kept a promise to travel to Rajagaha, capital of Magadha, to visit King Bimbisara. During this visit, Sariputta and Maudgalyayana were converted by Assaji, one of the first five disciples, after which they were to become the Buddha's two foremost followers. The Buddha spent the next three seasons at Veluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, capital of Magadha.

 

Upon hearing of his son's awakening, Suddhodana sent, over a period, ten delegations to ask him to return to Kapilavastu. On the first nine occasions, the delegates failed to deliver the message, and instead joined the sangha to become arahants. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhood friend of Gautama's (who also became an arahant), however, delivered the message.

 

Now two years after his awakening, the Buddha agreed to return, and made a two-month journey by foot to Kapilavastu, teaching the dharma as he went. At his return, the royal palace prepared a midday meal, but the sangha was making an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana approached his son, the Buddha, saying:

 

"Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warrior has gone seeking alms."

 

The Buddha is said to have replied:

 

"That is not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone by seeking alms."

 

Buddhist texts say that Suddhodana invited the sangha into the palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk. After this he is said to have become a sotapanna. During the visit, many members of the royal family joined the sangha. The Buddha's cousins Ananda and Anuruddha became two of his five chief disciples. At the age of seven, his son Rahula also joined, and became one of his ten chief disciples. His half-brother Nanda also joined and became an arahant.

 

Of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputta, Maudgalyayana, Mahakasyapa, Ananda and Anuruddha are believed to have been the five closest to him. His ten foremost disciples were reputedly completed by the quintet of Upali, Subhoti, Rahula, Mahakaccana and Punna.

 

In the fifth vassana, the Buddha was staying at Mahavana near Vesali when he heard news of the impending death of his father. He is said to have gone to Suddhodana and taught the dharma, after which his father became an arahant.The king's death and cremation was to inspire the creation of an order of nuns. Buddhist texts record that the Buddha was reluctant to ordain women. His foster mother Maha Pajapati, for example, approached him, asking to join the sangha, but he refused. Maha Pajapati, however, was so intent on the path of awakening that she led a group of royal Sakyan and Koliyan ladies, which followed the sangha on a long journey to Rajagaha. In time, after Ananda championed their cause, the Buddha is said to have reconsidered and, five years after the formation of the sangha, agreed to the ordination of women as nuns. He reasoned that males and females had an equal capacity for awakening. But he gave women additional rules (Vinaya) to follow.

 

MAHAPARINIRVANA

According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon reach Parinirvana, or the final deathless state, and abandon his earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Mettanando and Von Hinüber argue that the Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning. The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms; the Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom. These may reflect the different traditional views on Buddhist vegetarianism and the precepts for monks and nuns.

 

Waley suggests that Theravadin's would take suukaramaddava (the contents of the Buddha's last meal), which can translate as pig-soft, to mean soft flesh of a pig. However, he also states that pig-soft could mean "pig's soft-food", that is, after Neumann, a soft food favoured by pigs, assumed to be a truffle. He argues (also after Neumann) that as Pali Buddhism was developed in an area remote to the Buddha's death, the existence of other plants with suukara- (pig) as part of their names and that "(p)lant names tend to be local and dialectical" could easily indicate that suukaramaddava was a type of plant whose local name was unknown to those in the Pali regions. Specifically, local writers knew more about their flora than Theravadin commentator Buddhaghosa who lived hundreds of years and kilometres remote in time and space from the events described. Unaware of an alternate meaning and with no Theravadin prohibition against eating animal flesh, Theravadins would not have questioned the Buddha eating meat and interpreted the term accordingly.

 

Ananda protested the Buddha's decision to enter Parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra (present-day Kushinagar, India) of the Malla kingdom. The Buddha, however, is said to have reminded Ananda how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous wheel-turning king that resounded with joy:

 

44. Kusavati, Ananda, resounded unceasingly day and night with ten sounds - the trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, the rattling of chariots, the beating of drums and tabours, music and song, cheers, the clapping of hands, and cries of "Eat, drink, and be merry!"

 

The Buddha then asked all the attendant Bhikkhus to clarify any doubts or questions they had. They had none. According to Buddhist scriptures, he then finally entered Parinirvana. The Buddha's final words are reported to have been: "All composite things (Saṅkhāra) are perishable. Strive for your own liberation with diligence" (Pali: 'vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā'). His body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. For example, The Temple of the Tooth or "Dalada Maligawa" in Sri Lanka is the place where what some believe to be the relic of the right tooth of Buddha is kept at present.

 

According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, the coronation of Emperor Aśoka (Pāli: Asoka) is 218 years after the death of the Buddha. According to two textual records in Chinese (十八部論 and 部執異論), the coronation of Emperor Aśoka is 116 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore, the time of Buddha's passing is either 486 BCE according to Theravāda record or 383 BCE according to Mahayana record. However, the actual date traditionally accepted as the date of the Buddha's death in Theravāda countries is 544 or 545 BCE, because the reign of Emperor Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about 60 years earlier than current estimates. In Burmese Buddhist tradition, the date of the Buddha's death is 13 May 544 BCE. whereas in Thai tradition it is 11 March 545 BCE.

 

At his death, the Buddha is famously believed to have told his disciples to follow no leader. Mahakasyapa was chosen by the sangha to be the chairman of the First Buddhist Council, with the two chief disciples Maudgalyayana and Sariputta having died before the Buddha.

 

While in the Buddha's days he was addressed by the very respected titles Buddha, Shākyamuni, Shākyasimha, Bhante and Bho, he was known after his parinirvana as Arihant, Bhagavā/Bhagavat/Bhagwān, Mahāvira, Jina/Jinendra, Sāstr, Sugata, and most popularly in scriptures as Tathāgata.

 

BUDDHA AND VEDAS

Buddha's teachings deny the authority of the Vedas and consequently [at least atheistic] Buddhism is generally viewed as a nāstika school (heterodox, literally "It is not so") from the perspective of orthodox Hinduism.

 

RELICS

After his death, Buddha's cremation relics were divided amongst 8 royal families and his disciples; centuries later they would be enshrined by King Ashoka into 84,000 stupas. Many supernatural legends surround the history of alleged relics as they accompanied the spread of Buddhism and gave legitimacy to rulers.

 

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

An extensive and colorful physical description of the Buddha has been laid down in scriptures. A kshatriya by birth, he had military training in his upbringing, and by Shakyan tradition was required to pass tests to demonstrate his worthiness as a warrior in order to marry. He had a strong enough body to be noticed by one of the kings and was asked to join his army as a general. He is also believed by Buddhists to have "the 32 Signs of the Great Man".

 

The Brahmin Sonadanda described him as "handsome, good-looking, and pleasing to the eye, with a most beautiful complexion. He has a godlike form and countenance, he is by no means unattractive." (D, I:115)

 

"It is wonderful, truly marvellous, how serene is the good Gotama's appearance, how clear and radiant his complexion, just as the golden jujube in autumn is clear and radiant, just as a palm-tree fruit just loosened from the stalk is clear and radiant, just as an adornment of red gold wrought in a crucible by a skilled goldsmith, deftly beaten and laid on a yellow-cloth shines, blazes and glitters, even so, the good Gotama's senses are calmed, his complexion is clear and radiant." (A, I:181)

 

A disciple named Vakkali, who later became an arahant, was so obsessed by the Buddha's physical presence that the Buddha is said to have felt impelled to tell him to desist, and to have reminded him that he should know the Buddha through the Dhamma and not through physical appearances.

 

Although there are no extant representations of the Buddha in human form until around the 1st century CE (see Buddhist art), descriptions of the physical characteristics of fully enlightened buddhas are attributed to the Buddha in the Digha Nikaya's Lakkhaṇa Sutta (D, I:142). In addition, the Buddha's physical appearance is described by Yasodhara to their son Rahula upon the Buddha's first post-Enlightenment return to his former princely palace in the non-canonical Pali devotional hymn, Narasīha Gāthā ("The Lion of Men").

 

Among the 32 main characteristics it is mentioned that Buddha has blue eyes.

 

NINE VIRTUES

Recollection of nine virtues attributed to the Buddha is a common Buddhist meditation and devotional practice called Buddhānusmṛti. The nine virtues are also among the 40 Buddhist meditation subjects. The nine virtues of the Buddha appear throughout the Tipitaka, and include:

 

- Buddho – Awakened

- Sammasambuddho – Perfectly self-awakened

- Vijja-carana-sampano – Endowed with higher knowledge and ideal conduct.

- Sugato – Well-gone or Well-spoken.

- Lokavidu – Wise in the knowledge of the many worlds.

- Anuttaro Purisa-damma-sarathi – Unexcelled trainer of untrained people.

- Satthadeva-Manussanam – Teacher of gods and humans.

- Bhagavathi – The Blessed one

- Araham – Worthy of homage. An Arahant is "one with taints destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached the true goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final knowledge."

 

TEACHINGS

TRACING THE OLDEST TEACHINGS

Information of the oldest teachings may be obtained by analysis of the oldest texts. One method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest extant versions of the Theravadin Pali Canon and other texts. The reliability of these sources, and the possibility to draw out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute. According to Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies.

 

According to Schmithausen, three positions held by scholars of Buddhism can be distinguished:

 

"Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials;"

"Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism;"

"Cautious optimism in this respect."

 

DHYANA AND INSIGHT

A core problem in the study of early Buddhism is the relation between dhyana and insight. Schmithausen, in his often-cited article On some Aspects of Descriptions or Theories of 'Liberating Insight' and 'Enlightenment' in Early Buddhism notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36

 

CORE TEACHINGS

According to Tilmann Vetter, the core of earliest Buddhism is the practice of dhyāna. Bronkhorst agrees that dhyana was a Buddhist invention, whereas Norman notes that "the Buddha's way to release [...] was by means of meditative practices." Discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development.

 

According to the Mahāsaccakasutta, from the fourth jhana the Buddha gained bodhi. Yet, it is not clear what he was awakened to. "Liberating insight" is a later addition to this text, and reflects a later development and understanding in early Buddhism. The mentioning of the four truths as constituting "liberating insight" introduces a logical problem, since the four truths depict a linear path of practice, the knowledge of which is in itself not depicted as being liberating:

 

[T]hey do not teach that one is released by knowing the four noble truths, but by practicing the fourth noble truth, the eightfold path, which culminates in right samadhi.

 

Although "Nibbāna" (Sanskrit: Nirvāna) is the common term for the desired goal of this practice, many other terms can be found throughout the Nikayas, which are not specified.

 

According to Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term "the middle way". In time, this short description was elaborated, resulting in the description of the eightfold path.

 

According to both Bronkhorst and Anderson, the four truths became a substitution for prajna, or "liberating insight", in the suttas in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas. According to Bronkhorst, the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight". Gotama's teachings may have been personal, "adjusted to the need of each person."

 

The three marks of existence may reflect Upanishadic or other influences. K.R. Norman supposes that these terms were already in use at the Buddha's time, and were familiar to his listeners.

 

The Brahma-vihara was in origin probably a brahmanic term; but its usage may have been common to the Sramana traditions.

  

LATER DEVELOPMENTS

In time, "liberating insight" became an essential feature of the Buddhist tradition. The following teachings, which are commonly seen as essential to Buddhism, are later formulations which form part of the explanatory framework of this "liberating insight":

 

- The Four Noble Truths: that suffering is an ingrained part of existence; that the origin of suffering is craving for sensuality, acquisition of identity, and fear of annihilation; that suffering can be ended; and that following the Noble Eightfold Path is the means to accomplish this;

- The Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration;

- Dependent origination: the mind creates suffering as a natural product of a complex process.

 

OTHER RELIGIONS

Some Hindus regard Gautama as the 9th avatar of Vishnu. The Buddha is also regarded as a prophet by the Ahmadiyya Muslims and a Manifestation of God in the Bahá'í Faith. Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought the Buddha to be a reincarnation of Lao Tzu.

 

The Christian Saint Josaphat is based on the Buddha. The name comes from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva via Arabic Būdhasaf and Georgian Iodasaph. The only story in which St. Josaphat appears, Barlaam and Josaphat, is based on the life of the Buddha. Josaphat was included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology (feast day 27 November) — though not in the Roman Missal — and in the Eastern Orthodox Church liturgical calendar (26 August).

 

Disciples of the Cao Đài religion worship the Buddha as a major religious teacher. His image can be found in both their Holy See and on the home altar. He is revealed during communication with Divine Beings as son of their Supreme Being (God the Father) together with other major religious teachers and founders like Jesus, Laozi, and Confucius.

 

In the ancient Gnostic sect of Manichaeism the Buddha is listed among the prophets who preached the word of God before Mani.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Going into the 1970s, the RAF relied on the BAC Jet Provost, Folland Gnat, and Hawker Hunter as their primary jet trainers. Both the Jet Provost and Hunter were getting long in the teeth, and the Gnat had reliability issues. The SEPECAT Jaguar was thought to be the answer, but it was better suited as a strike aircraft and was too complicated to act as a trainer, so in 1968, Hawker-Siddeley began work on a pure, high performance trainer. The Hawk first flew in 1974.

 

The Hawk soon won its admirers. It was simple to operate and maintain, and its performance was close to that of a frontline fighter. Hawks could act as emergency fighters and were meant from the start to carry gunpods and Sidewinder missiles. The Hawk rapidly replaced the Gnat and Hunter as the RAF's primary trainer. It also saw export success: though British Aerospace hoped to market the Panavia Tornado and the Hawk as a package deal, only Saudi Arabia bought both aircraft; several air forces, however, bought Hawks, making it the best selling jet trainer in the late 20th Century. It would also serve as the basis for the US Navy's T-45 Goshawk trainer as well.

 

As fighter costs spiraled, nations also started to see the Hawk not as just a trainer, but as a frontline aircraft. British Aerospace subsequently modified the design into the Hawk 100, a two-seat advanced trainer that could act as a multirole fighter, and the Hawk 200, a single-seat fighter. Cheaper than the F-16, the Hawk 100/200 was attractive to air forces who could not afford top-of-the-line fighters.

 

17 nations would operate Hawks; 13 still use the type, and it continues in production in both the United Kingdom and India.

