On the road to becoming my true self, I will (and have) come across bumps in the road along the way.

 

Whether it's a temporary setback such as travel distance or in the community, I often overcome and find solutions to the problems that I face, day in, day out.

 

But sometimes, those problems can become a big issue.

 

As the Beast from the Disney classic, Beauty and the Beast, once said:

 

"The day, my life, ended."

 

A while ago, I was in the Beast's shoes, going through and processing a devastating, life alterating event which hit me for six.

 

A five year, drug filled, neighbourhood war in my part of town (and my unit complex) was all but too much for me in all aspects.

 

So, I had to ask for help from a local charity for assistance, which, although I was at my lowest point, had an op shop and this sparkly dress just happened to be half price....

no setbacks with light and air shafts

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart

 

Stuttgart (Swabian: Schduagert) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgart is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known locally as the "Stuttgart Cauldron." It lies an hour from the Swabian Jura and the Black Forest. Its urban area has a population of 609,219, making it the sixth largest city in Germany. 2.7 million people live in the city's administrative region and another 5.3 million people in its metropolitan area, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in Germany. The city and metropolitan area are consistently ranked among the top 20 European metropolitan areas by GDP; Mercer listed Stuttgart as 21st on its 2015 list of cities by quality of living, innovation agency 2thinknow ranked the city 24th globally out of 442 cities and the Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranked the city as a Beta-status world city in their 2014 survey.

 

Since the 6th millennium BC, the Stuttgart area has been an important agricultural area and has been host to a number of cultures seeking to utilize the rich soil of the Neckar valley. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 83 AD and built a massive castrum near Bad Cannstatt, making it the most important regional centre for several centuries. Stuttgart's roots were truly laid in the 10th century with its founding by Liudolf, Duke of Swabia, as a stud farm for his warhorses. Initially overshadowed by nearby Cannstatt, the town grew steadily and was granted a charter in 1320. The fortunes of Stuttgart turned with those of the House of Württemberg, and they made it the capital of their county, duchy, and kingdom from the 15th century to 1918. Stuttgart prospered despite setbacks in the Thirty Years' War and devastating air raids by the Allies on the city and its automobile production during World War II. However, by 1952, the city had bounced back and it became the major economic, industrial, tourism and publishing centre it is today.

 

Stuttgart is also a transport junction, and possesses the sixth-largest airport in Germany. Several major companies are headquartered in Stuttgart, including Porsche, Bosch, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler AG, and Dinkelacker.

 

Stuttgart is unusual in the scheme of German cities. It is spread across a variety of hills (some of them covered in vineyards), valleys (especially around the Neckar river and the Stuttgart basin) and parks. This often surprises visitors who associate the city with its reputation as the "cradle of the automobile". The city's tourism slogan is "Stuttgart offers more". Under current plans to improve transport links to the international infrastructure (as part of the Stuttgart 21 project), the city unveiled a new logo and slogan in March 2008 describing itself as "Das neue Herz Europas" ("The new Heart of Europe"). For business, it describes itself as "Where business meets the future". In July 2010, Stuttgart unveiled a new city logo, designed to entice more business people to stay in the city and enjoy breaks in the area.

 

Stuttgart is a city with a high number of immigrants. According to Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness Travel Guide to Germany, "In the city of Stuttgart, every third inhabitant is a foreigner." 40% of Stuttgart's residents, and 64% of the population below the age of five, are of immigrant background.

 

Source: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgholzhof

 

The Burgholzhof (formerly also Holzburg ) is a district of the Baden-Württemberg state capital Stuttgart . Together with the districts Altenburg, Birkenäcker, Hallschlag , Neckarvorstadt and Pragstraße on the one hand, and Cannstatt-Mitte, Espan, Im Geiger, spa gardens, Muckensturm, Schmidener suburb, Seelberg, Sommerrain , Steinhaldenfeld, Veielbrunnen, Wasen and Winterhalde on the other hand, he forms the district Bad Cannstatt . The first group of districts lies on the left, the "Old Stuttgart" Neckarseite. The Burgholzhof is partially military by US forces used. Since the late 1990s, there was a 12.7-acre development area.

Back again from seeing my son in hospital, where he continues to have setbacks to his progress since he was attacked.

The Tupolev Tu-144 (NATO reporting name: "Charger") was one of the world's only two supersonic transport aircraft (SST) to enter civilian service, along with the Concorde, and was constructed under the direction of the Soviet Tupolev design bureau headed by Alexei Tupolev.

 

The Tu-144 was outwardly similar to the Aérospatiale / British Aircraft Corporation Concorde, under development at the same time, and there were frequent allegations that Soviet espionage played a key role, giving the Tu-144 the nickname "Concordski". The Tu-144 was Tupolev's only supersonic commercial airliner venture, as the company's other large supersonic aircraft were designed and built to military specifications. All these aircraft benefited from technical and scientific input from TsAGI, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute. McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed and Boeing were three other manufacturers who attempted to design SST airliners for the US market during the 1960s, but without success.

 

A prototype (OKB: izdeliye 044 - article 044) first flew on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, two months before the Concorde. The Tu-144 first broke the speed of sound on 5 June 1969, and on 15 July 1969 it became the first commercial transport to exceed Mach two. However, a crash at the 1973 Paris Air Show was a major setback to development. The Tu-144 was introduced into passenger service on 1 November 1977, almost two years after the Concorde, but was soon withdrawn after just 55 scheduled passenger flights due to potentially severe problems with aircraft safety and was not re-introduced to service.

 

Although the Tu-144 was technically broadly comparable to the Concorde, it lacked a passenger market within the Soviet Union and service was halted after only 102 scheduled flights (55 passenger flights, the rest cargo). The Concorde remained in service until 2003, being withdrawn three years after a crash near Paris (25 July 2000), the only loss of an SST in civilian service.

The Soviets published the concept of the Tu-144 in an article in the January 1962 issue of the magazine Technology of the Air Transport. The air ministry started development of the Tu-144 on 26 July 1963, following approval by the Council of Ministers 10 days earlier. The project started two years later than the Concorde. The plan called for five flying prototypes to be built in four years. The first aircraft was to be ready in 1966.

 

Despite the close similarity in appearance of the Tu-144 to the Anglo-French supersonic aircraft, there were significant differences in the control, navigation and engine systems. In areas such as range, aerodynamic sophistication, braking and engine control, the Tu-144 lagged behind the Concorde. While the Concorde utilized an electronic engine control package from Lucas, Tupolev was not permitted to purchase it for the Tu-144 as it could also be used on military aircraft. The Concorde's designers used the fuel of this airliner as the coolant for air conditioning the cabin and the hydraulic system (see Concorde#Heating issues for details). Tupolev installed additional equipment on the Tu-144 to accomplish this, increasing the weight of the airliner.

 

Tupolev continued to work to improve the Tu-144. Many substantial upgrades and changes were made on the Tu-144 prototype (serial number 68001). While both the Concorde and the Tu-144 prototype had ogival delta wings, the Tu-144's wing lacked the Concorde's conical camber. Production Tu-144s replaced this wing with a double-delta wing including conical camber, and they added an extra simple but practical device: two small retractable canard surfaces one on either side of the forward section on the aircraft to increase lift at low speed.

 

Moving the elevons downward in a delta-wing aircraft increases the lift, but that also pitches its nose downward. The canard cancels out this nose-downwards moment, thus reducing the landing speed of the production Tu-144s to 315–333 km/h (170-180 kn, 196-207 mph) - however, still faster than that of the Concorde. The NASA study lists final approach speed during performed Tu-144LL test flights as 170 to 181 knots (315 to 335 km/h), however these were approach speeds exercised during test flights specifically intended to study landing effects at maximum possible range of speeds, regardless of how hard and stable the landing can be. As to regular landings, FAA circular lists Tu-144S approach speed as 178 knots (330 km/h), as opposed to BAC/Aerospatiale Concord(e) approach speed of 162 knots (300 km/h), based obviously on the characteristics declared by the manufacturers to Western regulatory bodies. However it is open to an argument how stable was Tu-144S at the listed airspeed. In any event, when NASA subcontracted Tupolev bureau in the 1990s to convert one of the remaining Tu-144D to a Tu-144LL standard, the procedure set by Tupolev for landing defined the Tu-144LL "final approach speed... on the order of 360 km/hr depending on fuel weight." Brian Calvert, the Concorde's technical flight manager and its first commercial pilot executing several inaugural flights, cites final approach speed of a typical Concorde landing to be 155 to 160 knots, i.e. 287 to 296 km/h. Lower Concorde landing speed compared to Tu-144 is due to the Concorde's more refined design of the wing profile that provides higher lift at low speeds without degrading supersonic cruise performance — a feature often mentioned in Western publications on the Concorde and acknowledged by Tupolev designers as well.

 

At the Paris Air Show on 3 June 1973, the development program of the Tu-144 suffered severely when the first Tu-144S production airliner (reg 77102) crashed.

 

While in the air, the Tu-144 underwent a violent downwards maneuver. Trying to pull out of the subsequent dive, the Tu-144 broke up and crashed, destroying 15 houses and killing all six people on board the Tu-144 and eight more on the ground.

 

The causes of this incident remain controversial to this day. A popular theory was that the Tu-144 was forced to avoid a French Mirage chase plane which was attempting to photograph its canards, which were very advanced for the time, and that the French and Soviet governments colluded with each other to cover up such details. The flight of the Mirage was denied in the original French report of the incident, perhaps because it was engaged in industrial espionage. More recent reports have admitted the existence of the Mirage (and the fact that the Russian crew were not told about the Mirage's flight) though not its role in the crash. However, the official press release did state: "though the inquiry established that there was no real risk of collision between the two aircraft, the Soviet pilot was likely to have been surprised." Howard Moon also stresses that last-minute changes to the flight schedule would have disoriented the pilots in a cockpit with notable poor vision. He also cites an eyewitness who claims the co-pilot had agreed to take a camera with him, which he may have been operating at the time of the evasive maneuver.

 

Another theory claims that the black box was actually recovered by the Soviets and decoded. The cause of this accident is now thought to be due to changes made by the ground engineering team to the auto-stabilisation input controls prior to the second day of display flights. These changes were intended to allow the Tu-144 to outperform the Concorde in the display circuit. Unfortunately, the changes also inadvertently connected some factory-test wiring which resulted in an excessive rate of climb, leading to the stall and subsequent crash.

 

A third theory relates to deliberate misinformation on the part of the Anglo-French team. The main thrust of this theory was that the Anglo-French team knew that the Soviet team were planning to steal the design plans of the Concorde, and the Soviets were allegedly passed false blueprints with a flawed design. The case, it is claimed, contributed to the imprisonment by the Soviets of Greville Wynne in 1963 for spying. Wynne was imprisoned on 11 May 1963 and the development of the Tu-144 was not sanctioned until 16 July. In any case, it seems unlikely that a man imprisoned in 1963 could have caused a crash in 1973.

 

Although its last commercial passenger flight was in 1978, production of the Tu-144 did not cease until six years later, in 1984, when construction of the partially complete Tu-144D reg 77116 airframe was stopped. During the 1980s the last two production aircraft to fly were used for airborne laboratory testing, including research into ozone depletion at high altitudes.

 

In the early 1990s, a wealthy businesswoman, Judith DePaul, and her company IBP Aerospace negotiated an agreement with Tupolev and NASA, (also Rockwell and later Boeing). They offered a Tu-144 as a testbed for its High Speed Commercial Research program, intended to design a second-generation supersonic jetliner called the High Speed Civil Transport. In 1995, Tu-144D [reg 77114] built in 1981 (but with only 82 hours and 40 minutes total flight time) was taken out of storage and after extensive modification at a total cost of US$350 million was designated the Tu-144LL (Russian: Летающая Лаборатория — where LL is an abbreviation for Flying Laboratory). It made a total of 27 flights in 1996 and 1997. In 1999, though regarded as a technical success, the project was cancelled for lack of funding.

 

The Tu-144LL was reportedly sold in June 2001 for $11 million via online auction, but the aircraft sale did not proceed after all — Tejavia Systems, the company handling the transaction, reported in September 2003 that the deal was not signed. The replacement Kuznetsov NK-321 engines (from the Tupolev Tu-160 bomber) are military hardware and the Russian government did not allow them to be exported.

 

At the 2005 Moscow Air & Space Show, Tejavia founder Randall Stephens found the Kuznetsov NK-321 engine on display, and the Tu-144LL rusting on Tupolev's test base at the Gromov Flight Test Center. In late 2003, with the retirement of the Concorde, there was renewed interest from several wealthy individuals who wanted to use the Tu-144LL for a transatlantic record attempt; but Stephens advised them of the high cost of a flight readiness overhaul even if military authorities would authorize the use of NK-321 engines outside Russian Federation airspace.