 

This Hawk is a T.2 version, based on the Hawk 100 advanced trainer/light attack aircraft; this version has an extended nose with option for FLIR, slightly different wing design, and an upgraded "glass" cockpit and engine. It is from one of several RAF training units, and is a F-Toys snap-together, prepainted kit. It has good detail, but the paint job leaves a bit to be desired, so this will get a repaint at some point.

www.beamish.org.uk/events/reliability-run/

The mechanical reliability of MTA New York City Transit’s fleet of 6,200 subway cars has been a major source of pride for employees. That achievement stems from a simple idea; fix things before they break. That is the philosophy behind the Scheduled Maintenance System (SMS) program developed by the Division of Car Equipment as a way of maintaining the reliability of new subway cars and older subway cars that had gone through the General Overhaul (GOH) program.

 

Photo: Patrick Cashin / Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Materials scientist Paul Vianco peers through an experimental setup of printed wiring assemblies used to validate modeling in a Sandia National Laboratories project to study solder failure. Vianco said computational modeling of solder joint fatigue is critical to Sandia’s role in life extension programs for nuclear weapons.

 

Learn more at share-ng.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/solder_r....

 

Photo by Randy Montoya.

A helicopter pilot works with transmission linemen in a bucket to install a new transmission line.

www.beamish.org.uk/events/reliability-run/

Auto rickshaws are a common means of public transportation in many countries in the world. Also known as a three-wheeler, Samosa, tempo, tuk-tuk, trishaw, autorick, bajaj, rick, tricycle, mototaxi, baby taxi or lapa in popular parlance, an auto rickshaw is a usually three-wheeled cabin cycle for private use and as a vehicle for hire. It is a motorized version of the traditional pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. Auto rickshaws are an essential form of urban transport in many developing countries, and a form of novelty transport in many developed countries. However, in some parts of Europe they remain an essential mode of transportation, notably Italy's.

 

OVERVIEW

ORIGN

Auto rickshaws of Southeast Asia started from the knockdown production of the Daihatsu Midget which had been introduced in 1957.

 

Japan had been exporting three-wheelers to Thailand since 1934. Moreover, The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of Japan donated about 20,000 used three-wheelers to Southeast Asia. In Japan, three-wheelers went out of use in the latter half of the 1960s.

 

DESIGN

An auto rickshaw is generally characterized by a sheet-metal body or open frame resting on three wheels, a canvas roof with drop-down sides, a small cabin in the front of the vehicle for the driver (sometimes called an auto-wallah), and seating space for up to three passengers in the rear. Newer models are generally fitted with a compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel scooter version of a 200 cc four-stroke engine, with handlebar controls instead of a steering wheel.

 

REGIONAL VARIATIONS

AFRICA

EASTERN AFRICA

There are tuk-tuks in several Kenyan towns. Using them is somewhat cheaper than ordinary taxis. However, tuk-tuks cannot operate in mountainous towns, which are common in Kenya. Fierce competition with Boda-bodas (bicycle taxis) and Matatus (minibuses) hinders popularity of Tuk-tuks, especially within the interior of Kenya. While they may not be widely found in Kenya, they are numerous in the coastal regions, which are less mountainous. For example, in the town of Malindi they offer an economical and convenient mode of transportation.

 

Tuk-tuks are also common in Ethiopia and are becoming common in Tanzania, particularly in the outer areas of Dar es Salaam. In Tanzania and Ethiopia they are known as "Bajaj" or "Bajajis", after the Bajaj Auto company which manufactures many of them. Since 2009, tuk-tuks have become common in Maputo, Mozambique.

 

EGYPT

In Egypt, auto rickshaws are called toktok (Egyptian Arabic: توك توك pronounced [ˈtoktok], plural: تكاتك takātek [tæˈkæːtek]); they are widely used as taxis in poorer neighborhoods of the capital, and have become a popular symbol for lower class Egyptians, although they are banned from the streets of wealthier neighborhoods. Deposed president Mohamed Morsi (June 2012-July 2013) in his opening speech addressed the Tuk-Tuk (toktok) drivers as a symbol of the lower class population, but his political rivals and mass media considered it as a mean of emotional deception for the masses by rendering what could be a promise to legalize their status.

 

MADAGASCAR

In Madagascar, man-pulled rickshaws are a common form of transportation in a number of cities, especially Antsirabe. They are known as "posy" from pousse-pousse, meaning push-push. Cycle rickshaws never took off, yet Posy are threatened by the auto-rickshaws, introduced in numbers since 2009. Provincial capitals like Toamasina, Mahajanga, Toliara, Antsiranana are taking to them rapidly. They are known as "bajaji" and now licenced to operate as taxis. They are not yet allowed an operating licence in the congested, and more pollution prone national capital, Antananarivo.

 

NIGERIA

There are keke-marwa's in several Nigerian towns and cities. Although not as popular as the ubiquitous "Okada" in Nigeria, keke-marwa's are embraced as an alternative means of transport by the middle and lower class citizens. Keke-marwa is named after Lagos former military Governor, Buba Marwa in the late 1990s.

 

SOUTH AFRICA

Tuk-tuks, introduced in Durban in the late 1980s enjoyed growing popularity in recent years, particularly in Gauteng.

 

SUDAN

Rickshaws are a major means of transport in all parts of Sudan, it's locally known as Raksha.

 

ASIA

BANGLADESH

Auto rickshaws (locally called "baby taxis" and more recently "CNGs" due to their fuel source) are one of the most popular modes of transport in Bangladesh mainly due to their size and speed. They are best suited to narrow, crowded streets, and are thus the principal means of covering longer distances within urban areas.

 

Earlier, auto rickshaws were colored black with a yellow canvas topping and ran on gasoline without any meter system. However, due to the vast supplies of natural gas in Bangladesh, the government has since encouraged the development of four-stroke compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered engines rather than the older two-stroke engine petrol-running models. Two-stroke engines had been identified as one of the leading sources of air pollution in Dhaka. Thus, since January 2003, traditional auto rickshaws were banned from the capital; only the new CNG-powered models were permitted to operate within the city limits. The newly manufactured CNG auto rickshaws are more fuel-efficient and have a lower center of gravity, making them safer than older models. All CNGs are painted green to signify that the vehicles are eco-friendly and that each one has a meter built in as standard.

 

Another version of the auto rickshaw can be seen in rural areas of Bangladesh, where they are called "helicopters". "Helicopters" are auto rickshaws modified to have a large body with which it can carry more than six or seven passengers.

 

At the end of the 1980s, a local company Atlas designed and built a new version of the auto rickshaw, called mishuk, a name derived from a children's mascot of a local deer. Unlike baby taxis, mishuks have spoke wheels and a green body, and have no meter system. Mishuks have more space than baby taxis or CNGs, which makes it more popular with women. They are commonly found in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country due to its four-stroke engine, which is not listed as a significant source of air pollution.

 

CAMBODIA

In Cambodia, the term tuk-tuk (Khmer: ទុកទុក) is used to refer to a motorcycle with a cabin attached to the rear. Cambodian cities have a much lower volume of automobile traffic than Thai cities, and tuk-tuks are still the most common form of urban transport. At the temple complex of Angkor, for example, tuk-tuks provide a convenient form of transport around the complex for tourists. One can hire a tuk-tuk and driver by the day.[citation needed]

 

Siem Reap tuk-tuks are generally of the style of motorcycle and trailer. This version does not have rear brakes.

 

Phnom Penh tuk-tuks are one piece. The one piece tuk-tuk is the front end of a motorcycle consisting of steering, tank and engine/gearbox with a covered tray mounted at the back. The power is transferred by chain to an axle mounted to the modified rear fork which drives the two rear wheels. Suspended upon the rear fork is an open cabin with an in-line seat on each side. This arrangement can carry 6 people at ease, with their luggage in the leg space. It is not unusual to see these vehicles greatly overloaded, especially in outer suburbs and around markets.

 

Sihanoukville tuk-tuks are generally a motorcycle and articulated trailer without rear brakes on the trailer. A minority of tuk-tuks are three wheeled. The rear wheel of the motorcycle is removed and the front of the bike is melded with a trailer. Power is supplied to the trailer wheels by a driveshaft and differential. Rear wheel brakes add significantly to the safety of this design, especially when going downhill.

 

Currently, Tuk Tuk in Cambodia is being developed to be more convenient and safer. It is also becoming a popular form of transportation for Phnom Penh residents.

Gaza

 

Together with the recent boom of recreational facilities in Gaza for the local residents, donkey carts have all but been displaced by tuk-tuks in 2010. Due to the ban by Israel on the import of most motorised vehicles, the tuk-tuks have had to be smuggled in parts through the tunnel network connecting Gaza with Egypt.

 

CHINA

Various types of auto rickshaw are used around China, where they are called 三轮 (Sān lún - three wheeler) or 嘟嘟车 (Dū dū chē - beep beep car).

 

In Hainan, the southernmost province, electric models are used in the capital Haikou. These may be heavy, purpose-built vehicles, or simple bicycles attached to a light chassis, with a small electric motor housed underneath.

 

In rural areas, a sturdy, petrol-powered, plastic-bodied type is common, similar to the Philippine motorized tricycle.

 

INDIA

OVERVIEW

Most cities offer auto rickshaw service, although hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata.

 

Auto rickshaws are used in cities and towns for short distances; they are less suited to long distances because they are slow and the carriages are open to air pollution. Auto rickshaws (often called "autos") provide cheap and efficient transportation. Modern auto rickshaws run on compressed natural gas (CNG) and are environmentally friendly compared to full-sized cars.

 

It is also not uncommon in many parts of India (including major cities like Delhi) to see primary school children crammed into an auto-rickshaw, transporting them between home and school.

 

To augment speedy movement of traffic, Auto rickshaws are not allowed in the southern part of Mumbai.

 

DESIGN & MANUFACTURE

There are two types of autorickshaws in India. In older versions the engines were situated below the driver's seat, while in newer versions engines are located in the rear. They normally run on petrol, CNG and diesel. The seating capacity of a normal rickshaw is four, including the driver's seat. Six-seater rickshaws exist in different parts of the country, but the model was officially banned in the city of Pune 10 January 2003 by the Regional Transport Authority (RTA).

 

CNG autos are distinguishable from the earlier petrol-powered autos by a green and yellow livery, as opposed to the earlier black and yellow appearance. Certain local governments are advocating for four-stroke engines instead of the current two-stroke versions.

 

Auto rickshaw manufacturers in India include Bajaj Auto, Kumar Motors, Kerala Automobiles Limited, Force Motors (previously Bajaj Tempo), Mahindra & Mahindra, Piaggio Ape and TVS Motors.

 

LEGISLATION

Generally rickshaw fares are controlled by the government.

 

INDONESIA

In Indonesia, auto rickshaws are popular in Jakarta, Medan, Java, and Sulawesi. In Jakarta, the auto rickshaws are similar to the ones in India but are colored blue and orange. Outside of Jakarta the bentor-style auto rickshaw is more ubiquitous, with the passenger cabin mounted as a sidecar to a motorcycle. Where these sidecar style auto rickshaws do occur in Jakarta they are not referred to as bentor, but rather as bajaj (bajai). They were also popular in East Java until the end of the 20th century and were known as a bemo.

 

LAOS

Lao tuk-tuks come as tuk-tuks or jumbo tuk-tuks. Jumbos have a larger 3- or 4-cylinder four-stroke engine, and many are powered by Daihatsu engines. Jumbos' larger engine and cabin size allow for greater loads, up to 12 persons, and higher top speeds. Jumbos are (with few exceptions) only found in Vientiane and Luang Prabang.

 

NEPAL

Auto rickshaws were the popular mode of transport in Nepal during the 1980s and 1990s, till Nepal Government decided to ban the movement of 600 such vehicles in the early 2000. Earliest model of auto rickshaw running in Kathmandu were manufactured by Bajaj Auto. Nepal has been a popular destination for Rickshaw Run. The 2009 Fall Run took place in Goa, India and concluded in Pokhara, Nepal.

 

PAKISTAN

Auto rickshaws are a popular mode of transport in Pakistani towns and is mainly used for traveling short distances within cities. One of the major brands of auto rickshaws is Vespa (an Italian Company). Lahore is hub of CNG Auto rikshaws manufacturers in Pakistan.The government of Pakistan is taking measures to convert all the gasoline run auto-rickshaws to more effective CNG rickshaw by 2015 in all the major cities of Pakistan by issuing easy loans through commercial banks. Environment Canada is implementing pilot projects in Lahore, Karachi and Quetta with engine technology developed in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada that uses CNG instead of gasoline in the two-stroke engines, in an effort to combat environmental pollution and noise levels.

 

In many cities in Pakistan, there are also motorcycle rickshaws, usually called chand gari (moon car) or Chingchi (after the Chinese company Jinan Qingqi Motorcycle Co. Ltd who first introduced these to the market).

 

Rickshaws are forbidden in the capital, Islamabad.

 

Auto rickshaws have had a history of displaying political statements. In February 2013, that legacy was modified to promote peace. According to Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi, head of the Pakistan Youth Alliance, "We need to take back this romanticized art form and use it for peace sloganeering and conflict resolution."

 

Manufacturers There are many companies involving in Rickshaw manufacturing in Pakistan, some of them are, AECO Export Company, STAHLCO Motors, Global Sources, Parhiyar Automobiles, Global Ledsys Technologies, Siwa Industries, Prime Punjab Automobiles, Murshid Farm Industries, Sazgar Automobiles, NTN Enterprises, Imperial Engineering Company

 

PHILLIPINES

Auto rickshaws are an especially popular form of public transportation in the Philippines, where they are referred to as "tricycles" (Filipino: traysikel; Cebuano: traysikol). In the Philippines, the design and configuration of tricycles varies widely from place to place, but tends towards rough standardization within each municipality. The usual design is a passenger or cargo sidecar fitted to a motorcycle, usually on the right of the motorcycle. It is rare to find one with a left sidecar. Tricycles can carry five passengers or more in the sidecar, one or two pillion passengers behind the motorcycle driver, and even a few on the roof of the sidecar. Tricycles are one of the main contributors to air pollution in the Philippines, since majority of them employ two-stroke motorcycles. However, some local governments are working towards phasing out two-stroke-powered tricycles for ones with cleaner four-stroke motorcycles.

 

SRI LANKA

Auto rickshaws, commonly known as three-wheelers and more recently tuk-tuk, can be found on all roads in Sri Lanka from the curvy roads through the hill country to the congested roads of Colombo transporting locals, foreigners, or freight about. Sri Lankan three-wheelers are of the style of the light Phnom Penh type. Most of the three-wheelers in Sri Lanka are a slightly modified Indian Bajaj model, imported from India though there are few manufactured locally and increasingly imports from other countries in the region and other brands of three-wheelers such as Piaggio. In 2007 January the Sri Lankan government imposed a ban on all 2-stroke three-wheelers, due to environmental concerns and therefore the ones imported to the island now are the ones with four-stroke engines. Most three-wheelers are available as hiring vehicles, with few being used to haul goods and as private company or advertising vehicles. Bajaj enjoys a virtual monopoly in the island, with its agent being David Pieries Motor Co Ltd. A few three-wheelers in Sri Lanka have distance meters, and in the capital city it is becoming more and more common, however the vast majority of charges are negotiated between the passenger and driver.

 

THAILAND

The auto rickshaw, called tuk-tuk (Thai: ตุ๊กตุ๊ก, pronounced "took-took") or sam-lor (Thai: สามล้อ) meaning three-wheeler in Thailand, is a widely used form of urban transport in Bangkok and other Thai cities. It is particularly popular where traffic congestion is a major problem, such as in Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima. The name is onomatopoeic, mimicking the sound of a small (often two-cycle) engine. An equivalent English term would be "putt-putt."

 

Bangkok and other cities in Thailand have many tuk-tuks which are a more open variation on the Indian auto-rickshaw. There are no meters, and trip costs are negotiated in advance. Bangkok fares have risen to nearly equal normal taxis due to uninformed foreigners willing to pay the asking price, but leaves passengers more exposed to environmental pollution than taxis. The solid roof is so low that the tuk-tuk is a difficult touring vehicle. Today few locals take one unless they are burdened with packages or travelling in a big group for short distances.

 

The Thai tuk-tuk is starting to change from the old smoke-spewing vehicle of yesteryear. Many Thai tuk-tuk manufacturers now produce low emission vehicles, and even old ones are having new engines fitted along with LPG conversions. In an early morning of Bangkok, these same passenger vehicles can be seen busily transporting fresh produce around the city. Newer tuk-tuks also have wet weather sides to keep passengers and drivers dry.

 

The Thai auto-rikshaw manufacturers are, Monika Motors Ltd., TukTuk (Thailand) Co., Ltd., TukTuk Forwerder Co., Ltd. Bangkok and MMW Tuk-Tuks Co.,Ltd. in Hua Hin. Smaller manufacturers are the Chinnaraje Co., Ltd. in Chiang Mai and the Expertise Co., Ltd. in Chonburi which manufactures its models in Komaki, Japan, also.

 

VIETNAM

Known locally as xe lam, the vernacular pronunciation of the Lambro from the Lambretta line by Innocenti of Italy, these vehicles were very popular in the 1960s and 1970s, especially the urban centers of South Vietnam. Over time the authorities have moved to limit their use.

 

Xe lam with 1-wheel forward and 2-aft were designed to carry passengers whereas other variants with 2-forward and 1-aft, used mostly to transport goods are known as Xe ba gác máy. The motorized version of cycle rickshaw is the Xích lô máy is of the same design.

 

EUROPE

FRANCE

A number of Tuk-tuks ( 250 in 2013 according to the Paris Prefecture)are used as an alternative tourist transport system in Paris, some off them being pedal operated with the help of an electric engine. They are not yet fully licenced to operate and await customers on the streets. 'Velos taxis' were common during the Occupation years in Paris due to fuel restrictions.

 

ITALY

Auto rickshaws have been commonly used in Italy since the late 1940s, providing a low-cost means of transportation in the post-World-War-II years when the country was short of economic resources. The Piaggio Ape, designed by Vespa creator Corradino D'Ascanio and first manufactured in 1948 by the Italian company Piaggio, though primarily designed for carrying freight has also been widely used as an auto rickshaw. It is still extremely popular throughout the country, being particularly useful in the narrow streets found in the center of many little towns in central and southern Italy. Though it no longer has a key role in transportation, Piaggio Ape is still used as a minitaxi in some areas such as the islands of Ischia and Stromboli (on Stromboli no cars are allowed). It has recently been re-launched as a trendy-ecological means of transportation, or, relying on the role the Ape played in the history of Italian design, as a promotional tool. Since 2006 the Ape has been produced under licence in India.

 

NETHERLANDS

Since 2007, tuk-tuks have been active in the Netherlands, starting with Amsterdam. They now operate in Amersfoort, Amsterdam, The Hague, Zandvoort, Bergen op Zoom, the popular beach resort Renesse and Rotterdam. The tuk-tuks in the Netherlands are imported from India and Thailand. They are fitted with CNG engines and have passed the EURO-4 rules.

 

UNITED KINGDOM

The first Tuk Tuks to enter service in the United Kingdom were supplied and built by MMW Imports in 1999, under the brand name MMW Tuk Tuks. The very first Private Hire licence was issued to an MMW Tuk Tuk for tours of Bath in the year 2000, MMW also gained full Hackney license in Weston-super-Mare. MMW also now export Tuk Tuks from Thailand to the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, New Zealand and Australia. All the MMW range are built in their own factory in Thailand and are custom made for each customer's needs; hence no two tuk tuks are the same, and they come fully customized as per required spec.

 

Tukshop of Southampton started the commercial importing of Tuk Tuks into the UK in 2003, which resulted in many people being inspired to set up taxi-type operations in a number of cities including Blackpool, Brighton and Leeds. Tukshop failed to gain a taxi operator license for London after a number of media appearances in 2004. The company, founded by mrsteve, are specialists in experiential marketing using the iconic three-wheelers for street marketing campaigns. Clients of Tukshop include many household names, such as T Mobile, Harrods, Universal Pictures, O2, BBC, Freeview, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Tiger Beer & Grolsch lager. Tukshop have imported and put over one hundred tuk tuks on the roads of the UK and Europe between starting the business and Oct 2010. The company currently stocks models from Piaggio & Bajaj, including the commercial versions such as the TM Van.

 

A Bajaj tuk tuk is currently operated by Bangwallop of Salcombe, South Devon. Taking just two passengers at a time, the tuk tuk has an operator's licence issued by VOSA and trips can be booked in advance.[citation needed]

 

Auto rickshaws were introduced to the city of Brighton and Hove on 10 July 2006 by entrepreneur Dominic Ponniah's company Tuctuc Ltd, who had the idea after seeing the vehicles used in India and Sri Lanka. They were CNG-powered, using a four-speed (plus reverse) 175 cc engine. Under the terms of their license, the Bajas ran on a fixed single route, and stopped only at designated stops. They are of the same design as traditional auto rickshaws in other countries.

 

An investigation was launched into Tuctuc Ltd's operation of the service after complaints were raised, primarily by the city's taxi drivers, that routes, stopping points and timetables were not being adhered to. In November 2006, the company was fined £16,500 – the maximum penalty possible – by the South East Traffic Commissioner. After amendments were made to the timetable to reduce delays and improve reliability, the Commissioner allowed the company to keep its operating license. However, the company announced in January 2008 that it was ceasing operations, citing "archaic legislation" as the reason.

 

In the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, there is a new street food restaurant called Tuk Tuk Indian Street Food, that has its own branded Tuk Tuks, which are used for marketing around the town and picking up customers on special occasions.

 

CENTRAL AMERICA

EL SALVADOR

The mototaxi or moto is the El Salvadoran version of the auto rickshaw. These are most commonly made from the front end and engine of a motorcycle attached to a two-wheeled passenger area in back. Commercially produced models, such as the Indian Bajaj brand, are also employed.

 

GUATEMALA

In Guatemala the commercial vehicles are referred to as tuk-tuks. Tuk-tuks operate, both as taxis and private vehicles, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, around the island town of Flores, Peten, in the mountain city of Antigua Guatemala, and in many small towns in the mountains. In 2005 the tuk-tuks prevalent in the Lago de Atitlán towns of Panajachel and Santiago Atitlán all appeared to be from India (Bajaj Auto).

 

HONDURAS

Three-wheeled all-in-one tuk-tuks are used in the place of traditional taxis in most rural towns and villages.

 

NICARAGUA

As of 2011 there were an estimated 5,000 mototaxis, popularly known as "caponeras".

 

CARIBBEAN

Three-wheeled Coco taxis in Havana, Cuba

 

CUBA

Three-wheeled Coco taxis, named for their resemblance to a coconut, are used in Havana, Cuba.

 

SOUTH AMERICA

ECUADOR

The mototaxi is the Ecuatorian version of the auto rickshaw. These are most commonly made from the front end and engine of a motorcycle attached to a two-wheeled passenger area in back.

 

PERU

It is a common sight in the rural areas, towns and cities of Peru to see auto rickshaws, locally known as "mototaxis," "motokars", "taxi cholo", or "cholotaxi" lining up to pick up passengers as their fares are generally lower than car taxis. They are also in the capital, Lima, but they are usually restricted to the peripheral districts. The "jungle" cities and towns in eastern Peru are famous for their prevalence of auto rickshaws. This vehicle, usually running on regular unleaded gasoline, is the main non-private transport vehicle, and is known as "motocarro", "mototaxi" or "tuk-tuk" (for foreigners).

 

Many of the jungle areas of eastern Peru can be extremely noisy as a result of poorly maintained auto rickshaws and other 2 or 3-wheel vehicles, especially in high traffic or hilly areas. Auto-rickshaw brands such as the Indian-made Bajaj, which use GLP [a form of liquified petroleum gas which some car taxis also use] are much quieter.

 

NORTH AMERICA

UNITED STATES

Tuk Tuks were introduced to the United States through Tuk Tuk North America of Swainsboro, Georgia. As early as 2006, Mr. Roy Jordan, the owner of Tuk Tuk North America, began working with both the U.S. federal government and manufacturers in Thailand to configure a tuk tuk that was cost effective but adaptable to meet or exceed U.S. Department of Transportation regulations. He was able to contract a manufacturer who could make imported tuk tuks that could meet all necessary federal regulations in the U.S. Original products were imported from Thailand and were gas propelled. Due to the changing regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, the introduction of imported gas-propelled tuk tuks was short-lived. Due to such changes, in 2009 Tuk Tuk North America decided to go dormant in its importing of gas propelled tuk tuks into the U.S.

 

However, with the growing emphasis on sustainable “green” energy and the recognition of the continuing rising oil prices, in 2011 the project's short dormancy was rejuvenated being redirected towards introduction of a complete line of all-electric tuk tuks. The line included eight models of "street legal" tuk tuks including passenger, utility, and delivery vehicles. These were offered under the manufacturer’s new name, Electro Technologies LLC, and marketed and sold exclusively through Tuk Tuk Transport LLC of Lenoir City, Tennessee, under the leadership of C. Phillip Tallant.

 

Prior to 2013, the greatest obstacle to commercial transportation usage of the electric tuk tuks created by Electro Technologies was addressed in mid 2013 by providing a means by which ET Tuk Tuks could be in service 24/7. With this advancement grew the opportunity for formation of Tuk Tuk of America, a company by which partnering affiliates across the U.S. could begin their own local niche urban mobility transportation company with guaranteed protected territories.

 

FUEL EFFICIENCY & POLLUTION

In July 1998, the Supreme Court of India ordered the Delhi government to implement CNG or LPG (Autogas) fuel for all autos and for the entire bus fleet in and around the city.[citation needed] Delhi's air quality has improved with the switch to CNG. Initially, auto rickshaw drivers in Delhi had to wait in long queues for CNG refueling, but the situation has improved with the increase of CNG stations. Certain local governments are pushing for four-stroke engines instead of the current two-stroke versions. Typical mileage for an Indian-made auto rickshaw is around 35 kilometers per liter of petrol (about 2.9 L per 100 km, or 82 miles per gallon [United States (wet measure), 100 miles per gallon Imperial (United Kingdom, Canada)]. Pakistan has passed a similar law prohibiting auto rickshaws in certain areas. CNG auto rickshaws have started to appear in huge numbers in many Pakistani cities.

 

In January 2007 the Sri Lankan government also banned two-stroke trishaws to reduce air pollution. In the Philippines there are projects to convert carburated two-stroke engines to direct-injected via Envirofit technology. Research has shown LPG or CNG gas direct-injection to be retrofit-able to existing engines in similar fashion to the Envirofit system. In Vigan City majority of tricycles-for-hire as of 2008 are powered by motorcycles with four-stroke engines, as tricycles with two-stroke motorcycles are prevented from receiving operating permits. Direct injection is standard equipment on new machines in India.

 

In March 2009 an international consortium coordinated by the International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies initiated a two-year public-private partnership of local and international stakeholders aiming at operating a fleet of 15 hydrogen-fueled three-wheeled vehicles in New Delhi's Pragati Maidan complex. As of January 2011, the project was upon completion.

 

In the meantime, in October, 2011, the Department of Transportation for the U.S. approved the complete 2012 series of American made, all-electric tuk tuks by Electro Technologies. Chassis were still being shipped in from Thailand, but now with the inclusion of all electrical components as manufactured only in the U.S. with assembly completed in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The American made electric tuk tuks were unique in that they were charged through common 110v outlets providing a range of 60 to 100(+) miles per charge (depending upon model and conditions) with a recharge time between 4 to 6 hours. The Electro Technologies Tuk Tuks topped out at 40 miles per hour which perfectly addresses the needs of their design; niche urban mobile transportation.

 

The greatest obstacle to daily usage in niche urban mobile commercial transportation was addressed in 2013 by Electro Technologies when they introduced their quick-release battery pack allowing for restoration of 100% power availability in just a few short minutes. This commercial upgrade allowed niche urban transportation businesses to operate 24/7 with no interruption to business.

 

TRAFFIC ISSUES

Auto rickshaws have a top-speed of around 50 km/h (about 31 mph) and a cruising speed of around 35 km/h (22 mph), much slower than the automobiles they share the road with. Traffic authorities in big cities try to implement mechanisms to reduce the resulting traffic slowing, but none have proven effective.

 

The MMW Tuk Tuk has a top speed of around 70 mph and with the introduction of the new turbo will have much improved acceleration, to allow for increased speed these Tuk Tuks have anti-roll bars and are fitted with disc brakes.