 

The last two production aircraft remain at the Tupolev production plant in Zhukovsky, reg 77114 and 77115. In March 2006, it was announced that these airframes had been sold for scrap. Later that year, however, it was reported that both aircraft would instead be preserved. One of them could be erected to a pedestal near Zhukovsky City Council and TsAGI or above the LII entrance from the Tupolev avenue.

 

General characteristics

 

* Crew: 3

* Capacity: 120-140 passengers, but normally 70~80 passengers

* Length: 65.50 m (215.54 ft)

* Wingspan: 28.80 m (94.48 ft)

* Height: 10.50 m (34.42 ft)

* Wing area: 438.0 m² (4,715 ft²)

* Empty weight: 85,000 kg (187,400 lb)

* Loaded weight: unknown ()

* Max takeoff weight: 180,000 kg (397,000 lb))

* Powerplant: 4× Kolesov RD-36-51 afterburning turbojet, 200 kN (44,122 lbf) each

* Fuel capacity: 70,000 kg (154,000 lb)

 

Performance

 

* Maximum speed: Mach 2,35 (2,500 km/h, 1,550 mph)

* Cruise speed: Mach 2,2 (2,300 km/h, 1,430 mph)

* Range: 6,500 km (3,500 nm, 4,000 mi : 2,920 km with full afterburner)

* Service ceiling: 18,000 m (59,100 ft)

* Rate of climb: 9,840 ft/min (3,000 m/min) (ft/min)

* Wing loading: 410.96 kg/m² (84.20 lb/ft²)

* Thrust/weight: 0.44

  

The new station at Cranbrook (located between Pinhoe and Whimple on the ex Southern region South West Main Line route) finally opened on Sunday 13th December 2015 after many setbacks. In this view South West Trains Class 159 No. 159104 is seen pausing at the new station leading another '159' while operating 1L45 the 15:20 London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids service on Wednesday 16th December 2015.

Already disappointed by the shipyard assuming that the plans for his vessel were in millimetres, Prince Henry the Navigator receives another setback.

 

Monument of the Discoveries, Belém, Lisbon.

David Stott was a wealthy flour merchant. This late 1920s skyscraper has a series of brick and terra cotta setbacks at its upper stories. The architects were the firm of Donaldson and Meier.

The Postcard

 

A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was printed in Great Britain. The card was posted on Wednesday the 1st. September 1971 using a 3p stamp featuring the 50th. Anniversary of the British Legion.

 

The British Legion was in fact formed on the 15th. May 1921, bringing together four national organisations of ex-Servicemen that had established themselves to support those who had suffered as a result of service during the Great War.

 

The card was posted to:

 

Mrs. D. Hunt,

250 Victoria Drive,

Eastbourne,

Sussex.

 

The message on the divided back was as follows:

 

"Dear All,

Glad to say that we got

our 'property' back, all

intact, for the payment

of a small sum.

It was so nice to see you

all again and thanks for

the nice lunch.

Love,

Eva & Reg K."

 

Hastings

 

Hastings is a large seaside town in East Sussex on the south coast, 24 miles (39 km) east of the county town of Lewes, and 53 mi (85 km) south east of London.

 

The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings.

 

In the 19th. century, Hastings was a popular seaside resort, as the railway allowed tourists and visitors to reach the town.

 

Today, Hastings is a fishing port with the UK's largest beach-based fishing fleet. The fleet has been based on the same beach, below the cliffs, for at least 400, and possibly up to 600, years. Its longevity is attributed to the prolific fishing ground of Rye Bay nearby.

 

The town had a population of 92,855 in 2018.

 

Hastings in Pre-History

 

Evidence of prehistoric settlements has been found at the town site, including flint arrowheads and Bronze Age artefacts.

 

Iron Age forts have been excavated on both the East and West Hills. The settlement was already based on the port when the Romans arrived in Britain for the first time in 55 BC. They began to exploit the iron (Wealden rocks provide a plentiful supply of the ore), and shipped it out by boat.

 

Iron was worked locally at Beauport Park, to the north of the town. It employed up to a thousand men, and is thought to have been the third-largest mine in the Roman Empire.

 

With the departure of the Romans, the town suffered setbacks. The Beauport site was abandoned, and the town suffered attacks from nature and early adversaries.

 

The Sussex coast has always suffered from occasional violent storms, and with the additional hazard of longshore drift (the eastward movement of shingle along the coast), the coastline has been frequently changing. The original Roman port is probably now under the sea.

 

Medieval Hastings

 

The Battle of Hastings heralded the start of the Norman Conquest. The battle was fought on the 14th. October 1066, although it actually took place 8 miles (13 km) to the north at Senlac Hill, and William had landed on the coast between Hastings and Eastbourne at Pevensey.

 

Muslim scholar Muhammad al-Idrisi, writing circa 1153, described Hastings as:

 

"A town of large extent and many inhabitants,

flourishing and handsome, having markets,

workpeople and rich merchants".

 

Hastings and the Sea

 

By the end of the Saxon period, the port of Hastings had moved eastward to near the present town centre in the Priory Stream valley, whose entrance was protected by the White Rock headland (since demolished).

 

It was to be a short stay: Danish attacks and huge floods in 1011 and 1014 motivated the townspeople to relocate to the New Burgh.

 

In the Middle Ages Hastings became one of the Cinque Ports.

 

Much of the town and half of Hastings Castle was washed away in the South England flood of February 1287.

 

During a naval campaign of 1339, and again in 1377, the town was raided and burnt by the French, and seems then to have gone into a decline. As a port, Hastings' days were finished.

 

Hastings had suffered over the years from the lack of a natural harbour. Attempts were made to build a stone harbour during the reign of Elizabeth I, but the foundations were destroyed by the sea in terrible storms. Accordingly the town's fishing boats are still stored on, and launched from, the beach.

 

Hastings was then just a small fishing settlement, but it was soon discovered that the new taxes on luxury goods could be made profitable by smuggling; the town was ideally located for that purpose.

 

Near the castle ruins, on the West Hill, are St. Clement's Caves, partly natural, but mainly excavated by hand by smugglers from the soft sandstone.

 

Their trade came to an end with the period following the Napoleonic Wars, for the town became one of the most fashionable resorts in Britain, brought about by the so-called health-giving properties of seawater, as well as the local springs and Roman baths.

 

The double decker promenade that runs from Hastings Pier beyond Marine Court, with a break at Warrior Square, was built by the borough engineer Sidney Little.

 

The building of Pelham Crescent necessitated cutting away of the Castle Hill cliffs. Once that move away from the old town had begun, it led to the further expansion along the coast, eventually linking up with the new St. Leonards.

 

Judges Postcards

 

Between 1902 and 1919, Fred Judge FRPS photographed many of the town's events and disasters. These included storms, the first tram, the visit of the Lord Mayor of London, Hastings Marathon Race, and the pier fire of 1917.

 

Many of these images were produced as picture postcards by the firm he founded which is now known as Judges Postcards.

 

Hastings' Bathing Pool

 

In the 1930's, an Olympic-sized bathing pool was erected. Regarded in its day as one of the best open-air swimming and diving complexes in Europe, it later became a holiday camp before closing in 1986. It was demolished, but the area is still known by locals as "The Old Bathing Pool".

 

Hastings' Sunshine

 

Hastings, tied with Eastbourne, recorded the highest duration of sunshine of any month anywhere in the United Kingdom - 384 hours - in 1911.

 

A new record temperature of 34.7 °C (94.5 °F) was recorded for the town on the 19th. July 2022.

 

St. Leonards

 

The original part St. Leonards was bought by James Burton and laid out by his son, the architect Decimus Burton, in the early 19th. century as a new town: a place of elegant houses designed for the well-off.

 

It also included a central public garden, a hotel, an archery, assembly rooms and a church. Today's St. Leonards has extended well beyond that original design, although the original town still exists within it.

 

Priory Meadow Shopping Centre

 

Hastings' main shopping centre is the Priory Meadow Shopping Centre. It was built on the site of the old Central Recreation Ground which had played host to some Sussex CCC first-class fixtures, and famous cricketers such as Dr. W. G. Grace and Sir Don Bradman.

 

The Central Recreation Ground was one of England's oldest, most scenic and most famous cricket grounds. The first match was played there in 1864, and the last in 1989, after which the site was redeveloped into the shopping centre. The centre houses 56 stores, and covers around 420,000 square feet.

 

Marine Court

 

On the seafront at St. Leonards is Marine Court, a 1938 block of flats in the Art Deco style that was originally called 'The Ship' due to its style being based upon the ocean liner RMS Queen Mary.

 

Marine Court can be seen from 20 miles (32 km) away on a clear day from Eastbourne.

 

The Memorial

 

An important former landmark was the Memorial, a clock tower commemorating Albert the Prince Consort which stood for many years at the traffic junction in the town centre, but was demolished following an arson attack in the 1970's.

 

The Hastings Miniature Railway

 

The Hastings Miniature Railway operates along the beach from Rock-a-Nore to Marine Parade, and has provided tourist transport since 1948. The railway was considerably restored and re-opened in 2010.

 

Hastings' Tram Network

 

Hastings had a network of trams from 1905 to 1929. The trams ran as far as Bexhill, and were worked by overhead electric wires.

 

Notable People

 

Many notable figures were born, raised, or lived in Hastings, including computer scientist Alan Turing, poet Fiona Pitt-Kethley, actress Gwen Watford, comedian Jo Brand and Madness singer Suggs.

 

Additionally :

 

-- John Logie Baird lived in Hastings in the 1920's where he carried out experiments that led to the transmission of the first television image.

 

-- Robert Tressell wrote 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists' in Hastings between 1906 and 1910.

 

-- Gareth Barry, who holds the record number of appearances in the Premier League, was born in Hastings.

 

-- The author who worked as Grey Owl was born In Hastings and lived there for several years.

 

-- Harry H. Corbett (Steptoe & Son) lived in Hastings up until his death in 1982.

 

-- Anna Brassey, a collector and feminist pioneer of early photography, was based in Hastings until her death in 1887.

 

Anna Brassey

 

Baroness Anna "Annie" Brassey was born in London on the 7th. October 1839. Annie was an English traveller and writer. Her bestselling book 'A Voyage in the Sunbeam, our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months' (1878) describes a voyage around the world.

 

Anna Brassey - The Early Years

 

Annie Brassey was born Anna Allnutt. As a child, she faced serious health problems. In his preface to Annie's book 'The Last Voyage', her husband recalled that she suffered from an inherited "weakness of the chest", apparently a form of chronic bronchitis.

 

As a young woman, she also suffered severe burns when she stood too close to a fireplace and her skirt caught fire. It took six months for her to recover from them.

 

Annie's Marriage to Lord Brassey

 

In 1860, she married the English Member of Parliament Thomas Brassey (knighted in 1881, becoming Earl Brassey in 1886), with whom she lived near his Hastings constituency. Thomas was born in 1836 and died in 1918.

 

The couple had five children together before they travelled aboard their luxury yacht Sunbeam. The yacht was said to have been named after their daughter - Lady Constance Alberta - who was nicknamed Sunbeam; she died of scarlet fever, aged four, on the 24th. January 1873.

 

The golden figurehead of the yacht depicting Constance is at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

 

Annie's Travels and Publications

 

'A Voyage in the Sunbeam', describing their journey round the world in 1876–1877 with a complement of 43, including family, friends and crew, ran through many English editions, and was translated into at least five languages.

 

Her accounts of later voyages include 'Sunshine and Storm in the East' (1880); 'In the Trades, the Tropics, and the Roaring Forties' (1885); and 'The Last Voyage' (1889, published posthumously).

 

Annie had published privately earlier works including 'A Flight of the Meteor', detailing two cruises in the Mediterranean on their earlier yacht Meteor, and 'A Voyage in the Eothen', a description of their travels to Canada and the United States in 1872.

 

In July 1881, King Kalākaua of Hawaii, who had been greatly pleased with her description of his kingdom, was entertained at Normanhurst Castle, and invested Lady Brassey with the Royal Order of Kapiolani.

 

Annie was also involved with the publication of Colonel Henry Stuart-Wortley's 'Tahiti, a Series of Photographs' (1882).

 

The Death and Legacy of Lady Brassey

 

Lady Brassey's last voyage on the Sunbeam was to India and Australia, undertaken in November 1886 in order to improve her health. On the way to Mauritius, Annie died of malaria at the age of 47 on the 14th. September 1887, and was buried at sea.