 

The triangular form of the vehicle makes maneuvering easy, with the single front wheel negotiating the available gap, and the rear two wheels forcing a larger space. Care must be taken even at low speeds, however, because of the stability problems of three-wheeler vehicles with a single front wheel. Such a "delta"-configuration three-wheeler can easily roll if the driver turns while braking.

 

In the Philippines, 2-stroke motor tricycle such as Yamaha RS-100T can give a top speed of 55 km/h (one passenger in the sidecar), or 30–40 km/h (full passengers in the sidecar).

 

More powerful four-stroke motor tricycles such as Honda TMX & Yamaha STX & Bajaj CT-100 can give a top speed up to 70–85 km/h (special trip/one passenger) or 40–50 km/h (full passengers).

 

RACING

Due to their relatively low top-speed, auto rickshaws have never lent themselves to conventional road or street racing. However, their modest speed, simple construction and impressive fuel economy has endeared them to the international amateur adventuring community, most notably with the Rickshaw Run and also the Indian Autorickshaw Challenge, and even off-road racing with the Apecar competitions in Italy. A Tuk Tuk built by Art In Motion, LLC competed in the 2008 Fireball Run II – Back to the Track

 

PORTRAYAL IN MEDIA

Auto rickshaws are often portrayed in Indian films (Auto Shankar, Basha, Aye Auto, Oram Po, Hero Hiralal) as well as some Hollywood and foreign productions such as the James Bond film Octopussy, the Canada-India film Amal and the Indonesian movie Pembalasan Rambu. Auto rickshaws are also prominent in the fuel-poor London of 2027 A.D. depicted in Children of Men. A memorable tuk-tuk chase features in the Thai film Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior, climaxing with many of them driving off the edge of an unfinished elevated expressway. The video games Just Cause 2, Stuntman, Far Cry 4 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam feature Tuk-Tuks as drivable vehicles. James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) rides in a tuk-tuk in a Visa Card commercial.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Reliabilityweb.com CEO Terrence O'Hanlon keynote address at FIATECH-2016

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.

 

The E-series designs were simpler, cheaper to produce and more efficient than their predecessors. But, on the other side, their design offered only modest improvements in armor and firepower over the designs they were intended to replace, such as the Jagdpanzer 38(t), Panther Ausf.G or Tiger II. However, the resulting high degree of standardization of German armored vehicles would also have made production, logistics and maintenance easier. Indeed, nearly all of the E-series vehicles — up through and including the E-75 — were intended to use what were essentially the Tiger II's eighty centimeter diameter, steel-rimmed road wheels for their suspension, meant to overlap each other. An innovative conical spring system, replacing their predecessors' torsion bar system which required a special steel alloy, simplified production and required less internal space.

 

Focus of initial chassis and combat vehicle development was the E-50/75 Standardpanzer, designed by Adler, both being mostly identical and only differing in armor thickness, overall weight and running gear design to cope with the different weights. But there were lighter chassis variants, too, including the light E-5 and E-10 for armored, tracked reconnaissance vehicles, and the medium E-25.

 

The E-25 designs, in the 25-50 tonnes weight class, were to be replacements for all Panzer III and Panzer IV based designs still in service, as well as for the early variants of the Panzer V (the Panther). This chassis' main designers were Alkett, Argus and Adler, with the involvement of Porsche. The proposed vehicle family would include medium reconnaissance vehicles, a medium Jagdpanzer and a heavy Waffenträger, but the chassis was also considered for other armed vehicles.

 

The original E-25 chassis used five Tiger II style road wheels per side, combined with "slack-track" design. Track propulsion was switched to a rear drive sprocket, as a consequence of mating the engine and the gearbox into a single tail-mounted, very compact power pack that made the voluminous and heavy power train all through the hull obsolete. This allowed the tank’s body to be lowered, and the gained space offered more room for the crew’s operations, heavier guns and ammunition storage.

The first member of the E-25 family that entered production was the medium tank hunter. It received highest priority and the project was called “Jagdpanzer E-25/88”, running under the inventory ordnance number "SdKfZ. 194". However, at the time of its introduction the E-25 chassis was also considered for a medium battle tank in the 35 ton class, since it had become clear that the E-50/75 battle tanks were rather large and resource-consuming. A lighter, more agile vehicle was needed, and it was to be armed with either the highly effective 75mm L/70 cannon (used in the Panther and the late Jagdpanzer IV) or the more powerful 8.8 cm L/56 gun, used in the Tiger I and the Jagdpanther.

 

Porsche was tasked with the adaptation of the E-25 chassis for a turret for both heavy guns. The work was in close collaboration with Henschel and the Oberschlesische Gusswerke Beuthen who were both working on a new, unified cast steel turret for the 88mm gun for a wide range of medium tanks like the Panther, the E-50/75 family and the heavy Tiger II. Alternatively, the new E-25 battle tank was to accept the so-called Schmalturm, which could carry both cannon types, too.

 

After the Allied invasion in the Normandy in 1944 and with ever-rising pressure through the Red Army from the East, the E-25 MBT project eventually gained more and more priority and momentum. As a consequence, Porsche was assigned by the Heeresleitung to build a running prototype as quickly as possible, ideally until early 1945.

 

Porsche was certain that the original E-25 chassis was too short and light for the adaptation of the cast turret. In order to keep the tight timeline, Porsche decided to develop a new welded steel hull while using as many Einheitspanzer components as possible. The resulting vehicle had little in common with the original Adler E-25 chassis and rather resembled the bigger and heavier E-50/75 family. Overall dimensions ended up close to the Panther hull, as a result of a certain minimum width that was necessary to mount the new turret’s bearings and balance its weight. However, the new tank's overall silhouette was considerably lower than the Panther’s or the E-50/75 family MBT’s.

The Porsche design also made full use of several new technical solutions for the engine and the new, space-saving E-50/75 suspension. For instance, thanks to the rear-mounted power unit with the gearbox and the driving sprocket wheels, the front armor could be optimized to offer very good ballistic protection (achieving a very shallow 30°angle) despite a maximum thickness of only 70 mm. The thickest armor, the cast steel gun mantlet, was 80 mm.

 

The tank’s running gear consisted of six steel-rimmed wheels per side, mounted in three staggered pairs, similar to the heavier E-50 tank. Thanks to the lower overall weight, a new Niresit track with less width could be used. The so-called “Beuthen Turm” offered excellent ballistic protection, a very low profile and featured a commander cupola with a full 360° view through periscopes as well as a 200cm width stereoscopic optical rangefinder for the gunner. A few vehicles were additionally equipped with FG1250/1251 infrared illuminators, too, allowing night operations in coordination with special versions of the Sd.Kfz.251 with long-range infrared illuminators, and complemented by assault troops using Vampir-modified Sturmgewehr guns.

 

Savings in material and complexity were achieved through simplified shapes and the use of stock components from other or older tanks, as well as the reduction of the crew to only four: the traditional radio operator in the hull, next to the driver, as well as a hull-mounted machine gun, were completely omitted. The driver was furthermore moved to the right side, a result of the secondary ammunition bunker in the hull being placed in front of the loader in the turret for easy access.

 

In this form, the tank was tested in early 1945 and hastily pushed into production, receiving the designation Sonderkraftfahrzeug 194 and officially christened ”Fuchs”. In order to reflect Porsche's involvement in this new tank's design and to differentiate it from the standard E-25 tank, the vehicle and its chassis variant was called E-25(P).

The resulting medium battle tank received, depending on its main weapon, the suffix 'A' for the 75mm cannon (SdKfz. 194/1) and 'B' for the 88mm gun (SdKfz. 194/1). The Schmalturm did not find its way on the production vehicles, and both variants had an operational weight of roundabout 38 tons. This was considerably less than any German contemporary MBT from the E-50/75 family, and even lighter than the late Panther variants. For its weight, the powerful main weapons made the vehicle a highly mobile and deadly enemy, enabling the crews to execute “hit and run” tactics which were impossible with the bigger and slower tanks.

 

The first production vehicles were deployed to independent units at the Western front line along the lower Rhine in May 1945, but due to the lack of thorough tests, sufficient crew training and lack of combat experience with the new vehicle, the initial results were poor. The majority of tank losses was not through enemy fire, though - many tanks had to be abandoned and were destroyed by their crews after technical failures.

 

The Fuchs MBT was popular among the crews, though, since it offered a much higher mobility than its heavier Einheitspanzer brethren. The relatively large and spacious turret was another point that found much appraise – but its poor technical reliability was its biggest Achilles heel.

Due to the ever-worsening situation, less than 100 E-25(P) hulls were completed and probably less than 50 combat-worthy vehicles arrived at front line units and were involved in battle until the end of hostilities. But the design work, with many radical and innovative ideas, did not get lost – many of the Fuchs’ design features like its hull layout and armor design or the Beuthen turret found their way into the highly successful German Leopard I MBT in the early 1960ies, which entered service with the German Bundeswehr in 1965 and still serves with several armies until today.

  

Specifications:

Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader, radio operator, driver)

Weight: 38 tonnes (41.9 short tons)

Length: 7,02 metres (23 ft), hull only

9.77 metres (32 ft) overall, with the gun forward

Width: 3.96 metres (12 ft 11 1/2 in)

Height: 2.34 metres (7 ft 8 in)

Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)

Suspension: Conical spring

Fuel capacity: 450 litres (120 US gal)

 

Armor:

10–80 mm (0.4 – 3.15 in)

 

Performance:

Speed

- Maximum, road: 52 km/h (32 mph)

- Sustained, road: 42 km/h (26 mph)

- Cross country: 16 to 25 km/h (9.5 to 15.5 mph)

Operational range: 210 km (130 mi)

Power/weight: 14,47 PS/tonne (12,86 hp/ton)

 

Engine:

V12 Maybach HL 101 gasoline engine with 550 PS (539 hp, 341 kW)

 

Transmission:

ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears

 

Armament:

1× 8.8 cm KwK 43/4 L/56 with 48 rounds

2× 7.92 mm MG 34 machine guns with a total of 5.200 rounds

(one co-axial with the main weapon, one manually operated on the commander's cupola)

  

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional Heer '46 is based on the fact that the famous German post-WWII MBT Leopard 1 – at least the Porsche prototype – was based on designs from the WWII era. So, why not spin this story further and retro-grade a Leopard 1 into a Heer ’46 tank, as a kind of grandfather design with then-state-of-the-art technologies…?

 

Well, that job could be easily done with a Leopard 1 kit built more or less OOB and just painted in typical WWII colors – I have actually seen such things in simulation games like World of Tanks, and it did not look bad at all. But for the ambitious modelers, this would be a bit too simple, wouldn’t it?

For instance, there are some features like the running gear on the Leopard that are very modern and would IMHO not fit into the late WWII timeframe. The general lack of high quality materials and design simplifications everywhere would certainly also take their toll. As a consequence the starting basis for this whiffy tank model actually became an 1:72 Leopard 1 (to be exact, it’s Revell’s Leopard 1A5 kit), but from this basis only a few parts were actually taken over.

 

Work started with the upper hull, which received the transplantation of the complete upper rear deck from a leftover Hasegawa Panther, including the turret’s attachment ring. Internally the whole affair was reinforced with styrene profiles along the seams. The basic idea behind this move was to get rid of the rather modernistic, raised engine cover of the Leopard, and the Panther’s armored cooling fan covers would add a very familiar, German touch. Furthermore, the Panther turret is set relatively further back than on the Leopard, resulting IMHO in a positive side effect for the vehicle’s proportions. The front with the driver’s hatch and the side walls of the Leopard hull were taken over, just the glacis plate was cleaned from the moulded snow claws for the modern Leopard track.

 

While I could have used the original, casted Leopard 1 turret without any extra armor, I rather reverted to a donor part: an aftermarket resin turret from the German short run producer Modell Trans. What spoke for this aftermarket piece is that this Heer ’46 turret piece was exactly that kind of add-on this kit would need: a retrograded Leopard 1 turret, with a simplified shape, a simple commander cupola, typical bulges for a late-war optical rangefinder in the turret sides and even a 8.8cm KwK barrel! The resin turret, which also comes with an AA machine gun, was taken OOB. Only the original resin gun barrel came slightly bent – this could have been corrected easily, but I replaced it with a more delicate white metal and brass piece, anyway. Additionally, an adapter for the hull opening had to be scratched.

 

So far, so good - but the running gear became the biggest challenge. The Leopard 1’s advanced torsion bar running gear with rubber-rimmed wheels would not make sense anymore, due to the special high quality materials needed for its construction. Since the Einheitspanzer family was to share as many components as possible, I decided to implant an E-50-style running gear with its typical cast standard wheels.

This sounds easy, but scratching a running gear is a real stunt! Work started with the attachment points for the driving and guide wheels at the hull’s ends, which were cut off of the Revell kit’s parts and glued into their respective places. The drive wheel was taken over from the Leopard, but the guide wheel at the front end was replaced by a simpler and smaller pair of wheels from a Russian IS-3 tank.

Using the E-50 as benchmark for the running wheels, I gathered twelve of them from the scrap box and from several Modellcollect kits in the stash (The 1:72 E-50 kits from Modelcollect and Trumpeter all come with the option to build an E-75, too, so that each kit offers two pairs of excess parts). Mounting these wheels to the hull, in a staggered fashion, became the kit’s true challenge, though, because I did not have a sufficient number of original wheel carriers/suspension packs. Improvisation resulted in the adaptation of twelve leftover suspension arms from a Modelcollect E-100 kit, even though they had to be tailored in depth and length to fit under the Leopard’s hull. It took some trial and error to find a proper position that would produce a plausible stance, but I think the effort of this transplantation really changes the tank’s look into something Heer ’46-ish?

 

The track was taken OOB from the Leopard 1 kit, and it is of the segmented IP type. It was mounted after most painting was done, starting with single track segments on the drive and guiding wheels, and then the gaps were filled with other track elements. A bit of a gamble, but the theory, that the track parts should match, was confirmed. Phew…

  

Painting and markings:

For some subtlety, the model received a classic German paint scheme with “Hinterhalt” colors (Dunkelgelb, Olivgrün and Rotbraun). Once the kit’s components were finished (hull, turret and the separate wheels), everything received an overall coat with matt RAL 7028 (Modelmaster Authentics).

On top of that, a dense pattern of red brown (Humbrol 160) and finally green (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster Authentics) mottles in 1 1:2 ratio was applied with a flat, narrow brush, for a somewhat square shape of the blotches. Pretty straightforward, seen on a late war Panther - and suitable for a summertime scenario as well as in line with common field practice, even though at the time where the model is placed, tanks might have looked more extraordinary or improvised due to the general material shortages.

 

Once the basic painting was done, the kit received a thin, water-based wash with dark brown, carefully swabbed with a soft cotton cloth in order to leave just a thin and cloudy film on the surfaces and more of the wash in recesses and corners. There were only a few decals to apply, namely three small German crosses and the tactical code on the turret’s flanks. Later some dry-brushing with light grey and hemp was done, emphasizing the edges and highlighting surface details.

 

The track segments were primed with a mix of acrylic iron, black and dark brown and received a final paint treatment after mounting them onto the wheels, hiding some glue stains and other blemishes.

 

Artist pigments (a mix of ochre, grey and brown) were dusted with a soft brush onto the lower kit areas, after having sealed the model with matt acrylic varnish beforehand.

  

Well, what could have been a simple paint job in order to achieve a time-warped Leopard 1 became a massive kitbashing project. However, I think this extra effort, esp. the adaptation of the E-50 running gear, and all the potential risks of mixing parts from different kits, was worthwhile? The paint scheme certainly suggest the WWII era, too. The resulting “new” tank looks IMHO pretty plausible, and both hull and turret shape remind of the Leopard 1 without looking like the real thing behind this build. In fact, from certain angles this one appears like the missing link between the Panther and the Leopard 1, and a lot like an inspiration for the Soviet T-54/55 or even the T-72?

This was meant to take on the world this was, but sadly it didn’t get very far! The Rover 800 had so many possibilities, so many variants could have been derived from it, but unfortunately the management was once again very quick to nip this beautiful car in the bud, and the Rover 800 would join that long line of ‘what-could-have-been’ motors that seem to pave British motoring history.

 

The origin of the Rover 800 goes back to the late 1970’s, when nationalised British car manufacturer and all around general failure British Leyland was absolutely desperate to fix its seemingly endless list of problems. The company had now garnered a reputation for creating some of the worst, most outdated cars of all time, the likes of the Morris Marina, the Austin Allegro and the Triumph TR7 being derided in both critical and customer reviews. A mixture of strike action by uncontrollable Trade Unions led by the infamous Red Robbo had meant that cars were only put together for a few hours per day on a three day week. As such, reliability was atrocious on a biblical scale, be it mechanical, cosmetic or electrical.

 

As such, in 1979, British Leyland began talks with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to try and help improve the reliability of their machines. The pioneer of this brave new deal was the Triumph Acclaim of 1980, BL’s first reliable car and not a bad little runabout. Basically a rebadged Honda Ballade, the Acclaim wasn’t meant to set the world ablaze, but it certainly helped get the company back onto people’s driveways, selling reasonably well thanks to its reliable mechanics (even if rust was something of an issue). As such, BL decided that from now on it would give its fleet a complete overhaul, basing their new models on Japanese equivalents. From 1984, the Rover 200 arrived on the scene, again, a rebadged Honda Ballade, while the Maestro and the Montego ranges also took on several tips from their Japanese counterparts, though they were primarily based on British underpinnings.

 

The Rover 800 however spawned quite early on, in 1981 to be exact. Following the catastrophic failure of the Rover SD1 in the American market, which only sold 774 cars before Rover removed itself from the USA altogether, the company was desperate to get another foothold across the pond. As such, the new project, dubbed project XX, would be the icing on the cake in terms of British Leyland’s fleet overhaul, a smooth and sophisticated executive saloon to conquer the world. However, plans were pushed back after the launch of the Montego and the Maestro, and thus project XX wouldn’t see the light of day again until about 1984.

 

Still in production and suffering from being long-in-the-tooth, the Rover SD1 was now coming up on 10 years old, and though a sublime car in terms of style and performance, it was now struggling in sales. Rover really needed to replace this golden oldie, and thus project XX was back on. In the usual fashion, Honda was consulted, and it was decided that the car would be based on that company’s own executive saloon, the Honda Legend. Jointly developed at Rover’s Cowley plant and Honda’s Tochigi development centre, both cars shared the same core structure and floorplan, but they each had their own unique exterior bodywork and interior. Under the agreement, Honda would supply the V6 petrol engine, both automatic and manual transmissions and the chassis design, whilst BL would provide the 4-cylinder petrol engine and much of the electrical systems. The agreement also included that UK-market Honda Legends would be built at the Cowley Plant, and the presence of the Legend in the UK would be smaller than that of the Rover 800, with profits from the 800 shared between the two companies.

 

Launched on July 10th, 1986, the Rover 800 was welcomed with warm reviews regarding its style, its performance and its reliability. Though driving performance was pretty much the same as the Honda Legend, what put the Rover above its Japanese counterpart was its sheer internal elegance and beauty, combined with a differing external design that borrowed cues from the outgoing SD1. The 800 also provided the company with some much-needed optimism, especially following the gradual breakup of British Leyland by the Thatcher Government between 1980 and 1986.

 

Following her election in 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took a no nonsense attitude to the striking unions, and the best form of defence was attack. To shave millions from the deficit, she reduced government spending on nationalised companies such as British Airways, British Coal Board, British Steel and British Leyland by selling them to private ownership. For British Leyland, the slow breakup of the company started with the sale of Leyland Trucks and Buses to DAF of Holland and Volvo, respectively. 1984 saw Jaguar made independent and later bought by Ford, but when rumours circulated that the remains of British Leyland would be sold to foreign ownership, share prices crashed, and the company was privatised and put into the hands of British Aerospace on the strict understanding that the company could not be sold again for four years. With this move, British Leyland was renamed Rover Group, the Austin badge being dropped, and the only remaining brands left being the eponymous Rover and sporty MG.

 

In the light of this tumultuous period, many of Rover and MG’s projects had to be scrapped in light of turbulent share prices and income, these projects including the Austin AR16 family car range (based largely off the Rover 800) and the MG EX-E supercar. The Rover 800 however was the first model to be released by the company following privatisation, and doing well initially in terms of sales, hopes were high that the Rover 800 would herald the end of the company’s troubled spell under British Leyland. The Rover 800 was planned to spearhead multiple Rover ventures, including a return to the US-market in the form of the Sterling, and a coupe concept to beat the world, the sublime Rover CCV.

 

However, British Leyland may have been gone, but their management and its incompetence remained. Rather than taking the formation of Rover Group as a golden opportunity to clean up the company’s act, to the management it was business as usual, and the Rover 800 began to suffer as a consequence. A lack of proper quality control and a cost-cutting attitude meant that despite all the Japanese reliability that had been layered on these machines in the design stage, the cars were still highly unreliable when they left the factory.

 

Perhaps the biggest sentiment to the 800’s failure was the Sterling in America. The Sterling had been named as such due to Rover’s reputation being tarnished by the failure of the unreliable SD1. Initial sales were very promising with the Sterling, a simple design with oodles of luxury that was price competitive with family sedan’s such as the Ford LTD and the Chevy Caprice. However, once the problems with reliability and quality began to rear their heads, sales plummeted and the Sterling very quickly fell short of its sales quota, only selling 14,000 of the forecast 30,000 cars per annum. Sales dropped year by year until eventually the Sterling brand was axed in 1991.

 

With the death of the Sterling came the death of the CCV, a luxury motor that had already won over investors in both Europe and the USA. The fantastic design that had wooed the American market and was ready to go on sale across the States was axed unceremoniously in 1987, and with it any attempt to try and capture the American market ever again.

 

In 1991, Rover Group, seeing their sales were still tumbling, and with unreliable callbacks to British Leyland like the Maestro and Montego still on sale, the company decided to have yet another shakeup to try and refresh its image. The project, dubbed R17, went back to the company’s roots of grand old England, and the Rover 800 was the first to feel its touch. The R17 facelift saw the 800’s angular lines smoothed with revised light-clusters, a low-smooth body, and the addition of a grille, attempting to harp back to the likes of the luxurious Rover P5 of the 1960’s. Engines were also updated, with the previous M16 Honda engine being replaced by a crisp 2.0L T16, which gave the car some good performance. The car was also made available in a set of additional ranges, including a coupe and the sport Vitesse, complete with a higher performance engine.

 

Early reviews of the R17 800 were favourable, many critics lauding its design changes and luxurious interior, especially given its price competitiveness against comparable machines such as the Vauxhall Omega and the Ford Mondeo. Even Jeremy Clarkson, a man who fervently hated Rover and everything it stood for, couldn’t help but give it a good review on Top Gear. However, motoring critics were quick to point out the fact that by this time Honda was really starting to sell heavily in the UK and Europe, and people now asked themselves why they’d want to buy the Rover 800, a near carbon-copy of the Honda Legend, for twice the price but equal performance. Wood and leather furnishings are very nice, but not all motorists are interested in that, some are just interested in a reliable and practical machine to run around in.

 

As such, the Rover 800’s sales domestically were very good, it becoming the best-selling car in the UK for 1992, but in Europe not so much. Though Rover 800’s did make it across the Channel, the BMW 5-Series and other contemporary European models had the market sown up clean, and the Rover 800 never truly made an impact internationally. On average, the car sold well in the early 1990’s, but as time went on the car’s place in the market fell to just over 10,000 per year by 1995. Rover needed another shake-up, and the Rover 75 did just that.

 

In 1994, Rover Group was sold to BMW, and their brave new star to get the company back in the good books of the motoring public was the Rover 75, an executive saloon to beat the world. With this new face in the company’s showrooms, the Rover 800 and its 10 year old design was put out to grass following its launch in 1998. Selling only around 6,500 cars in its final full year of production, the Rover 800 finished sales in 1999 and disappeared, the last relic of the British Leyland/Honda tie up from the 1980’s.

 

Today the Rover 800 finds itself under a mixed reception. While some argue that it was the last true Rover before the BMW buyout, others will fervently deride it as a Honda with a Rover badge, a humiliation of a Rover, and truly the point where the company lost its identity. I personally believe it to be a magnificent car, a car with purpose, a car with promise, but none of those promises fulfilled. It could have truly been the face of a new Rover in the late 1980’s, and could have returned the company to the front line of the motoring world, at least in Britain. But sadly, management incompetence won again for the British motor industry, and the Rover 800 ended its days a lukewarm reminder that we really didn’t know a good thing until it was gone.

Photo Credit: Connor Mallon, Smithsonian's National Zoo

In this photo: Leigh Pitsko

FEMALE: Sukacita

 

Two Sumatran tiger cubs took a brisk doggy paddle at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo today and passed their swim reliability test. The male and female cubs, named Bandar and Sukacita (SOO-kah-CHEE-tah), were born at the Zoo Aug. 5. All cubs born at the Great Cats exhibit must undergo the swim reliability test and prove that they are ready to be on exhibit. Bandar and Sukacita were able to keep their heads above water, navigate to the shallow end of the moat and climb onto dry land. Now that they have passed this critical step, the cubs are ready to explore the yard with their mother, 4-year-old Damai.

 

“Tigers are one of the few species of cats that enjoy taking a dip in water,” said Craig Saffoe, curator of Great Cats. “The moat exists for the safety of our visitors, but it could present an obstacle for young cats. Our job is to make sure that if the cubs venture into the moat, they know how and where to get out. These cubs represent hope for their critically endangered species’ future, so we need to take every precaution to ensure their survival.”

 

Both cubs took the test under the guard of animal keepers Dell Guglielmo and Marie Magnuson, who gently guided the cubs in the right direction. The shallow end of the moat is approximately 2 ½ feet deep. The side of the moat closest to the public viewing area is about 9 feet deep and is an essential safety barrier that effectively keeps the cats inside their enclosure.

This is the first litter of tiger cubs born at the Zoo since 2006 and the first litter for Damai. The cubs were sired by the Zoo’s 12-year-old male tiger, Kavi. Friends of the National Zoo hosted an opportunity to name one of the Zoo’s tiger cubs on the website Charity Buzz. On Nov. 1, the winning bidder elected to name the female cub Sukacita, which means “joy” in Indonesian. The $25,000 donation supports ongoing research and education outreach at the Great Cats exhibit. Keepers selected the male cub’s name, Bandar, in honor of Bandar Lampung—a southern port city in Sumatra.

 

Starting Monday Nov. 18, keepers will decide on a day-to-day basis whether Sukacita and Bandar will spend time in the yard and for how long they will be out. This decision will be based on weather and how the cubs adjust to being outdoors. The Zoo will continue to share the latest updates and photos on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Sumatran tigers are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is estimated that between 400 and 500 exist in the wild. There are 65 Sumatran tigers living in accredited zoos in North America in addition to these cubs.

 

For decades, the Zoo’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists have been recognized as global leaders for their work in tiger-range countries in Asia helping to protect tigers in the wild. In just the past two years they have co-hosted training courses for teams of frontline conservation practitioners. The course participants spent time both in the classroom and in the field, learning to use state-of-the art law-enforcement monitoring systems and about tiger biology, law-enforcement, illegal trade and how to work with local communities.

# # #

  

Still spraying on the 2nd December 2021 67027 tnt 67023 pass Bredicot with the village of Tibberton in the background, with the 67s in filthy condition bodily but their reliability cannot be questioned this Autumn!! They were working RHTT 3S32, the 22.01 (previous night) Swindon Transfer to Cheltenham Lansdown Loop, and running 48 minutes early.

Thanks to the reliability of his Powerstar, Hans Stacey can really lay on the gas and maintain 7th place in the overall ranking.. Follow Iveco's adventure at the Dakar!

+++ 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 Parder was a successor of the Tiger I & II tanks, combining the latter's thick armor with the armor sloping used on the Panther medium tank (which was, in fact, inspired by Soviet designs, most of all by the T-34). While several Entwicklungspanzer designs were under development, the Parder was a short-term attempt to overcome the Tiger II's main shortcoming: its weight of almost seventy metric tons (it was protected by up to 180 mm/7.1" of front armor!), the resulting lack of mobility and an overburdened drivetrain originally intended for a lighter vehicle. Leaking seals and gaskets also took their toll on reliability.