 

At home in England, she had performed charitable work, largely for the St. John Ambulance Association. Her collection of ethnographic and natural history material was shown in a museum at her husband's London house until it was moved to Hastings Museum in 1919. There are also several photograph albums and other ephemera held at Hastings Library.

 

However, the vast majority of her photograph albums are now housed in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The collection of 70 albums, each containing 72 to 80 thick board pages, contains pre-eminent examples of historical travel.

 

The albums contain works by Annie and others she collected, including those of commercial photographers. Annie herself was an accomplished photographer. She joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1873 and remained a member until her death. She exhibited some of her work in its exhibitions in 1873 and 1886.

 

Lady Brassey was survived by four of her five children:

 

-- Thomas Brassey, 2nd Earl Brassey

-- Lady Mabelle Brassey

-- Muriel Sackville, Countess De La Warr

-- Marie Freeman-Thomas, Marchioness of Willingdon.

 

The Federation of Arab Republics

 

So what else happened on the day that Eva and Reg posted the card?

 

Well, on the 1st. September 1971, voting took place simultaneously in Egypt, Syria and Libya on a referendum of whether to join the proposed Federation of Arab Republics.

 

On paper ballots, citizens had to mark a red circle if they were in favour, and a black circle if they were against the union, and participation in the voting was mandatory.

 

Voters approved the loose federation that would bring together 42 million of the 100 million Arab people in the Middle East, with a reported 96.4% approval in Syria, 98% in Libya, and "99.956%" in Egypt (meaning that only 422 out of 7,776,837 voted no).

 

Independence for Qatar

 

Also on that day, a radio broadcast from Qatar announced the intention of the rulers of the Arab sheikdom to declare independence, with the announcement that:

 

"Qatar is going to terminate special treaty

relations and all agreements, engagements

and arrangements arising therefrom that

were concluded with the British government."

 

The Death of 'Assault'

 

The day also marked the death of the 28 year old American thoroughbred racehorse Assault.

 

Assault, who was the 1946 Triple Crown winner, was humanely euthanized at the King Ranch in Kingsville, Texas after breaking his left front leg in a fall.

 

Diana Ross

 

Also on the 1st. September 1971, the Number One chart hit record in the UK was 'I'm Still Waiting' by Diana Ross.

 

Dutch postcard by EMNA in the Militairen (militaries) series, no. 2. Image: Joop Geesink. Caption: Good night Dad!

 

Dutch film producer and puppeteer Joop Geesink (1913 -1984) was internationally known for his Dollywood shorts, stop motion animation films with puppets. In the Netherlands, Geesink remains most fondly remembered for his creation Loeki de Leeuw (Loeki the Lion), which brightened up the National television's advertising from 1972 to 2004.

 

Joop (Johan Louis) Geesink was born in The Hague, The Netherlands, in 1913. Geesink started his career painting billboards for cinemas. Then he worked as a set designer for Dutch theatre revues. In the mid-1930s Geesink made illustrations and the comic 'Prik en Prak' (Prik and Prak) for the magazine Doe Mee. He made the drawings for the story 'De Reuzen Belfloor and Bonnevu in the land of King Kas Koes Kielewan' (The Giants Belfloor and Bonnevu in the land of King Kas Koes Kielewan) on a text by Dutch author A.D. Hildebrand, which was published in book form in 1941. He also created a series of postcards with illustrations of militaries, which was published by EMNA during the time of the mobilisation (1939-1940). Geesink became interested in film - especially animation film - and in 1942, he started making films together with his brother and business partner Wim Geesink. A merger with Marten Toonder (known for the comics of Tom Poes (Tom Puss) and Olivier B. Bommel) resulted in the foundation of Toonder-Geesink Studios. Toonder was mainly concerned with cartoons and Geesink was more into puppet films. In this way, he could recreate the atmosphere of the theatre in miniature and let it move. The collaboration lasted only one year: from March 1942 to March 1943. At Geesink's request, the Geesink-Toonder studio was disbanded in time, before major quarrels would arise. Toonder then founded Toonder Studios and the Geesink brothers started the Dollywood Studios (a combination of doll and Hollywood). This firm focused on documentaries, advertising films, and instruction films. In 1944 Geesink designed two humoristic postcards at the occasion of the liberation of Belgium, and Semper in Equo later published 10 postcards with the title: 'Weet u nog wel?' (Do you remember?) In 1949, when Toonder ran into financial difficulties, a large group of employees went to Joop Geesink's Dollywood Studios. One of them was Han van Gelder, who worked on special effects until 1951. Han van Gelder had the winged exclamation of 'asjemenou', which would later be widely known by Loeki de Leeuw.

 

In the 1950s the economy picked up and the number of orders increased. Joop Geesink turned out to be able to bring in customers in a very handy and convincing way. He usually had a basic idea that he developed further, after which he looked for a customer. Philips became one of his most important customers and also ordered the making of several longer animation films (of about 10 minutes): Kermesse fantastique (1951), Light and Mankind (1954), Het verhaal met de baard/The Story with the Beard (1958), Piccolo, Saxo and Company (1960) and Philips Cavalcade - 75 years of Music (1966). Other important (inter) national customers include the Nederlands Zuivelbureau (Dutch Dairy Company), Campari, Ballantine, Knorr, Peter Stuyvesant, North State, Coca-Cola, and Heineken. In 1955 Geesink expanded the studio with Starfilm, under which name all live-action advertising assignments were produced. Geesink also produced more personal projects, such as the feature film Het wonderlijke Leven van Willem Parel/The wonderful life of Willem Parel (Gerard Rutten, 1955) with Dutch comedian Wim Sonneveld in the lead. Wim Sonneveld had created the character of Willem Parel the organ player for Dutch Radio. Each Saturday night thousands of people listened to ten minutes of Willem Parel. Sonneveld got fed up with this character and decided to end it with this picture. It got very bad reviews but audiences liked it. Geesink also opened agencies in two major sales markets of his company: Germany and Italy. Sixty to seventy percent of the productions are for the foreign market. In the United States, it was called "the Geesink technique", which referred to the very well-executed art direction and professional animation technique.

 

Joop Geesink presented a new form of animation in the film The Travelling Tune (1962), commissioned by Philips: the paper doll technique with animated figures made of paper. An important factor in the success of the Geesink studio was the rise of television advertising in the United States, Germany, Great Britain, and other countries. Geesink specialised in telling a story in a short time of 20 to 60 seconds and he knew how to be ahead of the competition. Sales figures and marketing surveys demonstrated the commercial success of Geesink advertising films. In 1966 he invented Tick de Kikker/Rick de Frog, a puppet TV series for toddlers. It was initially intended that Rick the Frog would appear daily on television in five-minute episodes. Rick de Frog eventually appeared at the TROS but not every day. 26 episodes were made and the program was a major crowd puller and very popular with preschoolers. It appeared on Dutch Television from October 1967 to December 1968. Geesink never succeeded in becoming a major producer of television advertising in the Netherlands. When advertising was introduced on television in 1967, Geesink did produce 12 of the 38 spots, but in the end, he was unable to compete with the smaller production companies that had much less fixed costs. In addition, the studio ran into serious financial problems in the late 1960s due to the failure of the Holland Promenade project, a kind of educational amusement park. The result of this financial setback is that Geesink has to part with his company.

 

The studio, with the new name Joop Geesink Filmproduktie, became part of the Toonder Studios in 1972, which were located in Nederhorst den Berg. There the studio continued with some projects that were started under the leadership of Joop Geesink. His signature character was Loeki de Leeuw (1972-2004). Loeki was a stop-motion animated lion who appeared in hundreds of TV shorts used as bumpers during commercial breaks. By 1977 Geesink launched 'Dusty', a kangaroo with a broom for his tale. The character originated in a series of animated TV shorts, produced by the Toonder Studios, aiming to create awareness for a clean environment. Dusty' was sold to several foreign TV networks, including RAI Due in Italy, where it became a tremendous success. Another creation of Geesink was the Carnival Festival attraction in the Dutch amusement park De Efteling, in which dolls were again central. On 1 February 1984 Geesink gave a press conference about the Carnival Festival. The deathly ill Geesink managed to make a test drive before the opening and be present at the informal opening at the start of the season. A month before the official opening to the public, on 13 May 1984, Joop Geesink passed away in Amsterdam. His daughter Louise Geesink took over Geesink's Dollywood Studios when her father died. Joop Geesink's name lives on in the Joop Geesink Prize, an annual award distributed during the Holland Animation Filmfestival.

 

Sources: Bas Schuddeboom & Kjell Knudde (Lambiek Comiclopedia), RKD, Geesink Studio (Dutch), Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Edificio Acqua is a six-story luxury residential complex that faces the South Atlantic Ocean in Uruguay’s beachfront resort of Punta del Este. Located adjacent to the main oceanfront roadway, this L-shaped, thirty-four-unit building responds to an irregularly shaped site with dense, context-sensitive development, introducing an unprecedented level of construction quality and architectural refinement to the high end of the Uruguayan housing market.

 

The building features a terraced elevation that steps back floor by floor, resembling a large staircase leading residents directly to the water’s edge. These setbacks not only minimize the structure’s overall mass when viewed from the beach, but also enable the creation of four “manor” and two “penthouse” apartments—spacious, single-floor units that include private terraces and swimming pools, with a total living area ranging from 6750 to 9050 gross square feet (627 to 841 gross square meters). With the combination of infinity pools that seem to extend to the ocean, abundant glazing on the three ocean-view sides, and the building setbacks that obscure views of the other units, each “manor” seems like an isolated residence.

 

The building contains a variety of other living configurations as well, including five double-height lofts and twenty-four single-floor apartment units. Living and dining areas typically face the ocean, and bedrooms, bathrooms, and other private spaces are situated along the glass exterior wall toward the rear and sides of the building, though many of these rooms enjoy ocean views as well. Nearly every bedroom features a walk-in closet and private bathroom. A series of terraces, alternately cantilevered out or set back into the building volume, animates the exterior and provides outdoor space for the apartments.

 

Passing through both wings of the building at ground level, a vehicular road provides access to ground-level parking bays, located adjacent to the seven elevator cores. A fitness center, spa, and outdoor pool are available to all residents.

 

“For me, Edificio Acqua has a special meaning,” says Rafael Viñoly, “as it is the first project I have completed in my native country of Uruguay. Its design reflects the uniqueness and beauty of its fashionable surroundings. Spectacular views create a sense of openness and accessibility, and the innovative use of materials and space produces a timeless architectural message.”

 

Ref: www.rvapc.com/works/703-edificio-acqua

  

Punta del Este, Uruguay

 

Camera: NIKON D810

Lens: Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 2/135 ZF.2

Focal Length: 135 mm

Exposure: ¹⁄₁₂₅₀ sec at f/4.0

ISO: 400

While attending a family event in Atwood, Ontario, a small rural town in Western Ontario's farmland, I noticed an old-fashioned gas bar/gas station and general store with a canopy on the edge of South end of the village. The style is now almost completely gone from the landscape as more modern designs are brought in to lure customers. This particular building is likely only here for a few more years as updated building codes, highway renovations and their associated setbacks and other regulatory changes, make it pretty much impractical for owners to do much of anything to the existing properties while preserving the classic look. The gas bar is owned by Ralph Bowman, or so it says on the sign above the front door. It is actually run by his sons, or so I have been led to understand. I have to say the ability to fill up the gas tank while under the protective canopy was a nice innovation in its day and appears to be a direct descendent of the architecture seen in one of Ontario's earliest gas stations, as seen in Port Colborne, Ontario (www.flickr.com/photos/jwvraets/12370145595/ ), the historically listed Shickluna Service Station. I enjoy capturing these remnants of the past before they disappear forever. - JW

 

Date Taken: 2014-07-19

 

Tech Details:

 

Taken using a tripod-mounted Nikon D7100 fitted with a Nikkor 12-24mm lense set to 16mm, ISO100, Aperture priority mode, f/7.1, three auto-bracketed exp0sures spaced at EV+/-2 around a base exposure of 1/100 sec. HDR processing in free Open Source Luminance/Qtpfsgui: used the Mantiuk'06 tone mapping model to make a conventional HDR image which emphasizes textures (see below for settings). PP in free Open Source GIMP: load the HDR image as two layers, top layer named main, bottom layer named sky, use the tone curve tool to adjust the tonality of the sky layer to get a good strong sky and bring out the storm clouds moving in, disregarding the impact on the rest of the image, use the tone curve tool to adjust the tonality of the main layer to get the building looking good while disregarding the impact on the sky area, use a large soft-edged eraser tool to remove the sky area from the top/main layer revealing the better sky from the layer below, create new working layer from the visible result, do localized adjustment to the tonality and contrast under the canopy to bring out window details, boost overall saturation slightly, boost overall contrast slightly, reduce red channel saturation slightly to tone down the red pumps and signage above, dodge the green lights in the canopy ceiling to brighten them, do some colour balance adjustment to compensate for the odd lighting from the storm sky, sharpen, add fine black and white frame, add bar and text on left, scale to 1800 wide for posting.