 

In order to keep the development phase short the Parder used basically the same chassis as the Tiger II, as well as the engine, transmission and the long barreled 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 gun. But it reveiced a new hull with optimized armor and many detail modifications that reduced the overall weight by more than ten tons, getting overall weight back to the level of the Tiger I

 

The SdKfz. 190 used a conventional hull design with sloped armor from all sides, resembling the layout of the T-34 a lot. Its was so effective that the front armor could be reduced to 120 mm (4.7 in) with only little loss in protection. The crew was reduced to four, only the driver remained in the hull and the front machine gun was omitted, too.

 

The 'Parder' (archaic German term for leopard), how the vehicle was semi-officially christened by the Entwicklungskommission Panzer, had a rear mounted engine and used nine steel-tired overlapping road wheels per side with internal springing, mounted on transverse torsion bars.

 

The turret had been designed by Krupp and featured a rounded front and steeply sloped sides, with a difficult-to-manufacture curved bulge on the turret's left side to accommodate the commander's cupola (often related to as the "Porsche" turret). The powerful 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 gun was combined with the Turmzielfernrohr 9d (German "turret telescopic sight") monocular sight by Leitz - a very accurate and deadly weapon.

 

During practice, the estimated probability of a first round hit on a 2 m (6 ft 7 in) high, 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) wide target only dropped below 100 percent at ranges beyond 1,000 m (0.62 mi), to 95–97 percent at 1,500 metres (0.93 mi) and 85–87 percent at 2,000 m (1.2 mi), depending on ammunition type. Recorded combat performance was lower, but still over 80 percent at 1,000 m, in the 60s at 1,500 m and the 40s at 2,000 m.

 

Penetration of armored plate inclined at 30 degrees was 202 and 132 mm (8.0 and 5.2 in) at 100 m (110 yd) and 2,000 m (1.2 mi) respectively for the Panzergranate 39/43 projectile (PzGr—armor-piercing shell), and 238 and 153 mm (9.4 and 6.0 in) for the PzGr. 40/43 projectile between the same ranges. The Sprenggranate 43 (SpGr) high-explosive round was available for soft targets, or the Hohlgranate or Hohlgeschoss 39 (HlGr—HEAT or High explosive anti-tank warhead) round, which had 90 mm (3.5 in) penetration at any range, could be used as a dual-purpose munition against soft or armored targets.

 

Like all German tanks, the Parder had a gasoline engine; in this case the same 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW) V-12 Maybach HL 230 P30 which powered the Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II tanks. The Tiger II was under-powered with it, though, and consumed a lot of fuel, which was in short supply for the Germans, but in the Parder it proved to be adequate, even though performance was not oustanding. The transmission was the Maybach OLVAR EG 40 12 16 Model B, giving eight forward gears and four reverse, which drove the steering gear.

 

In order to distribute the tank's weight an extra wide track was used, but this meant that each tank was issued with two sets of tracks: a normal "battle track" and a narrower "transport" version used during rail movement. The transport tracks reduced the overall width of the load and could be used to drive the tank short distances on firm ground.

 

The Parder was, like many German late war designs, rushed into combat, but thanks to its Tiger I & II heritage many mechanical teething problems had already been corrected. Reliability was considerably improved compared to the much heavier Tiger II, and the Parder did prove to be a very effective fighting vehicle, especially in a defensive role. However, some design flaws, such as its weak final drive units, were never corrected due to raw material shortages, and more tanks were given up by the crews than actually destroyed in combat.

 

The Parder was issued to heavy tank battalions of the Army (Schwere Heerespanzerabteilung – abbreviated s.H.Pz.Abt) where it replaced the Tiger I & II.

  

Specifications:

Crew Four (commander, gunner, loader, driver)

Weight 54 tonnes (60 short tons)

Length 7.02 metres (23 ft in) (hull only)

10.64 metres (34 ft 10 1/3 in) with gun forward

Width 3.88 metres (12 ft 9 in)

4.14 metres (13 ft 6 3/4 in) with optional Thoma shields

Height 2.84 metres (9 ft 4 in) w/o AA machine gun

Suspension torsion-bar

Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)

Fuel capacity: 820 l (180 imp gal; 220 US gal)

 

Armor:

30–120 mm (1.2 – 4.7 in)

 

Performance:

Speed

- Maximum, road: 41.5 km/h (25.8 mph)

- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)

- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)

Operational range: 240 km (150 mi)

Power/weight: 12,96 PS/tonne (11,5 hp/ton)

 

Engine:

V-12 Maybach HL 230 P30 gasoline with 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW)

 

Transmission:

Maybach OLVAR EG 40 12 16 B (8 forward and 4 reverse)

 

Armament:

1× 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 with 80 rounds

1× co-axial 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 with 3.000 rounds

  

The kit and its assembly:

Something different… a whif tank! This was spawned from curiosity and the “wish” to build a German vehicle that would fit right into the E-25… E-100 range of experimental tanks.

It was to become a battle tank, and while browsing options and donation kits, I settled upon a replacement for the formidable but heavy and cumbersome Tiger B, also known as Tiger II, Königstiger or (wrongfully translated) King Tiger.

 

Anyway, creating a tank that would look (late war) German and still be whiffy was trickier than expected, and finally easier than expected, too. My solution would be a kit bashing: using many Tiger B parts (including the stylish Porsche tower and the running gear) and combining it with a hull that would offer better armor angles and look less “boxy”.

 

I effectively bashed two kits: one is the excellent 1:72 early Tiger B from Dragon, the other is Roden’s Soviet IS-3 tank – also very nice, even though the styrene is somewhat brittle.

 

My biggest fear was the running gear – combining the IS-3 hull with the Tiger B’s totally different legs scared me a lot – until I found that the parts from both kits (the Tiger B’s lower hull with all the suspension and the IS-3’s upper hull) could be combined rather easily combined. Just some cuts and improvised intersections, and the “new” tank hull was done!

 

As a side effect, the huge turret moved forward, and this considerably changes the silhouette. The IS-3’s opening had only to be widened slightly in order to accept the Porsche turret. Things matched up pretty well, also concerning size and proportions.

 

Otherwise, not much was changed. All wheels and tracks come from the Trumpeter Tiger B, the turret was also borrowed wholesale. I just changed some details (e. g. moving the spare track elements to the hull front), added some handles and also a heavy AA machine gun on the commander’s cupola, which is OOB, too.

 

Too simple? Well, for me it was not enough. For a more personal edge to the kit I decided to add Thoma skirts! Not the massive 5mm plates you frequently see on late Panzer IV tanks and its derivatives, rather the mesh type – lighter, less material-consuming, and a very special detail.

 

These were scratched. There are PE sets available, but that was too expensive and I was not certain if such items would fit in shape and size? So I made a cardboard template for the flanks and built a pair of skirts from styrene strips and a fine PET mesh that I had salvaged from a wallet long time ago.

 

The stuff is hard to glue onto something, so the styrene frame had to carry the mesh parts – and it works! The attachments to the hull were also scratched from styrene.

The Thoma shields add more width to the flat tank, but I think that they set the kit even more apart than just the borrowed IS-3 hull?

  

Painting and markings:

Hmmm, not totally happy with the finish. This was supposed to become a simple Hinterhalt (Ambush) paint scheme in Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown, but I did so much weathering that not much from the scheme can be recognized…

 

Painting was straightforward, though – I used Humbrol 94 and 173 as well as Modelmaster’s RAL 6003 as basic colors. The scheme’s benchmark is the official Tiger B scheme.

 

The basic colors received mottles in green on the yellow and yellow on the green and brown, and then the thing was thoroughly weathered with a black ink wash, dry-brushing, some aquarelle paint to simulate dust, and finally some pigments that simulate mud.

 

The tracks are made from soft vinyl, and also received a paint treatment in order to get rid of that shiny vinyl look: at first, with a mix of black and silver, which was immediately wiped off again, and later with a second, similar turn with silver and dark brown.

 

The mud was added just before the whole running gear was mounted as one of the final assembly stages, and final retouches were made with acrylic umbra paint.

 

Alas, I think I overdid it – much of the formidable and very attractive paint scheme was lost, even though the yucky, brownish finish now also works fine and looks like rough duty?

  

So, an experiment with good and bad results. Certainly not the last whif tank (at least one more on the agenda), and after so many aircraft a new kind of challenge. ^^

The first EWS Class 47/7 to undergo reliability modifications as part of a B17 exam (sometimes referred to as a Super E exam) was 47773, seen here inside the shed at Toton on Thursday 22nd August 2002. Nearing the completion of its exam, which included the fitting of 'The Queen Mother' nameplates from 47722, the loco makes a fine sight in EWS livery.

 

It made a return to traffic on 2nd September. As the former 47541 it was originally named after the The Queen Mother at Aberdeen in 1982 and carried the plates until 1990 when they were transferred to 47703.

+++ 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 Parder was a successor of the Tiger I & II tanks, combining the latter's thick armor with the armor sloping used on the Panther medium tank (which was, in fact, inspired by Soviet designs, most of all by the T-34). While several Entwicklungspanzer designs were under development, the Parder was a short-term attempt to overcome the Tiger II's main shortcoming: its weight of almost seventy metric tons (it was protected by up to 180 mm/7.1" of front armor!), the resulting lack of mobility and an overburdened drivetrain originally intended for a lighter vehicle. Leaking seals and gaskets also took their toll on reliability.

 

In order to keep the development phase short the Parder used basically the same chassis as the Tiger II, as well as the engine, transmission and the long barreled 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 gun. But it reveiced a new hull with optimized armor and many detail modifications that reduced the overall weight by more than ten tons, getting overall weight back to the level of the Tiger I

 

The SdKfz. 190 used a conventional hull design with sloped armor from all sides, resembling the layout of the T-34 a lot. Its was so effective that the front armor could be reduced to 120 mm (4.7 in) with only little loss in protection. The crew was reduced to four, only the driver remained in the hull and the front machine gun was omitted, too.

 

The 'Parder' (archaic German term for leopard), how the vehicle was semi-officially christened by the Entwicklungskommission Panzer, had a rear mounted engine and used nine steel-tired overlapping road wheels per side with internal springing, mounted on transverse torsion bars.

 

The turret had been designed by Krupp and featured a rounded front and steeply sloped sides, with a difficult-to-manufacture curved bulge on the turret's left side to accommodate the commander's cupola (often related to as the "Porsche" turret). The powerful 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 gun was combined with the Turmzielfernrohr 9d (German "turret telescopic sight") monocular sight by Leitz - a very accurate and deadly weapon.

 

During practice, the estimated probability of a first round hit on a 2 m (6 ft 7 in) high, 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) wide target only dropped below 100 percent at ranges beyond 1,000 m (0.62 mi), to 95–97 percent at 1,500 metres (0.93 mi) and 85–87 percent at 2,000 m (1.2 mi), depending on ammunition type. Recorded combat performance was lower, but still over 80 percent at 1,000 m, in the 60s at 1,500 m and the 40s at 2,000 m.

 

Penetration of armored plate inclined at 30 degrees was 202 and 132 mm (8.0 and 5.2 in) at 100 m (110 yd) and 2,000 m (1.2 mi) respectively for the Panzergranate 39/43 projectile (PzGr—armor-piercing shell), and 238 and 153 mm (9.4 and 6.0 in) for the PzGr. 40/43 projectile between the same ranges. The Sprenggranate 43 (SpGr) high-explosive round was available for soft targets, or the Hohlgranate or Hohlgeschoss 39 (HlGr—HEAT or High explosive anti-tank warhead) round, which had 90 mm (3.5 in) penetration at any range, could be used as a dual-purpose munition against soft or armored targets.

 

Like all German tanks, the Parder had a gasoline engine; in this case the same 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW) V-12 Maybach HL 230 P30 which powered the Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II tanks. The Tiger II was under-powered with it, though, and consumed a lot of fuel, which was in short supply for the Germans, but in the Parder it proved to be adequate, even though performance was not oustanding. The transmission was the Maybach OLVAR EG 40 12 16 Model B, giving eight forward gears and four reverse, which drove the steering gear.

 

In order to distribute the tank's weight an extra wide track was used, but this meant that each tank was issued with two sets of tracks: a normal "battle track" and a narrower "transport" version used during rail movement. The transport tracks reduced the overall width of the load and could be used to drive the tank short distances on firm ground.

 

The Parder was, like many German late war designs, rushed into combat, but thanks to its Tiger I & II heritage many mechanical teething problems had already been corrected. Reliability was considerably improved compared to the much heavier Tiger II, and the Parder did prove to be a very effective fighting vehicle, especially in a defensive role. However, some design flaws, such as its weak final drive units, were never corrected due to raw material shortages, and more tanks were given up by the crews than actually destroyed in combat.

 

The Parder was issued to heavy tank battalions of the Army (Schwere Heerespanzerabteilung – abbreviated s.H.Pz.Abt) where it replaced the Tiger I & II.

  

Specifications:

Crew Four (commander, gunner, loader, driver)

Weight 54 tonnes (60 short tons)

Length 7.02 metres (23 ft in) (hull only)

10.64 metres (34 ft 10 1/3 in) with gun forward

Width 3.88 metres (12 ft 9 in)

4.14 metres (13 ft 6 3/4 in) with optional Thoma shields

Height 2.84 metres (9 ft 4 in) w/o AA machine gun

Suspension torsion-bar

Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)

Fuel capacity: 820 l (180 imp gal; 220 US gal)

 

Armor:

30–120 mm (1.2 – 4.7 in)

 

Performance:

Speed

- Maximum, road: 41.5 km/h (25.8 mph)

- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)

- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)

Operational range: 240 km (150 mi)

Power/weight: 12,96 PS/tonne (11,5 hp/ton)

 

Engine:

V-12 Maybach HL 230 P30 gasoline with 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW)

 

Transmission:

Maybach OLVAR EG 40 12 16 B (8 forward and 4 reverse)

 

Armament:

1× 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 with 80 rounds

1× co-axial 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 with 3.000 rounds

  

The kit and its assembly:

Something different… a whif tank! This was spawned from curiosity and the “wish” to build a German vehicle that would fit right into the E-25… E-100 range of experimental tanks.

It was to become a battle tank, and while browsing options and donation kits, I settled upon a replacement for the formidable but heavy and cumbersome Tiger B, also known as Tiger II, Königstiger or (wrongfully translated) King Tiger.

 

Anyway, creating a tank that would look (late war) German and still be whiffy was trickier than expected, and finally easier than expected, too. My solution would be a kit bashing: using many Tiger B parts (including the stylish Porsche tower and the running gear) and combining it with a hull that would offer better armor angles and look less “boxy”.

 

I effectively bashed two kits: one is the excellent 1:72 early Tiger B from Dragon, the other is Roden’s Soviet IS-3 tank – also very nice, even though the styrene is somewhat brittle.

 

My biggest fear was the running gear – combining the IS-3 hull with the Tiger B’s totally different legs scared me a lot – until I found that the parts from both kits (the Tiger B’s lower hull with all the suspension and the IS-3’s upper hull) could be combined rather easily combined. Just some cuts and improvised intersections, and the “new” tank hull was done!

 

As a side effect, the huge turret moved forward, and this considerably changes the silhouette. The IS-3’s opening had only to be widened slightly in order to accept the Porsche turret. Things matched up pretty well, also concerning size and proportions.

 

Otherwise, not much was changed. All wheels and tracks come from the Trumpeter Tiger B, the turret was also borrowed wholesale. I just changed some details (e. g. moving the spare track elements to the hull front), added some handles and also a heavy AA machine gun on the commander’s cupola, which is OOB, too.

 

Too simple? Well, for me it was not enough. For a more personal edge to the kit I decided to add Thoma skirts! Not the massive 5mm plates you frequently see on late Panzer IV tanks and its derivatives, rather the mesh type – lighter, less material-consuming, and a very special detail.

 

These were scratched. There are PE sets available, but that was too expensive and I was not certain if such items would fit in shape and size? So I made a cardboard template for the flanks and built a pair of skirts from styrene strips and a fine PET mesh that I had salvaged from a wallet long time ago.

 

The stuff is hard to glue onto something, so the styrene frame had to carry the mesh parts – and it works! The attachments to the hull were also scratched from styrene.

The Thoma shields add more width to the flat tank, but I think that they set the kit even more apart than just the borrowed IS-3 hull?

  

Painting and markings:

Hmmm, not totally happy with the finish. This was supposed to become a simple Hinterhalt (Ambush) paint scheme in Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown, but I did so much weathering that not much from the scheme can be recognized…

 

Painting was straightforward, though – I used Humbrol 94 and 173 as well as Modelmaster’s RAL 6003 as basic colors. The scheme’s benchmark is the official Tiger B scheme.

 

The basic colors received mottles in green on the yellow and yellow on the green and brown, and then the thing was thoroughly weathered with a black ink wash, dry-brushing, some aquarelle paint to simulate dust, and finally some pigments that simulate mud.

 

The tracks are made from soft vinyl, and also received a paint treatment in order to get rid of that shiny vinyl look: at first, with a mix of black and silver, which was immediately wiped off again, and later with a second, similar turn with silver and dark brown.

 

The mud was added just before the whole running gear was mounted as one of the final assembly stages, and final retouches were made with acrylic umbra paint.

 

Alas, I think I overdid it – much of the formidable and very attractive paint scheme was lost, even though the yucky, brownish finish now also works fine and looks like rough duty?

  

So, an experiment with good and bad results. Certainly not the last whif tank (at least one more on the agenda), and after so many aircraft a new kind of challenge. ^^

Jeff Klein, who has been driving for more than 25 years, the past nine with American Furniture, gets a good night's sleep in the T680 while on the road, even in 100-degree heat, thanks to the Kenworth Idle Management System in his T680. “That makes a big difference in how you perform the next day. I had many days of temps over 100 degrees this past summer (2015) and didn’t have a problem with battery life for the air conditioner. The sleeper and APU system I have now is so much better than what I had before in my old truck. I just love it.“

Staff of the Nauru Utilities Corporation (NUC) at work.

 

The Electricity Supply Security and Sustainability Project intends to increase the reliability and sustainability of power generation in Nauru.

 

The Institutional Strengthening of the Nauru Utilities Corporation (NUC) supports the management and governance of the organization.

 

Read more on:

Nauru

Energy

Electricity Supply Security and Sustainability

Institutional Strengthening of the Nauru Utilities Corporation

Reliabilityweb.com CEO Terrence O'Hanlon keynote address at FIATECH-2016

A helicopter pulls a lead line to new monopoles.

The New Trakker make every job possible even in extreme offroad conditions.

Discover it and download the app in Apple App Store or in Google Play Store!

  

JCP&L plans to spend $357 million in 2018 on infrastructure projects and other work to enhance customer reliability across its 13-county northern and central New Jersey service area. Major projects scheduled include replacing remote-controlled substation equipment used to monitor and respond to grid conditions, replacing 34.5 kilovolt (kV) substation circuit breakers and upgrading distribution circuit breakers and more than 90 circuit upgrades.

JCP&L plans to spend $357 million in 2018 on infrastructure projects and other work to enhance customer reliability across its 13-county northern and central New Jersey service area. Major projects scheduled include replacing remote-controlled substation equipment used to monitor and respond to grid conditions, replacing 34.5 kilovolt (kV) substation circuit breakers and upgrading distribution circuit breakers and more than 90 circuit upgrades.

A helicopter threads a lead line to monopoles that will eventually carry new transmission lines.

A helicopter pilot carefully guides a lead line onto a pulley as one of the first steps in the transmission cable pulling process.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

The Messerschmitt Me 362 was a derivative of the jet-powered Me 262 Schwalbe or Sturmvogel (English: "Swallow"/ "Storm Bird") fighter aircraft that was to bridge the gap between advanced aerodynamics and the lack of sufficient production jet engines as well as their poor reliability and performance.

 

Design work for the Me 262 started before World War II began, but engine problems and top-level interference kept the aircraft from operational status with the Luftwaffe until mid-1944 - and even then the highly advanced aircraft suffered from constant problems. About 1,400 Me 262s were produced, but only a maximum of 200 were operational at any one time.

 

Being faced with growing numbers of incoming bombers, the RLM was desperate to find an appropriate inteceptor that would combine both speed and firepower. The Me 262 was a potential solution, since it was faster, and more heavily-armed than any Allied fighter, including the British jet-powered Gloster Meteor which entered service in the UK a month earlier than the Me 262. But it was soon clear that the jet-powered aircraft would not be available soon.

 

In order to keep production up and not to lose too much time with new constructions or aerodynamic research, Messerschmitt suggested a piston-engine variant of the Me 262 that would use much of the jet fighter's structure, while relying on a proven engine. But instead of mounting engine and propeller in classic pull arrangement, the new fighter used a pusher propeller, wdriven via extension shaft by a DB603G engine mounted in the airframe's center of gravity. The result was the Messerschmitt P.1093, which soon received the designation Me 362 from the RLM.

 

The Me 362 V1 prototype, powered by a DB 603 A engine, flew on 26 October 1944. However, several problems during the initial flight of the Me 362 would continue to plague the aircraft through most of its short history. Issues were found with the weak, elongated landing gear and with the lower tail fin, which had to be reinforced for the remainder of the V1's test flights. The Me 362 V1 made 27 flights, flown by three different pilots. During these test flights the V2 was completed and made its first flight on 31 December 1944. New to the V2 were an upgraded DB 603G engine and several refinements learned from the test flights of the V1 as well as further windtunnel testing.

 

Following the flights of the V2, in mid January 1945, RLM ordered five more prototypes (V21–V25), to be built as fast bombers and night fighters. By this time more than 60 hours of flight time had been put on the Me 362s and reports showed it to be a good handling, but more importantly, very fast aircraft, thanks to its clean lines and advanced aerodynmics - the V2 prototype reached more than 780km/h (484 mph, even though with reduced weight, compared with the later service aircraft).

Thus the Me 362 was immediately scheduled to begin mass construction, and, as part of the Jägernotprogramm directive which had taken effect in late 1944, maximum priority was immediately given to Me 362 production. The initial order of 120 aircraft was to be manufactured by Messerschmitt Augsburg and Dornier München and to be completed no later than January 1946, while upgraded variants were already on the drawing board, e. g. a fast reconnaissance aircraft (the Me 362 B) and an interceptor that carried a rack with 38 unguided R4M missiles in the nose instead of the four MK 108 (Me 362 C)

 

The first serial aircraft, designated Me 362 A-1, were converted from unfinished Me 262 airframes and immediately sent to front units, primarily as interceptors for Berlin and in northern Germany. They reached the front units in April 1945, and with little conversion training the mostly unexperienced pilots had to cope with an aircraft that was totally different to handle from the standard German piston fighters and hazardous to operate on the ground, especially during take-off and landing. It is consequently no surprise that until August 1945 more Me 362s were lost in taxiing accidents than through enemy fire, be it in the air or on the ground.

 

Pilots who were accustimed to the Me 262 found the Me 362 easier to handle, even though its delicate balance and poor ground clearance called for constant attention. Nevertheless, in the hands of experienced pilots the Me 362 proved to be a very effective interceptor that could outrun and -dive any Allied escort fighter that protected the bomber groups over Germany. But the little nimber of aircraft and the few skilled pilots that could man these machines had only little impact.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length overall: 10.33 m (34 ft 1/2 in)

Wingspan: 12.60 m (41 ft 6 in)

Height: 3.85 m (12 ft 7 1/2 in)

Wing area: 21.7 m² (234 ft²)

Empty weight: 3,250 kg (7,165 lb)

Loaded weight: 4,150 kg (9,149 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 4,413 kg (9,730 lb)

Aspect ratio: 7.32

 

Powerplant:

1× Daimler Benz DB 603G liquid-cooled, inverted V12 engine, rated at 1900 PS (1874 hp, 1397 kW) max. power at 2700 rpm at sea level and 1560 PS (1539 hp, 1147 kW) combat power at 2700 rpm at sea level

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 765 km/h (474 mph)

Cruising speed: 665 km/h (413 mph; 359 kn)

Rate of climb: 3,180 ft/min (16.15 m/s)

Range: 1,100 km (684 mi; 594 nmi)

Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)

 

Armament:

4x 30mm MK108 cannon in the nose section with 80 RPG,

2x hardpoints under the forward fuselage, each able to carry up to 250kg (550lb), including bombs or 300l drop tanks (rarely used)

2x underwing hardpoints for two pairs of Bordrakete 21 unguided missiles or racks with a total of 24× 55 mm (2.2 in) R4M rockets

  

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional aircraft was inspired by the simple idea to retrograde the Me 262 jet fighter into a piston-engined 'Behelfsjäger' alternative. While considering options like wing-mounted nacelles I wondered if the triangular fuselage diameter could not be of use, and so the concept of a pusher aircraft was born - certainly inspired by the Do 335 and its tail construction.

 

Anyway, what sound simple took a lot of detail work and subsequent conversions:

 

#1 - Engine bay

While I wanted to implant a coupled engine like the DB606 I found it too big and heavy for a fighter, so a simple Daimler Benz V12 would have to suffice. But just sticking it behind the cockpit would not work - the center of gravity would move backwards considerably. Therefore I decided to move the cockpit forward, replacing the front tank behind the weapons bay, and then place the engine above the OOB main landing gear.

The fuselage was sliced up accoringly and the cockpit opening moved forward by ~0.5". Inside, a cockpit tub from a Revell Me 262 was inserted, as well as a new seat, a dashboard and other details, together with a pilot figure. The OOB canopy could be kept this way, and openings for the exhausts were cut into the fuselage flanks, with flare blockers.

Since the model was built with its wheels down, any space in the fuselage nose was crammed with lead - and the model barely keeps its stance with the nose down...

 

#2 - Clean wings

The wings were taken OOB, but the engine nacelles left away and the respective gaps filled with 2C putty.

 

#3 - New tail

This included a scrathed propeller, its mounting inside of the fuselage and a cruziform tail.

The original fin and rudder were cut away, shortening the fuselage. From a drop tank of appropriate size, a pointed spinner was made as well as a round 'adapter ring' of apporoproate diameter for the fuselage's end section. Inside, a styrene tube holds a metal axis with the spinner, so that it can run freely.

For the propeller blades I used four clipped, swept resin blades from a C-130J conversion kit. That appears futuristic, but such designs were actually on the drawing board (e. g. at Dornier) for heavy pusher aircraft with a top speed of 800km/h and more.

With the help of the adapter ring the tail section/shape was re-sculpted with putty. The four fins all belong to Me 262 kits: the horizontal stabilizers come from the Matchbox kit, while the vertical stabilizers were leftover pieces from a Revell kit.

 

#4 - Radiator

Since a liquid-cooled engine, especially when buried in the fuselage, needs a radiator I went for the ventral tunnel option. At first I considered a P-51 piece, but I found a different and more massive part, that perfectly matched the Me 262 outlines: an piece of an underwater ship hull (IIRC from a German mine sweeper model from Heller, built maybe 30 years ago)!

Wide and shallow, the opening (separated with styrene blades into three sections) is wide enough to house two radiator intakes as well as the carburetor scoop in the middle that would have had otherwise to be stuck onto the fuselage flank, breaking up the clean lines.

The ship hull was long enough to be extended up to the lower fin, so that the Me 262's profile and proportions changed considerably.

 

#5 - Landing gear

With the lower fin as propeller guard the OOB landing gear was too short, so I had to scratch/improvise a new one. Actually, the only things left from the Matchbox kit are the covers and the front wheel. The main landing gear wells were lengthened and the track widened in order to accomodate the longer struts.

  

The bomb pylons under the Matchbox kit's front fuselage were covered, but as an alternative extra armament I scratched two twin starters for 'BR21' unguided air-to-air missiles from styrene profiles and placed then under the outer wings.

  

Painting and markings:

This aircraft was to appear hastily camouflaged after delivery from factory in an overall RLM 76 finish, and I found a late war Fw 190 D-9 as design benchmark. This machine was even partly left in bare metal or grey primer and carried only RLM 83 (Dunkelgrün) on the wings' upper surfaces, with some additional RLM 82 (Hellgrün) on the fuselage only. Furthermore, the typical speckles on the fuselage flanks and the fin(s) was very light only on this aircraft, so that it appeared very light and 'clean'.

 

I tried to transplant this basic concept onto the Me 362, and I also incorporated the very light paint coat seen on many Me 262s that let the bare metal as well as the filler on the panel seams below shine through, due to the lack of paint and haste of production.

In order to simulate this, the kit received a primer coat with acrylic aluminum, on which the seams were highlighted with dark grey.

On top of that, a coat of thinned camouflage (Humbrol enamels 247, 252 + 253) was added. With the same thinned colors the few camouflage spots were created. Once the paint had dried, I wet-sanded the surface so that the lower aluminum/filler and RLM 76 coat could shine through here and there.