 

= = = =

Luminance HDR 2.3.0 tonemapping parameters:

Operator: Fattal

Parameters:

Alpha: 1

Beta: 0.9

Color Saturation: 1

Noise Reduction: 0

------

PreGamma: 1.4

Market Square & Patten Parkway is located in Downtown Chattanooga adjacent to Georgia Avenue, one of downtown's main thoroughfares. The spatial arrangement of the district consists of two blocks of buildings with uniform setbacks, centered around the site of the old City Market, which is now a park. The street arrangement around the district is the traditional grid pattern. The northern block is composed of commercial shops, terminating on the western side with the Ross Hotel. The southern block is primarily composed of a life insurance company (building seen in the photograph above) and its parking garage, which were constructed around two earlier structures. One of the most prominent features of the district is the terraced park in the center of the district, one of only a few public "green spaces" in the Central Business District. The nine contributing buildings in this district were constructed over a forty-year period during the peak of development in this area. The construction of the City Market was a catalyst for other development in this area as can be seen in the parallel development of a series of row buildings to the north of the City Market for use as small shops as an adjunct to the market. Even though the buildings have changed ownership over the years, they are still primarily used for small shops or offices. Also, Volunteer Life's office building and garage are still used for their original purpose. And, the construction of these buildings reflect the traditional architectural influences of that period and are thus representative examples of late nineteenth and early twentieth century commercial architecture.

 

The building shown above is the Volunteer State Life Insurance Company. It is the largest contributing building in the historic district that was constructed in 1916 in a u-shape with a Neo-Classical Revival design. It consists of twelve stories faced with brick, a flat roof, and a concentration of classical detailing at ground and roof levels including pilasters, oval medallions, and a heavy cornice with brackets. There is an ornate entrance on Georgia Avenue with an arched opening with a keystone, ornamented spandrels, and over the door is a circular bronze tablet of Andrew Jackson (symbolizing the Volunteer State and the Volunteer's motto of "Strength, Stability and Integrity"). On the interior is an elaborate interior lobby with enriched moldings on ceiling and lavish use of marble. All of these details still exist today and contribute to the historical integrity of this building in particular and the historic district overall. The Market Square/Patten Parkway Historic District and the Volunteer State Life Building were added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on May 1, 1980. All of the information above (and much more about the district and the other contributing buildings) was found on the original documents submitted for listing consideration and can be viewed here:

npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail/052f95ae-a155-4358-b5b...

 

Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

 

The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the following link: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/

Pen and ink illustration based on a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

This is a unique and rarely seen truck, it is a Western Star 4900 SB (setback axle) EX (extended hood) Marmon Herrington 6x6. The Marmon Herrington four wheel drive truck conversion company was formed in 1931 when the cash strapped Nordyke & Marmon Company formed a partnership with WW1 Army veteran and engineer Arthur William Sidney Herrington.

The Chrysler Building, at 405 Lexington Avenue, was built from 1928-1930 to the art-deco design of architect William Van Alen. Standing at 1,046-feet high, it was the first structure in the world to surpass the 1,000-foot threshold. Despite being overtaken by the Empire State Building as the tallest building in the world eleven months later, the Chrysler Building is still the tallest brick building in the world. Although built and designed specifically for the Chrysler Corporation, the company did not pay for its construction and never owned it. Walter P. Chrysler self-financed the project so that his children could inherit it.

Some background:

The Nakajima A6M2-N (Navy Type 2 Interceptor/Fighter-Bomber) was a single-crew floatplane. The Allied reporting name for the aircraft was 'Rufe'.

 

The A6M2-N floatplane was developed mainly to support amphibious operations and defend remote bases. It was based on the Mitsubishi A6M-2 Model 11 fuselage, with a modified tail and added floats. Despite the large central float and wing pontoons, the A6M2-N was aerodynamically a very clean aircraft: compared with its land-based A6M2 cousin, its performance degraded only by about 20%, and for a contemporary single engine floatplane its performance was outstanding.

 

The aircraft was deployed in 1942, referred to as the "Suisen 2" ("Hydro fighter type 2"), and intended for interceptor, fighter-bomber, and short reconnaissance support for amphibious landings, among other uses. However, when confronted with the first generation of Allied fighters, the A6M2-N was no match in aerial combat and rather employed in supportive roles.

 

Effectively, the A6M2-N was mostly utilized in defensive actions in the Aleutians and Solomon Islands operations. They were used with good efficiency against Allied positions: marking patrol elements, aiding warship guns, engaging convoys, and reconnoitering areas over-the-horizon.

The A6M2-Ns were also effective in harassing American PT boats at night, and they could drop flares to illuminate the PTs which were vulnerable to destroyer gunfire, and depended on cover of darkness. However, when Allied fighter coverage became more numerous and effective, the value of the A6M2-N dwindled and losses began to naturally mount.

 

In the Aleutian Campaign this fighter engaged with RCAF Curtiss P-40, Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, but the A6M2-N inventory suffered a severe setback when, on August 7th, 1942, a seaplane base was destroyed by Allied fighter-bombers, taking with it most of the available A6M2-Ns stationed there.

 

The seaplane also served in defense of fueling depots in Balikpapan and Avon Bases (Dutch East Indies) and reinforced the Shumushu base (North Kuriles) in the same period.

Beyond their use from dispersed and improvised bases, A6M2-N fighters also served aboard seaplane carriers Kamikawa Maru in the Solomons and Kuriles areas and aboard Japanese raiders Hokoku Maru and Aikoku Maru in Indian Ocean raids.

Later in the conflict the Otsu Air Group utilized the A6M2-N as an interceptor alongside Kawanishi N1K1 Kyofu ('Rex') aircraft based in Biwa lake in the Honshū area, defending the Japanese home land against Allied raids.

 

A total of 327 were built, including the original prototype, before being halted in September 1943.

The last A6M2-N in military service was a single example recovered by the French forces in Indochina after the end of World War II. It crashed shortly after being overhauled, though.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: 1 (Pilot)

Length: 10.10 m (33ft 1⅝ in)

Wingspan: 12.00 m (39 ft 4⅜ in)

Height: 4.30 m (14ft 1⅜ in)

Wing area: 22.44 m² (251.4 sq ft)

Empty weight: 1,912 kg (4,235 lb)

Loaded weight: 2,460 kg (5,423 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 2,880 kg (6,349 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× Nakajima NK1C Sakae 12 air cooled 14 cylinder radial engine,

delivering 950 hp (709 kW) at 4,200 m (13,800 ft)

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 436 km/h (235 knots, 270.5 mph) at 5,000 m (16,400 ft)

Cruise speed: 296 km/h (160 knots, 184 mph)

Range: 1,782 km (963 nmi, 1,107 mi)

Service ceiling: 10,000 m (32,800 ft)

Climb rate: 6 min 43 s to 5,000 m (16,400 ft)

 

Armament:

2 × 7.7 mm Type 97 machine guns in forward fuselage

2 ×20 mm Type 99 cannons in outer wings

Underwing hardpoints for 2× 60 kg (132 lb) bombs

  

The kit and its assembly:

This is a real world model, despite the weird looks (see below), and an entry for the Arawasi blog's "Japanese Aircraft Online Model Contest 005 - Japanese Seaplanes & Flying Boats" contest in summer 2017. Even though whifs were allowed to enter, I used the opportunity to build a kit I had originally bought for a few bucks and stashed away in the donor bank: a vintage LS Model Nakajima A6M2-N.

 

The mould dates back to 1963(!), and the kit was re-issued several times, also under the ARII label. You get a tiny box, with only two sprues moulded in a pale baby blue, and the number of parts is minimal. It's truly vintage and pretty toylike at first sight. Consequently, you have to face some real old-school issues, e. g. moulded markings for the roundels on the wings, general mediocre fit of anything and lots of sinkholes and flash. Then there are toylike solutions like the single-piece propeller or separate, moveable ailerons with bulging joints.

 

The cockpit interior is non-existent, too: there's just a blank place for a dashboard (to be cut out from the printed BW instructions!), and a spindly pilot figure which is held in mid air by some pins. Furthermore, the kit was designed to take a small electric motor in the nose (sold separately) to drive the propeller. Wires, as well as respective internal ducts, and an AA battery holder are included.

 

Sounds scary? Well, maybe, if you just build it OOB. But all these flaws should not keep the ambitious modeler away because the LS Model kit is (still) a sound basis to start from, even though and by today's standards, it is certainly not a match-winner for a rivet counter-esque competition.

 

For its age and the typical solutions of its time, it is actually surprisingly good: you get very fine engraved surface details (more delicate than many contemporary moulds!), a pretty thin, three-piece clear (yet blurry) canopy and, as a bonus to the elevons, separate flaps – a unique detail I have never come across before! Proportions are IMHO good, even though the cowling looks a bit fishy and the engravings are rather soft and shallow. Anyway, on the exterior, there’s anything you can ask for to be found, and as another bonus the kit comes with a beaching trolley, which makes display and diorama fitting easier.

 

Thanks to the kit's simplicity, the build in itself was pretty straightforward and simple. Cleaning the parts and checking fit was the biggest issue. Upon gluing the old styrene showed signs of serious reaction to the dissolving effect of modern glue: it took ages for the material to cure and become hard again for further work!? Weird…

 

The many sinkholes and overall displacements were corrected with some NC putty/PSR, the protruding elevon/flap joints sanded away as good as possible, and due to the wobbly nature of the kit’s styrene I added blobs of 2C putty inside of the wing halves as stabilizers.

 

Some mods and improvements were made, though. After cleaning the OOB propeller from tons of flash the piece turned out to be pretty usable, and it was put on a metal axis. A styrene tube adapter was added behind the relatively flat engine dummy, so that the prop can spin freely – for the later beauty pics, because no CG effect beats IMHO the real thing.

 

A cockpit interior was created from scratch and donor parts, using the new Airfix A6M model's cockpit as benchmark. It’s not an exact replica, because not much would later be visible, but I wanted, as a minimum, “something” inside. A better pilot figure was used, too, and strapped to the new seat with thin strips of adhesive masking tape as seatbelts.

 

Under the wings, the hardpoints were simulated with some bits of styrene and wire as shackles, but left empty Under the stabilizer fin I added a lug(?), made from thin wire, too.

 

The elevons were fixed in place, the seams to the wings filled with white glue in order to conceal the gaps as good as possible. The movable flaps remained, though, adding life to the model. The dolly was also taken more or less OOB, since it fits well. I just improved it with some sinkhole fillings and some other details, including cushions on the float stabilizers, made from paper tissue soaked with thinned white glue, and a towing bar.

  

Painting and markings:

The reason why I settled for an A6M2-N is mostly the weird paint scheme which can be applied, while still being a real world model: a lilac livery!

 

As far as I could find out, the A6M2-Ns initially carried an all-over IJN Grey livery, which was later, in late 1942, modified with dark green upper sides for a better concealment on the ground, and the Hinomaru received white edges for better contrast.

Anyway, during the Aleutian campaign and more or less in between these two major standards, several aircraft must have received a special camouflage with lilac upper surfaces, and this model depicts such a machine, based on various profiles but no color picture as reliable reference.

 

The sources I consulted, as well as pictures of finished A6M2-N models, show a wide variety of shades and paint scheme layouts, though. Upper colors range from pale pink through more or less bright shades of purple to a pale, rusty-reddish brown (maybe primer?), while the undersides show a wide range of greys or even light blue. Some depictions of Aleutian A6M2-Ns as profile or model even show a uniform wraparound scheme! Choice is yours, obviously...

 

Because of the corny information basis, I did my personal interpretation of the subject. I based my livery more or less on a profile by Michele Marsan, published in Aerei Modelismo Anno XII (March 1991). The unit information was taken from there, too – the only source that would provide such a reference.

 

My idea behind the livery and the eventual finish was that the machine once was fully painted in IJN Grey. Then, the violet upper color was added in the field (for whatever reason?), resulting in a slightly shaggy look and with the light grey shining through here and there in areas of higher wear, e. g. at the leading edges, cockpit area and some seams.

 

Painting started with an initial coat of aluminum under the floats, around the cockpit and on the leading edges. Then the undersides and some areas of the upper surfaces were painted with IJN grey. The latter is an individual mix of Humbrol 90 (Beige Green/RAF Sky) and a bit of 155 (Olive Drab, FS 34087). On top of that I added a thin primer layer of mauve (mix of ModelMaster’s Napoleonic Violet and Neutral Grey, Humbrol 176) on the still vacant upper surfaces – both as a preparation for the later weathering treatments (see below).

 

The following, basic lilac tone comes from Humbrol’s long-gone "Authentics" enamel line. The tin is probably 30 years old, but the content is still alive (and still has a distinctive, sour stench…)! I cannot identify the tone anymore with certainty, but I guess that it is 'HJ 4: Mauve N 9', one of the line’s Japanese WWII tones which was later not carried over to the standard tones, still available today.

 

Anyway, the color is a dull, rather greyish violet, relatively dark (a bit like RAF Ocean Grey), and it fits well as a camouflage tone on this specific model. Since there’s no better alternative I could think of except for an individual mix or garish, off-the-rack pop art tones, I went with it.

 

After overall basic painting was done and thoroughly cured, weathering started with a careful wet sand paper treatment, removing the salt grain masks and revealing some of the lower IJN Grey and aluminum layers. While this appears messy, I found that the result looks more realistic than artificial weathering applied as paint effects on top of the basic paint.

 

The engine cowling was painted separately, with a mix of black and a little dark blue. The propeller received an aluminum spinner (Humbrol’s Matt Aluminum Metallizer), while the blades received aluminum front sides (Revell acrylics), and red brown (Humbrol 160) back sides. Two thin, red stripes decorate the propeller tips (Decals, left over from an AZ Model Ki-78, IIRC).

 

As a standard procedure, the kit received a light wash with thinned black ink, revealing the engraved panel lines, plus some post-shading in order to emphasize panels and add visual contrast and ‘drama’.

 

Decals and markings were improvised and come from the spares box, since I did not trust the vintage OOB decals - even though they are in so far nice that the sheet contains any major marking as well as a full set of letter so that an individual tail code could be created. Anyway, the model's real world benchmark did not carry any numeric or letter code, just Hinomaru in standard positions and a horizontal, white-and-red stripe on the fin.

 

The roundels actually belong to a JSDAF F-4EJ, some stencils come from a leftover Hobby Boss A6M sheet. The fin decoration was created with generic decal sheet material (TL Modellbau). Similar stuff was also used for the markings on the central float, as well as for the yellow ID markings on the inner wings' leading edges. I am just not certain whether the real aircraft carried them at all? But they were introduced with the new green upper surfaces in late 1942, so that they appear at least plausible. Another argument in this marking‘s favor is that it simply adds even more color to the model!

 

The cockpit interior was painted in a light khaki tone (a mix of Humbrol 159 and 94), while the flaps' interior was painted with Aodake Iro (an individual mix of acrylic aluminum and translucent teal paint). Lacking good reference material, the beaching trolley became IJA Green, with some good weathering with dry-brushed silver on the edges and traces of rust here and there (the latter created with artist acrylics.

 

Close to the (literal) finish line, some soot and oil stains were added with graphite and Tamiya's 'Smoke', and the kit finally received a coat of matt acrylic varnish (Italeri); to the varnish on the engine cover a bit of gloss varnish was added, for a sheen finish.

  

In the end, quite a challenging build. Not a winner, but …different. Concerning the LS Model kit as such, I must say that - despite its age of more than 50 years now - the A6M2-N model is still a worthwhile offer, if you invest some effort. Sure, there are certainly better 1:72 options available (e. g. the Hasegawa kit, its mould was created in 1995 and should be light years ahead concerning detail and fit. Not certain about the Revell/Frog and Jo-Han alternatives, though), but tackling this simple, vintage kit was fun in itself. And, based on what you get out of the little box, the result is not bad at all!

 

Beyond the technical aspects, I am also pleased with the visual result of the build. At first glance, this antiquity looks pretty convincing. And the disputable, strange lilac tone really makes this A6M2-N model …outstanding. Even though I still wonder what might have been the rationale behind this tone? The only thing I could imagine is a dedicated scheme for missions at dusk/dawn, similar to the pink RAF recce Spitfires in early WWII? It would be plausible, though, since the A6M2-Ns were tasked with nocturnal reconnoitre and ground attack missions.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

With Scotland’s independence from Great Britain in late 2017, “Caledonian International Airlines” (or just “Caledonian” or “CI”) quickly emerged as a privately-owned national flag carrier. The airline followed in the footsteps of Caledonian Airways, an independent Scottish charter airline formed in April 1961, which evolved into British Caledonian Airlines (a.k.a. “BCal”). During the 1970s and '80s, British Caledonian became the UK's largest independent, international scheduled airline, with an extensive global route network serving over 40 destinations in around 25 countries on five continents. However, a series of major financial setbacks during the mid-1980s combined with the airline's inability to grow sufficiently to reach a viable size put the airline at serious risk of collapse. BCal began looking for a merger partner to improve its competitive position, and, in December 1987, British Airways (BA) gained control of the airline. In April 1988 BCal was officially dissolved and the brand disappeared.

 

Caledonian International Airlines was a completely new company, though, and received its Air Operator's Certificate on December 31, 2017. Caledonian had, except for the name and the use of the Scottish “Lion Rampant” emblem (the Royal Standard of the King or Queen of Scots), no connections with BCal, and also not to British Airways. In the second quarter of 2018, CI leased two Airbus A319s from Lessors Avolon and Apollo and started deploying to several national destinations from its home base Glasgow, taking over domestic flight slots to Scottish destinations (primarily Glasgow and Edinburgh) from British Airways. In 2019, the airline added a third A319 for connections to Continental Europe as well as a single Airbus A318 and an A330 for transatlantic destinations and charter flights, respectively.

 

CI’s A318-100 (SC-ABG) was primarily scheduled for the direct Glasgow/Edinburgh – New York (3210 ml/5170 km) routes. The Airbus A318 was the smallest airliner in the Airbus A320 family, carrying 107 to 132 passengers with a maximum range of 5,700 km (3,100 nmi). Overall, the A318 was over six meters shorter and around 3 t (6,600 lb) lighter than the A320, and to compensate for the reduced moment arm, it had a larger vertical stabilizer. While initial concepts depicted the aircraft with a Boeing 737-300-style dorsal fin extension, the final design incorporated a fin tip extension, making it 75 centimeters (30 in) taller than the other A320 variants and easily identifiable. Pilots who were trained on the other variants might fly the A318 with no further certification, since it featured a common flight deck and the same type rating as its sister aircraft.

 

The A318 was available with a variety of different maximum take-off weights (MTOW) ranging from a 59-tonnes (58 long tons; 65 short tons), 2,750 kilometres (1,480 nmi) base model to a 68-tonnes (67 long tons; 75 short tons), 6,000 kilometres (3,200 nmi) version. The lower MTOW enabled it to operate regional routes economically while sacrificing range and the higher MTOW allowed it to complement other members of the A320 family on marginal routes. On the other side, the lighter weight of the A318 gave it an operating range 10% greater than the A320, allowing it to serve some routes that the A320 would be unable to, e. g, London – New York, Perth–Auckland and Singapore–Tokyo, for instance. Its main use for airlines, however, were on short, low-density hops between medium-sized cities.

 

The airline also ordered two long-haul wide-body Airbus A330-900neos in November 2019 at the Dubai Air Show. The first plane is scheduled to arrive in January 2022 after a delivery flight from Toulouse and will operate on routes to Asia, e. g. Hong Kong and Tokyo, and to intercontinental destinations in North America and Brazil. A further order for six EMBRAER ERJ-190s was placed at the same time – these will replace the leased A320s on regional and domestic routes, and with these additional aircraft Caledonian International Airlines follows a slow but steady expansion strategy.

  

General characteristics:

Cockpit crew: Two

Length: 31.44 m (103 ft 2 in)

Wingspan:34.10 m (111 ft 11 in)

Wing area: 122.4 m² (1,318 sq ft)

Wing sweepback: 25°

Tail height: 12.56 m (41 ft 2 in)

Cabin width: 3.70 m (12 ft 2 in)

Fuselage width: 3.95 m (13 ft 0 in)

Operating empty weight: 39,500 kg (87,100 lb)

Maximum zero-fuel weight (MZFW): 54,500 kg (120,200 lb)

Maximum landing weight (MLW):57,500 kg (126,800 lb)

Maximum take-off weight (MTOW): 68,000 kg (150,000 lb)

 

Capacity:

Exit Limit:136

1-class max. seating: 132 at 29–30 in (74–76 cm) pitch

1-class, typical: 117 at 32 in (81 cm) pitch

2-class, typical: 107 (8F @ 38 in, 99Y @ 32 in)

Cargo capacity: 21.2 m³ (750 cu ft)

Fuel capacity: 24,210 L (5,330 imp gal; 6,400 US gal)

 

Performance:

Cruising speed: Mach 0.78 (829 km/h; 515 mph)

Maximum speed: Mach 0.82 (871 km/h; 541 mph)

Range (typical payload): 5,740 km (3,100 nmi)

ACJ range:4,200 nmi (7,800 km)

Takeoff (MTOW, SL, ISA): 1,780 m (5,840 ft)

Landing (MLW, SL, ISA): 1,230 m (4,040 ft)

Ceiling: 39,100–41,000 ft (11,900–12,500 m)

 

Engines:

2xCFM56-5B9/P turbofans with 23,300 lbf (100 kN) thrust each

  

The kit and its assembly:

I have been pondering the idea of an independent Scotland for some time and already built some what-if models with this background. But then arose the question: what could a national carrier airline be or look like?

 

This turned out to be a more complex question than initially ever thought of and led to more than a dozen potential design layouts, with the plan to avoid the much-too-obvious blue from the Scottish flag and rather incorporate the Scottish coat-of-arms (with a standing red lion on a yellow shield/background) but also based on limited decal resources. The small Airbus 318 was chosen because it would be a rather small airline, and the type’s extended range vs. it bigger brethren (making flight to America possible) made it a good choice for trans-Atlantic flights.

 

I settled for the Eastern Express A318 kit, which is BTW the only option for this airliner in 1:144. Upon an initial glance the kit looked quite O.K. – very simple and straightforward, and somewhat looking like a clone of the Revell A319/320 model (but it isn't). However, closer inspection confirmed the impression of a rather poor copy quality level. Most surface details (engraved) are there, but they are soft and somewhat blurred, and any fine details like pitots or blade antennae are missing or just hinted at. The material is also dubious, a very waxy and soft styrene. It can be glued together easily, but it is very sensitive to scratches or cuts.

 

However, things turned really ugly when I tried to build it! NOTHING of the major elements fits together, the worst flaws became apparent when I tried to glue the fuselage halves together, which turned out to be wavy along the seams and heavily dented, esp. along the spine. Massive PSR was necessary to fill the worst gaps, and even then, the result is barely acceptable.

 

Another disaster area is the wing/fuselage intersection. Unlike the Revell A320, the Eastern Express kit comes with separate, asymmtretical lower wing halves, which carry a part of the lower fuselage. Raised surface details and air scoops justify this construction, but the poor fit of everything involved in this area left me with a ventral 2mm(!!!) gap and further misalignments that called for even more PSR. Horrible.

 

The final major problem zone was the fin – in consists of a base, which is molded into the fuselage halves, and the extended fin tip as well as the rudder are a separate part. This could work, if the fin’s base halves were not about 1mm too thick when assembled, resulting in a crippled fin that called for more PSR to create even surfaces on both sides (and fill gap’s at the rudder’s base)…

 

Beyond that, there were some sinkholes on the wings and the (otherwise pretty clear) cockpit glazing did not fit at all, being much too narrow and leaving considerable gaps at its base. Since I had decals for the complete cockpit glazing at hand I short-handedly blended the clear part into the hull with some more PSR. No, this kit is NOT recommended – I guess that cutting an A319/320 from another manufacturer and scratching the longer fin leads to better results than the Eastern Express A318 kit!

  

Painting and markings:

I wanted to develop a personal livery for Scotland’s potential flag carrier, and this took a while. The process was inspired and also limited by decal options, and I wanted to avoid the obvious color blue. I rather took inspiration from the Scottish coat of arms, which shows a standing red lion on a deep yellow background. For potential layouts I took the burden to create profile drawings, which soon revealed that yellow and red would make the airliner look like a Spanish charter carrier, so more and more black crept into the design, eventually fully replacing the yellow, together with white as basic color for the fuselage and a little red from the lion as contrast. After more than a dozen layouts the one I chose reminds of the late BEA scheme (with the black fin and trim) or Air Canada. However, I wanted to avoid a contemporary livery with a uniform/featureless fuselage, so I incorporated a black window cheatline that visually stretches the fuselage. The design has a certain retro appeal, even though this was not intended.