All rudders were painted with a slightly different blue-grey (FS 36320), and here and there some paint repair spots with different tones (RLM 02, 75 and even some Sky) added.

 

The cockpit interior became very dark grey (RLM 66), as well as the wheel discs, while the landing gear and the respective wells became RLM 02. The propeller blades were painted in RLM 70 (Schwarzgrün) while the spinner carries the Stab flight's color code, bright green (RLM 25, maybe?).

 

A light black ink wash emphasized panel lines and toned the light RLM 76 down a bit. Decals and markings were puzzled together, and as a typical Stab aircraft it received chevron symbols instead of a colored tactical code number. Most decals come from TL Modellbau aftermarket sheets, most stencils come from a Revell Me 262's sheet.

Some soot and oil stains were added, light, dry-brushed silver on the leading edges and around the canopy simulates chipped and worn paint. Finally, everything was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

  

What looks like a simple 'Me 262 with a tail prop' took more effort than one might think - one thing led to another, but the result is IMHO pretty plausible - and the layout is not too far-fetched: there were similar designs on the drawing boards of Dornier and Focke Wulf, with swept wings, pusher props and even two engines or with auxiliary jet engines in wing nacelles, but these were much bigger and heavier aircraft, though. Mounting a V12 engine in a Me 262 would certainly not have been easy, so this whiffy model remains pure fiction.

Rated up to 70.000 feet... Obviously is it not a part from a locomotive...

Penelec, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE), has begun a significant project to help prevent or minimize service disruptions in downtown Johnstown, Cambria County, by reinforcing its underground electrical network.

Bentley 4.5ltr Blower (1932) Engine 4398cc Supercharged S4 Production 50 ( 4 built by Tim Birkin)

Registration Number GY 3905

BENTLEY SET

www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623759855498...

This has a Vanden Plas body and is from the collection of The National Motor Museum at Beaulieu.

The first Blower Bentley was a 3 litre FR 5189 built at the Bentley works in 1926. W.O.Bentley was strongly opposed to forced induction and Henry (Tim) Birkin undertook to develop the Blower as a private venture, with private finance he hired ex-Bentley engineers for the venture based at Welwyn Garden City. Four Supercharged cars were produced, three road cars to race at Le Mans and a single seater for the track, mainly Brooklands. The large Rootes Supercharger was placed at the front of the engine and produced around 175bhp but with a huge thirst of between 2.3 to 2.8mpg. Reliability was a problem and the 1929 and 1930 Le mans 24hour races were won by the works 6.5litre normally aspirated Bentley. The Silver single seater track car did however achieve the outer circuit lap record of 137.96mph.

Woolf Barnato authorised Bentley to build 50 Blowers that enabled Birkin's prototypes to meet the Le Mans qualification. Sales were however slow and the London Bentley dealer Jack Barclay bought up the remaining sets of components following Bentley's bankruptcy.

In Ian Flemings, James Bond novels James' purchases a Blower Bentley from Amherst Villiers and the car features in the books, Casino Royale, Live and Let Die and Moonraker.

Shot at the Enfield Pagaent 30,05,2010 ref 55-56

Crews work on the Southwest Michigan 1200B Pipeline, The $120 million project will run 24 miles through St. Joseph and Branch counties and completes a 90-mile dual gas transmission pipeline corridor, which will increase value, reliability and safety for Consumers Energy’s 1.7 million natural gas customers.

When you take shelter, make sure you go under a big tree.

 

寄らば大樹の陰

  

■■ My other site ■■

blog.livedoor.jp/rav4x4/

 

Uptime Elements and Certified Reliability Leader at the Oracle Work and Asset Management User Group in 2015

A machine that has both a slotted shovel-like tool to scoop ballast out of the way so new track ties can easily be slid underneath using its claw-like end.

 

This photo is from work over the weekend on the west end of the Lake Street branch of the Green Line.

  

These photos, taken in the area of the Oak Park station (in Oak Park, IL), show workers in three different areas replacing aging track ties (which are the wooden beams that the rails in this area are affixed to) and replacing them with new ones.

 

The Green Line West track rehabilitation project will provide riders between Harlem/Lake and Laramie on the Green Line a smoother, more reliable commute for years to come.

 

This project is a proactive effort to avoid the development of future slow zones in the area, which results in reduced reliability and increased travel times. The last major track renewal work along this 2.5-mile stretch of tracks occurred in the 1980s and more than 75 percent of the rail ties are approaching or have exceeded their useful life.

 

Learn more about the project at transitchicago.com/greenwest

1-12-13 Wyndham Street Races

 

2004 Moto Guzzi California EV Touring Motorcycle Test

 

I've always found myself oddly attracted to Moto Guzzi motorcycles, yet at the same time a bit wary of them. Kind of a yin-yang thing caused in no small part by some of their oddball quirks. On the one hand you've got legendary reliability, a strong, easily maintained engine and driveline and a certain flair for style that only the Italians can ever really pull off. On the other hand you've got those Weird-Harold linked brakes (yeah, I know lots of manufacturers use linked brakes. I don't like those any better) and what might possibly be, at least from the standpoint of my own ergonomic inclinations, the worst foot controls in motorcycling.

 

Truthfully, the first few miles on the EV had me wondering if I'd made the right decision. Those damn foot controls nearly drove me nuts. Believe me, any gears I managed to engage on the first attempt were purely accidental. Stopping with the rear brake was simply out of the question. The pedal was awkward to reach and hard to modulate. Clearly a bit of adjustment was required. A little spanner work put the shifter where I could at least use it, and I placed the foot brake to a position that wasn't so uncomfortable. In candor, once the pedals were adjusted I suppose I could get used to them. But the reality of it is that the lower controls need a complete redesign, preferably by someone who's ridden one of the floorboard-equipped bikes from H-D or any of the Big Four, or at least has roughly humanly proportioned dimensions. With careful adjustment and the right technique they can be made to work, but frankly, it takes dedicated Guzzistis to put up with them in standard trim.

 

On that same note, linked brakes are something I've never really developed a taste for. Considering the majority of roads I'd be on while riding the EV were likely to be at best sandy and slippery, and at worst covered with snow and ice, a linked brake system, especially one without ABS, would seem to create more problems than it solves. Fortunately, for the most part the roads remained dry, and my arguments against linked brakes remained largely theoretical.

 

Other than those two issues, there is a lot to like about the EV. The 1064cc V-twin revs a little slow, but it pulls like Jack the Bear, especially in the midrange. The engine management package is superb. When it comes to fuel injection MG has really done its homework, and it shows. The bike started easily despite the cold, even when the temperature dropped into the single digits, and it immediately settled into a consistent idle, with none of the snorting, spitting or stalling that plagues some other bikes. There was no lean surging or any other indication that the mapping was less than perfect.

 

The transmission is still a bit on the agricultural side, but it shifts much better than any of its predecessors. It's still possible to miss a gear change here and there, but that's mainly due to the balky shift mechanism.

  

Once underway the EV handles quite well. It's a bit firmer than most cruisers, but likely the best-handling member of the club, at least until Ducati starts building one. The bike steers accurately, holds its lines well and has a light, taut feel that belies its cruiser moniker. On the open highway it feels planted and stable at high speed, high speed of course being a relative term when you're riding the thing in below-freezing temperatures all night. Dedicated Guzzi riders tell me they routinely drag the high floorboards on these things, though I'm not sure that's something to be proud about.

 

While my stint on the EV took place in midwinter, riding the EV during Mother Nature's worst isn't as tough as it sounds. The weather protection is first-rate for a cruiser, and not at all bad by touring-bike standards. The small fairing/windscreen and foot guards block more wind than you'd think, and the heavily valanced fenders keep the muck and mire at bay. When you factor in the heated grips, why it's practically as easy as taking the car.

 

In the end, the California EV Touring is a good, if slightly flawed, motorcycle, especially if you like your cruising with a sporting flair and some touring capability. It has that indisputable Italian bike cachet as well, if that sort of feature is important to you. Now if they'd only fit decent foot controls to the thing...

 

SPECIFICATIONS

2004 Moto Guzzi California EV Touring

 

Suggested base price: $13,490

Standard colors: Red/Black; back/chrome;blue/chrome; dark silver/black

Extra cost colors: NA

Standard warranty: 12 mo., unlimited miles

Website: www.motoguzzi-us.com

 

ENGINE & DRIVETRAIN

Type: Air-cooled, 90-degree transverse V-twin

Valve arrangement: SOHC, 1 intake valve, 1 exhaust valve per cylinder, operated by pushrods, hydraulic adjusters

Displacement, bore x stroke: 1064cc, 92 x 80mm

Compression ratio: 9.8:1

Carburetion: EFI

Lubrication: Wet sump

Transmission: Dry single-plate clutch, 5 speeds

Final drive: Shaft CHASSIS

Dry weight: 573 lb

Wheelbase: 61.4 in.

Overall length: 93.7 in.

Seat height: 30.7 in.

Rake/trail: 29.5o/ 4.26 in.

Wheels: Wire-spoke, 2.50 x 18 in. front, 4.00 x 17 in. rear

Front tire: 110/90 VB18 tubeless

Rear tire: 150/80 VB17 tubeless

Front brake: 2, 4-piston, double-action calipers, 12.6-in. discs

Rear brake: 2-piston, double-action caliper, 11.1-in. disc

Front suspension: Marzocchi 45mm, 5.5 in. travel, adjustable damping

Rear suspension: Dual dampers, 3.5 in. travel, adjustable for preload and damping

Fuel capacity: 5.01 gal.

Handlebar width: 32.0 in.

 

ELECTRICAL & INSTRUMENTATION

Battery: 12v, 16AH

Instruments: Speedometer,tachmometer, odometer, warning lights

 

Source: www.motorcyclecruiser.com/roadtests/2004_moto_guzzi_calif...

 

Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad welcomes as its Special Guest this September the CP 1293.

 

This steam locomotive, brought to the Cuyahoga Valley by the generosity of the Age of Steam Roundhouse, was last here in 2008.

 

The Canadian Locomotive Company, Ltd., built this class G-5 locomotive in June 1948. The engine weighs 234,000 lbs.

 

Although they were among the last steam locomotives purchased by the Canadian Pacific, the class G-5 bore more than a passing resemblance to other CP 4-6-2's built as early as 1905. Combining the reliability of an old and proven design with the efficiency of latter day steam technology, the G-5's were instantly successful and found favor over virtually all of the CP system.

 

Six of the G-5's are still around today.

• No. 1201 is preserved at the National Museum of Canada, in Ottawa.

• No. 1246 is on display at the Thomaston shops of the Railway Museum of New England.

• No.'s 1238 & 1286 are privately owned by Jack Showalter and are stored in Staunton, VA.

• No.'s 1278 & 1293 are at the Ohio Central's Morgan Run Shops

•1278 is stored pending future restoration (1278's page)

 

1293 was run at Steamtown in Bellows Falls, VT in the late 1970's having been restored for Vermont's Bicentennial. She ran from Riverside to Rutland and Riverside to Chester, VT for Steamtown operations and last saw service in 1980. At the end of 1979, she pulled a five car train painted in matching black and silver for a month of movie work on the CNR near Montreal filming "Train to Terror" for Astro Films.

 

This 4-6-2 was moved to Scranton, PA with the rest of the Steamtown collection in September 1984 where she sat dormant until 1996, when the Ohio Central purchased her. She received a 13-month restoration and was returned to service in the fall of 1997.

 

She debuted at Sugarcreek, OH, on Thursday, September 18, 1997 and after six Sugarcreek to Baltic roundtrip excursions, she pulled mainline varnish for "SteamFest '97". She has had zero over-the-road failures since.

www.cvsr.com/steam-in-the-valley-2012

Customs and Border Protection's Air and Marine Operations deploy a new asset to protect the United States. Marine Interdiction Agents use the Coastal Interceptor Vessel in coastal waters to combat maritime smuggling and defend the waterways along our nation’s border from acts of terrorism. The 41-Foot Interceptor Class Coastal Interceptor Vessel provides Marine Interdiction Agents with the protection, mobility, and reliability to intercept and apprehend maritime smugglers. The Coastal Interceptor Vessel will be deployed to marine units nationwide, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, throughout southeast Florida, and in San Diego, California. Photos by James Tourtellotte.

2016 Lexus LS 460 Reliability 2016 Lexus LS 460 Reliability -Â The only typical problems I hear with this design is wind sound, however then once again the car is damn peaceful Car USÂ Review and I would like to get one if I choose to ditch my strategies for a 2011 GTR. You're not going to get

 

twitter.com/siscaewulandari/status/641702840273010688

JCP&L plans to spend $357 million in 2018 on infrastructure projects and other work to enhance customer reliability across its 13-county northern and central New Jersey service area. Major projects scheduled include replacing remote-controlled substation equipment used to monitor and respond to grid conditions, replacing 34.5 kilovolt (kV) substation circuit breakers and upgrading distribution circuit breakers and more than 90 circuit upgrades.

Crews prepare to install new utility poles on South Main Street.

Specialized pipeline inspection equipment is used to inspect the inside of natural gas pipelines to look for dents, corrosion and other items. Consumers Energy is inspecting nearly 300 miles of natural gas pipeline in 2015 to proactively seek and repair imperfections that could compromise the integrity of those lines and potentially affect their operation.

Last weekend the motorcycle section of the Vintage Car Club of NZ ran a reliability trial and invited the Canterbury Classic Trials group to put on a demonstration and also take part in their event. The trials area also attracted members from the Vintage Club on suitable machines who tried the obstacles. These were largely man-made and included pallets (Thanks Palletmakers in ChCh), fence posts, tyres, a bank, tree stump, and logs. Due to the range of machines lined up for the reliability trial these sections were easier and included tight turns, tree roots, and banks. As well as trials bikes other contenders included trail bikes, 1970’s Vespa and Honda scooters, 1960's Royal Enfield and BMW motorcycles , 1937 Ariel, 1927 AJS, 1924 Triumph, as well as a Velosolex. A laid back and fun day mixing two groups both interested in classic motorcycles. Enjoy the photos.

AJS 350 Motorcycle with a stunning backdrop parked up at Tan Hill Inn during the Reliability Run 2011.

Ground crews support a helicopter line pulling operation.