 

The fuselage was prepared with grey primer and received a coat with pure white paint from the rattle can. The wings were painted with Humbrol 40 (Gloss Light Gull Grey) and 126 (FS 26270) for the Corroguard areas. Fin and engine nacelles were painted black (Humbrol 21). The small winglets were painted in red (Humbrol 19), as small color highlights. Black ink was used to emphasize the panel lines (esp. of the flaps and rudders) on the wings, the white fuselage remained clean, though, in order to avoid a dirty or worn look.

 

The cheatlines and the windows come from a TwoSix Decals sheet for a retro British Airways A319 with a BEA red square livery, the decals had to be tailored to the A318’s shorter fuselage. The black nose section was retained, because it reminds of the elegant livery of British Caledonian Airlines. The red “Caledonian” letterings and the smaller sublines come from a TwoSix Decals sheet for a Sixties’ Caledonian Airways DC-6B. I had hoped to use the sheet’s large red lions for the Airbus’ fin, but they were only printed on clear carrier film and lacked opacity, so that I had to improvise. I found a suitable alternative in a MicroScale H0 scale sheet for Cape Brenton & Nova Scotia Diesel locomotives.

The stencils are a mix from the (very nice) Eastern Express and the TwoSix Airbus sheet, and I printed the registration code with the Scottish flag as well as the “independence” tag on the nose myself.

 

Finally, the model was sealed with an overall coat of glossy acrylic varnish.

 

Overview

 

Heritage Category: Listed Building

Grade: I

List Entry Number: 1308610

Date first listed: 22-Feb-1967

 

Location

 

Statutory Address: St Michael the Archangel Church,Chagford, Newton Abbot TQ13 8BN

County: Devon

District: West Devon (District Authority)

Parish: Chagford

National Park: DARTMOOR

National Grid Reference: SX 70146 87508

 

Details

 

Parish church. It appears to be a complete C15 rebuild of an earlier church (The Church Wardens Accounts record work on the Lady Chapel in 1482); major renovation of circa 1888 followed by a series of lesser works between 1888 and 1925, e.g. vestry by J.W. Rowell and Son of Newton Abbot in 1891 and tower restored in 1915; roofs repaired circa 1960. Coursed blocks of granite ashlar throughout; granite ashlar detail, one window of limestone ashlar; slate roofs. Plan: church is actually set on a north-east - south-west axis but for convenience it is described as if it had a conventional east-west axis. Nave and chancel under a continuous roof with full length north and south aisles, both with east end chapels. The south aisle has the former Lady Chapel (now a Chapel of Remembrance to the dead of the World Wars) and the 1891 vestry at the east end. At the east end of the north aisle St Katherines Chapel was converted to the organ chamber and the aisle was extended an extra bay. C15 south porch. Large C15 west tower. Perpendicular style throughout and renovation work carried out in the same style. Exterior. Tall west tower of 3 stages with internal stair turret in the south-west corner. It has a chamfered plinth, setback buttresses and an embattled parapet without corner pinnacles. Belfry has double lancets on each side to the belfry and a single lancet on the north side to the ringing loft. On the west side the doorway has a 2-centred arch with double chamfered surround. It contains a good quality oak door carved with blind cusped arcades and carved with a Latin quotation and dated 1914. Directly above 3-light window with a pointed arch and containing simple intersecting tracery and a hoodmould. Possibly this window was reused in the C15 from the earlier church. Above this window 2 small arch-headed niche contains a C20 carved figure of St. Michael and above that a painted clockface put there in 1867. There are tiny slit windows on the south side lighting the newel stair. The nave and aisles are similar in style. Their roofs are gable-ended with C19 shaped kneelers, coping and moulded finials. (The west end of the north aisle has no finial). The roof is continuous over nave and chancel but the division is marked by an old ridge tile surmounted by a crude beast (maybe a pig). The aisles have soffit-chamfered eaves cornices and the south aisle has a chamfered plinth. Both have set back buttresses on their corners and buttresses between the windows, all with weathered offsets. The west ends of the aisles are blind although both contain blocked features. The south aisle is roughcast but inside a tall 2-centred arch shows. The north aisle contains a blocked doorway, a 2-centred arch with a double roll moulded surround and above that is a presumably C19 segmental-headed window embrasure. All the original windows have original Perpendicular tracery with plain hoodmoulds. The south aisle and porch. The porch projects left of centre. It has set back buttresses and an embattled parapet. 2-centred outer arch with moulded surround and broach stops. This contains early C20 timber gates containing a row of open quatrefoils containing rosettes along the top. There is a late C17 or C18 slate sundial with a brass pointer. It has shaped corners and the borders are enriched with scrolled foliage and garlands. The porch occupies one of the 5 bays this side. The others contain 3-light windows, and there is another at the east end. In the angle of the south aisle and chancel is the low 1981 vestry built of neater ashlar than the original church. It has a flat roof and embattled parapet over a soffit- moulded dripcourse. Each side contains a square-headed 2-light window with cinquefoil heads and the south side contains a segmental-headed doorway with ovolo surround. Above the vestry, a window built of limestone, with Decorated tracery and hoodmould with carved labels. The east end of the chancel has a large and impressive 5-light window with Perpendicular tracery. It has moulded reveals with carved capitals and hoodmould. The north aisle is 6 bays. The east end bay is a late C19 addition and contains another limestone 2-light window with Decorated tracery, hoodmould and block labels. Contemporary granite Tudor arch doorway in east end. The rest are original 3-light windows similar to those on the south side. The division between aisle and organ chamber (former chapel) is marked by a projecting rood stair turret. Interior. Porch has a good interior. It has stone-flagged floor and benches along each side. Stone vaulted 2-bay roof; the ribs springing from half-engaged piers and with good carved bosses. The piers are granite and although the rest is painted the detail suggests a softer stone, possibly Beerstone. The south doorway is a granite 2- centred arch with double chamfered surround and pyrmaid stops. It contains an ancient folding plank door with studded coverstrips, its original ferramenta and a massive oak lock housing. The roof was repaired circa 1960 but is essentially original. Nave and chancel have continuous wagon roofs with moulded purlins and ribs, good carved oak bosses and a moulded wallplate enriched with 4-leaf bosses. The break between nave and chancel is now marked by the chancel only being ceiled and the timberwork there is painted. Both aisles have similar smaller wagon roofs and must be contemporary with the nave and chancel roof. Both are now open and the south chapel timbers have traces of ancient colour. The bosses are noteworthy some featuring the spiral symbol of the Gorges family and others the tinners mark of 3 rabbits. Church Fabric. Tall tower arch with a narrow chamfered surround and soffit- Chamfered imposts. Inside tower small 2-centred arch doorway to newel stairs but floor to ringing loft replaced 1915. Either side of the tower arch are the blocked apertures described above. Each aisle has an identical 5-bay arcade with 1 overlapping into the chancel. The arches have double chamfered arch rings. Octagonal granite piers made from single pieces of granite and have soffit-chamfered caps and chamfered bases, now on pedestals since the floor has been lowered. The floor is of stone slabs and includes some grave slabs in the chancel (see below). The walls are of exposed granite ashlar. In the south aisle, close to the chancel screen, there is an arch-headed blocked opening for the rood stair. Furniture and fittings. In the chancel the reredos dates from 1888 along with the rest of the sanctuary decoration. It is a painted and gilded triptych; Christ in majesty is flanked by panels containing the Evangelists and the wings contain saints. The wall behind is lined with good polychrome tiles of 1888. The oak stalls (dating from 1913) are in a Tudor Gothic style with blind arcading across the front and carved angel finials. The sedilia dates from 1894. The chancel screen is a fine piece of work. It was erected in 1925 in memory of the young flying officer Noel Hayter-Hames. It is an expert recreation of a C15 Perpendicular oak chancel screen with blind tracery on the wainscotting, Perpendicular tracery to the windows, Gothic cusped coving and a frieze of delicately undercut bands of foliage. The parclose screens are painted and it may be that they are actually C15; built of oak and simpler versions of the main screen. The pulpit (dated 1928) is also built of oak and in the same Perpendicular style; it has an octagonal drum nodding ogee arch on the sides and undercut foliage on the corners, base and frieze. In the former St. Katherines Chapel the late C19 organ has been restored to its original painted scheme. The former Lady Chapel was lined with panelled wainscotting when converted to a Chapel of Rememberance circa 1925. The contemporary figures on the Riddel posts are the patron saints of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Brass lecturn is dated 1871. The benches are also Gothic in style; the bench ends have tracery patterns framed with wreathed foliage. They probably date from the reseating of 1864 and most have been dedicated to members of the congregation who died in the C20. Granite Perpendicular style octagonal font carved by a local mason, John Aggett, and dedicated to the memory of Katherine Hayter-Hames who died less than a year old in 1856. The oak coved canopy is richly carved in Gothic style. Memorials. The oldest and best in the church is the table tomb in the sanctuary in memory of Sir John Wyddon (d. 1575). It is remarkable for its early Renaissance decoration. The tomb base is 3 bays divided by pilasters which are carved with foliage and with a frieze of wreathed foilage. Each bay carved with foliage and with a frieze of wreathed foliage. Each bay contains a frame of formal foliage. Central bay contains an heraldic achievement and the flanking bays have Renaissance vases with cherubs and grotesques. Marble lid with black letter inscription around the edge. Any effigy is now missing. 2-bay arcade above with round arches enriched by scrolled cusping and supported on baluster columns. The arches and spandrels are richly carved with Renaissance ornament. Moulded frieze above and moulded entablature with carved crestwork is supported by carved scroll consoles. The back of the arcade is also richly carved with heraldic achievements surrounded by a dense pattern of expertly carved ornament featuring mermen, grotesques and foliage. Nearby, on the sanctuary steps is a graveslab in memory of Mary Whiddon who died on her wedding day in 1641. South aisle contains a good mural monument in memory of Sir John Prouz (d.1664). Built most of Beerstone, it contains an inscribed rectangular marble plaque flanked by free-standing marble columns with Corinthian caps and entablature with modillion frieze surmounted by a cartouche containing the Prouz arms flanked by other heraldic cartouches. The soffit-moulded sill is supported by scroll brackets carved as grotesque lions heads and with an apron between enriched with strapwork and containing a carved oak heraldic achievement. Above the monument is suspended a helmet bearing the Prouz crest. All the paintwork is C20. To south of the sanctuary a granite recess with double ogee arch in memory of Constance Hayter-Hames (d.1890) and several C19 mural monuments to other members of the same family but the best monument from this period is a mural plaque in memory of Captain John Evans who died aged 23, in 1861 after an active service life. The plaque is a white marble scroll with a symbol of liberty at the top. It is carved as if the scroll is pinned to the end of a chest tomb on which lies his sword and an open Bible and over this is his regimental arms. The black ground has a pointed arch and a moulded limestone frame. It is signed Bedford Sc. 256 Oxford Street, London. Over the south door a board is painted with the arms of Charles II (much restored). To right a painted Benefaction board dated 1791 over an inscribed Beerstone tablet recording the benefactions of the Reverend John Hayter and John Hooper in 1790. Glass. The window of the north chapel contains fragments of C15 glass; St. Andrew and some heraldic achievements. The rest of the stained glass is C19 and most are memorials to members of the Hayter-Hames family. Summary. This is a good C15 granite church although the interior is largely the result of the several late C19 and early C20 renovations. The best feature is the remarkable Whiddon table tomb. Sources. Devon C19 Church Project. Church Guide. (n.a.)

  

© Historic England 2021

As the Germans were losing ground on the Eastern front in the north after their failed siege of Leningrad, they retreated to Estonia. Estonia at the time was an ally of Nazi Germany due to a mutual hatred of the Soviet Union. The Estonian government issued a conscription order and thousands of Estonians joined the Estonian legion. From February to August the Estonians and Germans held off the Soviets on the Narva Isthmus where they suffered massive casualties compared to the Estonians and Germans.

 

However this would not last. The soviets would eventually breakthrough, especially with the help of Finland dropping out of the war. The setback did allow Estonian civilians, the Estonian army and the German army to flee with very little casualties. The soviets invaded Estonia and quickly regained control where they would commit numerous crimes against the Estonian people (and virtually everyone else in Eastern Europe) with killings and forced deportations known as “sovietization”. The soviets would also settle ethnic Russians in Estonia.

 

What you see here is one of the various swamps in the Narva Isthmus in Estonia.

 

Song of the Estonian legion

m.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQhKOX69p4

Jean, 35 ans, vis seul dans une vieille maison qu'il est en train de rénover.

Je l'ai rencontré il y a un peu plus d'un an, par l'intermédiaire d'une amie, et je n'avais jamais eu l'occasion de le découvrir dans son intimité.

Grand, brun, cheveux courts, petite barbe bien entretenue, toujours très smart et vêtu de couleurs sombres, timide et froid, il pourrait incarner sans aucun problème votre banquier.

C'est avec une grande surprise que j'ai découvert son univers déjanté, reliquaire d'une vie pétillante et colorée qui efface d'un revers magistral son apparente austérité.

 

Qui est Jean ? Le côté pile ou le côté face ? de qui ou de quoi veut-il se protéger dans son costume sombre ? Quelles cicatrices un bazaar aussi flamboyant peut il cacher ?

  

Jean, 35, live alone in an old house he is currently renovating.

I met a little over a year, through a friend, and I never had the opportunity to discover in its intimacy.

Tall, black short hair, small beard well maintained, always very smart and dressed in dark colors, timid and cold, he could incarnate without any problems your banker.

It was with great surprise that I discovered his crazy universe, a reliquary sparkling and colorful life, canceling a setback masterly its apparent austerity.

 

Who is Jean ? The back side or front ? who or what he wants to protect itself in his dark suit? Which scars are hidden by this colorfull bazaar ?

My new Drifter for the first time in its natural habitat. Getting pretty dusty. Cool riding, loved it (now that I got rid of a clicking from the bottom bracket). As you can see I transferred some of my new learnings from the bike position analysis from last week onto the Drifter. Means: completely slammed stem and putting the saddle max forward. Well, that 2 cm setback seatpost was an experiment anyways. Normally I’m fine with 1 to 1.5 cm setback and the most pleasing seat post designs are from 0 to max 1.5 cm setback anyways. So I ordered a fitting 0 setback seat post now. :)

 

--

 

Mein neues Drifter zum ersten Mal in seinem natürlichen Habitat. Es wurde recht staubig. Tolles Fahren, liebte es (nun, da ich endlich ein Klicken vom Tretlager losgeworden bin).

 

Wie ihr sehen könnt, habe ich einige Erkenntnisse von der letztwöchigen Bikepositions-Analyse auf das Drifter übertragen. Bedeutet: den Vorbau komplett runter auf die Topcap gesetzt und den Sattel maximal nach vorne geschoben. Ok, die 2 cm Setback Sitzstütze war sowieso ein Experiment. Normalerweise komme ich mit 1 bis 1,5 cm setback zurecht und das sind gleichzeitig auch die optisch am gefälligsten Stützen. Deswegen habe ich jetzt eine passende 0 cm Setback Sattelstütze geordert.

The little guy was searching for acorns -- which -- in numbers were fairly plentiful this year-- except -- something (probably the effects of the drought) caused a great many of them to fall off way too early and thus not much use as a food source. Acorns are an important fall food source for deer, squirrels, birds and the like -- so -- shaping up to be a very difficult winter for area wildlife. As was last year.

 

*

 

-------

"What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world."

--Paul Hawken

--------

 

Setbacks of the Drumpf Tower in Chicago -- I think they give it a ship-like appearance.

 

Parenthetically, Drumpf is an egotistical, mendacious, loud-mouthed bully. Just saying. Unfortunately, he now occupies the White House -- a true blot on American history.

 

Canon EOS 7D with Canon EFS 50 mm lens

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

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

  

Some background:

With Scotland’s independence from Great Britain in late 2017, “Caledonian International Airlines” (or just “Caledonian” or “CI”) quickly emerged as a privately-owned national flag carrier. The airline followed in the footsteps of Caledonian Airways, an independent Scottish charter airline formed in April 1961, which evolved into British Caledonian Airlines (a.k.a. “BCal”). During the 1970s and '80s, British Caledonian became the UK's largest independent, international scheduled airline, with an extensive global route network serving over 40 destinations in around 25 countries on five continents. However, a series of major financial setbacks during the mid-1980s combined with the airline's inability to grow sufficiently to reach a viable size put the airline at serious risk of collapse. BCal began looking for a merger partner to improve its competitive position, and, in December 1987, British Airways (BA) gained control of the airline. In April 1988 BCal was officially dissolved and the brand disappeared.

 

Caledonian International Airlines was a completely new company, though, and received its Air Operator's Certificate on December 31, 2017. Caledonian had, except for the name and the use of the Scottish “Lion Rampant” emblem (the Royal Standard of the King or Queen of Scots), no connections with BCal, and also not to British Airways. In the second quarter of 2018, CI leased two Airbus A319s from Lessors Avolon and Apollo and started deploying to several national destinations from its home base Glasgow, taking over domestic flight slots to Scottish destinations (primarily Glasgow and Edinburgh) from British Airways. In 2019, the airline added a third A319 for connections to Continental Europe as well as a single Airbus A318 and an A330 for transatlantic destinations and charter flights, respectively.

 

CI’s A318-100 (SC-ABG) was primarily scheduled for the direct Glasgow/Edinburgh – New York (3210 ml/5170 km) routes. The Airbus A318 was the smallest airliner in the Airbus A320 family, carrying 107 to 132 passengers with a maximum range of 5,700 km (3,100 nmi). Overall, the A318 was over six meters shorter and around 3 t (6,600 lb) lighter than the A320, and to compensate for the reduced moment arm, it had a larger vertical stabilizer. While initial concepts depicted the aircraft with a Boeing 737-300-style dorsal fin extension, the final design incorporated a fin tip extension, making it 75 centimeters (30 in) taller than the other A320 variants and easily identifiable. Pilots who were trained on the other variants might fly the A318 with no further certification, since it featured a common flight deck and the same type rating as its sister aircraft.

 

The A318 was available with a variety of different maximum take-off weights (MTOW) ranging from a 59-tonnes (58 long tons; 65 short tons), 2,750 kilometres (1,480 nmi) base model to a 68-tonnes (67 long tons; 75 short tons), 6,000 kilometres (3,200 nmi) version. The lower MTOW enabled it to operate regional routes economically while sacrificing range and the higher MTOW allowed it to complement other members of the A320 family on marginal routes. On the other side, the lighter weight of the A318 gave it an operating range 10% greater than the A320, allowing it to serve some routes that the A320 would be unable to, e. g, London – New York, Perth–Auckland and Singapore–Tokyo, for instance. Its main use for airlines, however, were on short, low-density hops between medium-sized cities.

 

The airline also ordered two long-haul wide-body Airbus A330-900neos in November 2019 at the Dubai Air Show. The first plane is scheduled to arrive in January 2022 after a delivery flight from Toulouse and will operate on routes to Asia, e. g. Hong Kong and Tokyo, and to intercontinental destinations in North America and Brazil. A further order for six EMBRAER ERJ-190s was placed at the same time – these will replace the leased A320s on regional and domestic routes, and with these additional aircraft Caledonian International Airlines follows a slow but steady expansion strategy.

  

General characteristics:

Cockpit crew: Two

Length: 31.44 m (103 ft 2 in)

Wingspan:34.10 m (111 ft 11 in)

Wing area: 122.4 m² (1,318 sq ft)

Wing sweepback: 25°

Tail height: 12.56 m (41 ft 2 in)

Cabin width: 3.70 m (12 ft 2 in)

Fuselage width: 3.95 m (13 ft 0 in)

Operating empty weight: 39,500 kg (87,100 lb)

Maximum zero-fuel weight (MZFW): 54,500 kg (120,200 lb)

Maximum landing weight (MLW):57,500 kg (126,800 lb)

Maximum take-off weight (MTOW): 68,000 kg (150,000 lb)

 

Capacity:

Exit Limit:136

1-class max. seating: 132 at 29–30 in (74–76 cm) pitch

1-class, typical: 117 at 32 in (81 cm) pitch

2-class, typical: 107 (8F @ 38 in, 99Y @ 32 in)

Cargo capacity: 21.2 m³ (750 cu ft)

Fuel capacity: 24,210 L (5,330 imp gal; 6,400 US gal)

 

Performance:

Cruising speed: Mach 0.78 (829 km/h; 515 mph)

Maximum speed: Mach 0.82 (871 km/h; 541 mph)

Range (typical payload): 5,740 km (3,100 nmi)

ACJ range:4,200 nmi (7,800 km)

Takeoff (MTOW, SL, ISA): 1,780 m (5,840 ft)

Landing (MLW, SL, ISA): 1,230 m (4,040 ft)

Ceiling: 39,100–41,000 ft (11,900–12,500 m)

 

Engines:

2xCFM56-5B9/P turbofans with 23,300 lbf (100 kN) thrust each

  

The kit and its assembly:

I have been pondering the idea of an independent Scotland for some time and already built some what-if models with this background. But then arose the question: what could a national carrier airline be or look like?

 

This turned out to be a more complex question than initially ever thought of and led to more than a dozen potential design layouts, with the plan to avoid the much-too-obvious blue from the Scottish flag and rather incorporate the Scottish coat-of-arms (with a standing red lion on a yellow shield/background) but also based on limited decal resources. The small Airbus 318 was chosen because it would be a rather small airline, and the type’s extended range vs. it bigger brethren (making flight to America possible) made it a good choice for trans-Atlantic flights.

 

I settled for the Eastern Express A318 kit, which is BTW the only option for this airliner in 1:144. Upon an initial glance the kit looked quite O.K. – very simple and straightforward, and somewhat looking like a clone of the Revell A319/320 model (but it isn't). However, closer inspection confirmed the impression of a rather poor copy quality level. Most surface details (engraved) are there, but they are soft and somewhat blurred, and any fine details like pitots or blade antennae are missing or just hinted at. The material is also dubious, a very waxy and soft styrene. It can be glued together easily, but it is very sensitive to scratches or cuts.

 

However, things turned really ugly when I tried to build it! NOTHING of the major elements fits together, the worst flaws became apparent when I tried to glue the fuselage halves together, which turned out to be wavy along the seams and heavily dented, esp. along the spine. Massive PSR was necessary to fill the worst gaps, and even then, the result is barely acceptable.

 

Another disaster area is the wing/fuselage intersection. Unlike the Revell A320, the Eastern Express kit comes with separate, asymmtretical lower wing halves, which carry a part of the lower fuselage. Raised surface details and air scoops justify this construction, but the poor fit of everything involved in this area left me with a ventral 2mm(!!!) gap and further misalignments that called for even more PSR. Horrible.

 

The final major problem zone was the fin – in consists of a base, which is molded into the fuselage halves, and the extended fin tip as well as the rudder are a separate part. This could work, if the fin’s base halves were not about 1mm too thick when assembled, resulting in a crippled fin that called for more PSR to create even surfaces on both sides (and fill gap’s at the rudder’s base)…

 

Beyond that, there were some sinkholes on the wings and the (otherwise pretty clear) cockpit glazing did not fit at all, being much too narrow and leaving considerable gaps at its base. Since I had decals for the complete cockpit glazing at hand I short-handedly blended the clear part into the hull with some more PSR. No, this kit is NOT recommended – I guess that cutting an A319/320 from another manufacturer and scratching the longer fin leads to better results than the Eastern Express A318 kit!

  

Painting and markings:

I wanted to develop a personal livery for Scotland’s potential flag carrier, and this took a while. The process was inspired and also limited by decal options, and I wanted to avoid the obvious color blue. I rather took inspiration from the Scottish coat of arms, which shows a standing red lion on a deep yellow background. For potential layouts I took the burden to create profile drawings, which soon revealed that yellow and red would make the airliner look like a Spanish charter carrier, so more and more black crept into the design, eventually fully replacing the yellow, together with white as basic color for the fuselage and a little red from the lion as contrast. After more than a dozen layouts the one I chose reminds of the late BEA scheme (with the black fin and trim) or Air Canada. However, I wanted to avoid a contemporary livery with a uniform/featureless fuselage, so I incorporated a black window cheatline that visually stretches the fuselage. The design has a certain retro appeal, even though this was not intended.

 

The fuselage was prepared with grey primer and received a coat with pure white paint from the rattle can. The wings were painted with Humbrol 40 (Gloss Light Gull Grey) and 126 (FS 26270) for the Corroguard areas. Fin and engine nacelles were painted black (Humbrol 21). The small winglets were painted in red (Humbrol 19), as small color highlights. Black ink was used to emphasize the panel lines (esp. of the flaps and rudders) on the wings, the white fuselage remained clean, though, in order to avoid a dirty or worn look.

 

The cheatlines and the windows come from a TwoSix Decals sheet for a retro British Airways A319 with a BEA red square livery, the decals had to be tailored to the A318’s shorter fuselage. The black nose section was retained, because it reminds of the elegant livery of British Caledonian Airlines. The red “Caledonian” letterings and the smaller sublines come from a TwoSix Decals sheet for a Sixties’ Caledonian Airways DC-6B. I had hoped to use the sheet’s large red lions for the Airbus’ fin, but they were only printed on clear carrier film and lacked opacity, so that I had to improvise. I found a suitable alternative in a MicroScale H0 scale sheet for Cape Brenton & Nova Scotia Diesel locomotives.

The stencils are a mix from the (very nice) Eastern Express and the TwoSix Airbus sheet, and I printed the registration code with the Scottish flag as well as the “independence” tag on the nose myself.

 

Finally, the model was sealed with an overall coat of glossy acrylic varnish.

 

Passing through what the locals refer to as the setback, Green Mountain's last remaining Alco skirts the Connecticut River with a short tourist train just south of Riverside. Riverside was the station name at Steamtown USA, once home to the largest collection of steam locomotives in the world, located just north of Bellows Falls. Today the former museum site is home to a small yard where the GMRC has a bulk transfer terminal. Hidden between a salt shed and piles of lumber is a small building that sat at the entrance to the museum with the original station board "Riverside" tacked above the door. The only reminder of what Riverside once was. On board the train, the passengers have overcome a setback of their own. Just a few hours earlier their bus took a wrong turn, putting it into a ditch. With the help of a wrecker they were able to stay on schedule and enjoy the rest of a beautiful Fall day.

Congratulations!

I saw the completed form to overcome yesterday's setback

 

Frame :*LOW BICYCLES* MKi road

Wheels :*ZIPP* 303

Tire :*WTB* nano tcs tire 700c×40c

Shift Lever :*SRAM* FORCE

Crankset :*SRAM* FORCE

BB:*CHRIS KING*

FD&RD :*SRAM* FORCE

Brake :*AVID* BB7 SL

Handlebar :*SIM WORKS* smog cutter bar

Stem :*THOMSON* X4

Saddle :*SELLE ITALIA*

Seat Post :*THOMSON* elite setback seatpost

Seat Clamp :*THOMSON*

Bar Tape :*ZIPP*

Skewer :*ZIPP*

Bag:*FAIRWEATHER*

Today when I woke up it had been (and still is) snowing massively... Unusual even in my part of Sweden in the middle of April. Last weekend it was sunshine and +17°C.

Frame :*SURLY* cross check

Fork :*WHISKY* NO.7 CX QR canti fork

Headset :*CHRIS KING* nothreadset

Front wheel :*EASTON* × *PHILWOOD* low flange track

Rear wheel :*EASTON* × *VELO ORANGE* road hub

Tire :*FAIRWEATHER* for CX tire by CG

Stem :*THOMSON* elite x4 stem

Handle :*thomson* alloy road bar

Bartape :*mash* gradient bar tape

Seat Post :*THOMSON* elite setback

Brake :*PAUL* mini moto brake

Frame bag:*SWIFT INDUSTRIES* hold fast frame bag

created for: Surrealart challenge "Setback"

 

Here the story differs from the biblical account, women coming home find the police on the street. I always wanted to create something with this theme and here I got into a bit of black humor.

For a better understanding of the story read: Judith 13-1; 16.

 

created for: Digitalmania group

After:Alexey Kondakov

Picture "Judith-and-her-maidservant" by:Orazio Gentileschi

texture by: SkeletalMess

Police picture is the Google

Nikon D600

Nikon 35/1.4 AI-s

 

I think this is the first shot since I replaced the drop bars with the swept back 'albatross' bars from Nitto. I'm a big fan. The frame is still a bit small for me but between the raised handlebars adn the new setback seatpost I've added it is comfortable to ride.

Minor setback last night as I tried to stack all the modules atop one another. Fortunately, it's not a structural issue, just some weak points where the hull panels connect to the inner frame (which can be easily strengthened). In case you've ever wondered why LEGO often uses technic bricks and 1/2 pins to connect larger snot assemblies rather than using snot bricks; this is probably the reason why.

In the course of its expansion to the East, the Teutonic Order secured the conquered territories by building castles. While the Order achieved military successes in Eastern Europe, it suffered setbacks in the Holy Land. In 1291 Acre, the last stronghold of the Crusaders in the Holy Land fell. The Order moved its headquarters to Venice, but it was clear that a reconquest of Palestine was out of the question. Prussia offered itself as an alternative field of activity.

 

In 1308 the Order took over Gdansk and 1309 Grand Master Siegfried von Feuchtwangen moved his seat from Venice to Marienburg. The fortress was expanded into a very spacious castle. Today complex is the largest brick building in Europe

 

After the defeat of the Order in the Battle of Grunwald (Schlacht bei Tanneberg) against Poland-Lithuania, the first siege of Marienburg took place in 1410. Heinrich von Plauen managed to hold the fortress.

 

In 1454, during the Thirteen Years' Prussian City War, Ludwig von Erlichshausen successfully defended the castle against the Polish King Casimir IV. Jagiello. However, as the Grand Master fell behind with the payment of the salaries, he had to pawn the castle to his rebelling mercenaries in 1455. They sold the fortress to the Polish king without further ado.

 

After WWII about 60 percent of the castle was destroyed or damaged. It got reconstructed and by now is one of the hot spots of tourism in Poland. It was so crowded, when we arrived, that our schedule did not allow to stand in line for such a long time. So we did not enter.

   

Mantelaapje - The pied tamarin (Saguinus bicolor)

 

The pied tamarin (Saguinus bicolor) is an endangered primate species found in a restricted area in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest.

 

This New World monkey is found within and just north of the city limits of Manaus, the capital of the Amazonas state of Brazil. The main distribution is in the rio Cuieiras and rio Preto da Eva interfluvium. Pied tamarins are also found in the adjacent rio Preto da Eva and rio Urubu interfluvium, but are comparatively rare. There appears to be interspecific competition between the pied tamarin and the red-handed tamarin with the red-handed tamarin gradually displacing the pied tamarin from areas of its historical distribution. There are therefore multiple threats to the long term survival of the pied tamarin that stem from habitat destruction and from interspecific competition.

Source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_tamarin

  

Apenheul Primate Park is a zoo in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. It specializes in apes and monkeys. It opened in 1971 and was the first zoo in the world where monkeys could walk around freely in the forest and between the visitors. It started with just a few species, now it displays more than 30 different primates, among them bonobo, gorilla and orangutan.

In summer 2011, three adult male proboscis monkeys joined the collection from Singapore Zoo to commemorate the zoo's fortieth anniversary. Two remain in Apenheul and are the only living specimens outside Southeast Asia.

 

History

Apenheul Primate Park was conceptualised by photographer Wim Mager in the 1960s, when it was legal for private citizens to own monkeys. Mager, who himself had several monkeys as pets, believed both humans and primates would benefit from housing the animals in a more natural forest-like environment. He created the apen-heul (from apen meaning monkeys, and heul, an old Dutch word for a safe haven).

Apenheul Primate Park opened in 1971 as a small but revolutionary park housing wool-monkeys and other species. It is located in the nature park of Berg en Bos (Mountain and Wood) and proved popular with visitors and primatologists alike, leading to subsequent expansions. In 1976, gorillas were introduced to Apenheul Primate Park, with the first gorilla baby being born three years later. This was only the second healthy baby that had born in captivity in the Netherlands and the third in the entire world. The baby was raised by its own mother, which remains a rare event.

A major setback occurred in 1981 when the cabin in which Apenheul Primate Park began burned to the ground, killing 46 monkeys. The building was subsequently replaced.

 

Animals

Apenheul is home to about 70 species of animals, 35 of which are primates. The park houses lemurs from Madagascar, monkeys from Central and South America, and monkeys and apes from Asia and Africa. Primates include black-capped squirrel monkeys, yellow-breasted capuchins, black howler monkeys, Alaotra gentle lemurs, crowned sifakas, ring-tailed lemurs, red ruffed lemurs, black-and-white ruffed lemurs, red bellied lemurs, blue-eyed black lemurs, bonobos, Bornean orang-utans, eastern Javan langurs, proboscis monkeys, lion-tailed macaques, barbary macaques, western lowland gorillas, patas monkeys, golden lion tamarins, white-faced saki monkeys, northern white-cheeked gibbons, emperor tamarins, silvery marmosets, Goeldi's monkeys, red howler monkeys, grey-legged night monkeys, pygmy marmosets, white-throated capuchins, L'Hoest's monkeys, Colombian black spider monkeys, Hanuman langurs, pied tamarins, red titi monkeys, golden-headed lion tamarins and grey woolly monkeys.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apenheul_Primate_Park

Powis Castle (Welsh: Castell Powys) is a medieval castle, fortress and grand country house near Welshpool, in Powys, Wales. The seat of the Herbert family, earls of Powis, the castle is known for its formal gardens and for its interiors, the former having been described as "the most important", and the latter "the most magnificent", in the country. The castle and gardens are under the care of the National Trust. Powis Castle is a Grade I listed building, while its gardens have their own Grade I listing on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

 

The present castle was built in the 13th century. Unusually for a castle on the Marches, it was constructed by a Welsh prince, Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, rather than by a Norman baron. Gruffydd was prince of the ancient Kingdom of Powys and maintained an alliance with the English king Edward I during the struggles of the later 13th century. He was able to secure the position of his son, Owain, although the kingdom itself was abolished by the Parliament of Shrewsbury in 1283. After his father's death, Owain was raised to the peerage as Owen de la Pole, 1st Lord of Powis. Following his own death c. 1293, and the death of his only son, he was succeeded by his daughter, Hawys Gadarn, "the Lady of Powis". Hawys married Sir John Charlton in 1309.

 

In the late 16th century the castle was purchased by Sir Edward Herbert, a younger son of William Herbert, 1st earl of Pembroke, beginning a connection between the family and the castle that continues today. The Herberts remained Roman Catholic until the 18th century and, although rising in the peerage to earls, marquesses and Jacobite dukes of Powis, suffered periods of imprisonment and exile. Despite these setbacks, they were able in the late 17th and early 18th centuries to transform Powis from a border fortress into an aristocratic country house, and surround it with one of the very few extant examples of a British Baroque garden.

 

In 1784 Henrietta Herbert married Edward Clive, eldest son of Clive of India, a match which replenished the much-depleted Herbert family fortune. In the early 20th century, George Herbert, 4th Earl of Powis, redeveloped the castle with the assistance of the architect George Frederick Bodley. Herbert’s wife, Violet, undertook work of equal importance in the garden, seeking to turn it into "one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, in England and Wales". On the 4th Earl's death in 1952, his wife and his sons having predeceased him, the castle passed into the care of the National Trust.

 

History

First castles at Welshpool: 1111–1286

Unlike the castles at Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech and nearby Montgomery, which were built by the English to subdue the Welsh, the castles at Welshpool were built by the Welsh princes of Powys Wenwynwyn as their dynastic seat.[1] In addition to the current site, two motte-and-bailey castles and a set of earthworks are located nearby.[2] The names Trallwg/Tallwm and Pola are used interchangeably in early primary sources, and it is unclear which of these sites is being referred to.[3]

 

The earliest reference dates from 1111, when Cadwgan ap Bleddyn is mentioned as having planned to construct a castle at Trallwng Llywelyn,[3] the oldest record of a native Welsh castle.[4] Domen Castell, a motte-and-bailey near the modern railway station, is considered the most likely site of Cadwgan's castle, although it is uncertain whether it was completed as he was assassinated the same year.[5] The first documentary account of an extant castle at Welshpool is a description of the successful 1196 siege by an English army, although the castle was retaken by the Welsh within the year.[5][6]

 

The earliest castle at the current site may have been a timber building constructed by Owain Cyfeiliog or his son, Gwenwynwyn (r. 1197–1216).[7] The present masonry structure contains 13th-century fabric,[8] most likely the work of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn (r. 1241–1287) – although historians are uncertain when this took place.[a][10] In 1274, Gruffydd's "first castle" at Welshpool was destroyed by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd as punishment for his involvement in a scheme to assassinate Llywelyn.[b] The castle was documented again in 1286, when it was listed amongst Gruffydd's possessions as "la Pole Castr".[12] A detailed examination of Powis Castle's extant masonry carried out between 1987 and 1989 revealed early stonework incorporated into the later structure, putatively the remains of an early stone shell keep.[13] At the end of Edward I's conquest of Wales in 1282–83, the king permitted Gruffydd to rebuild his castle at Welshpool as a reward for his loyalty.[14]

 

Early history: 1286–1644

 

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury[c]

In 1286, four years after the conquest of Wales, Gruffydd's son, Owain ap Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn became the last hereditary prince of Powys when he renounced his royal title, and was granted the barony of de la Pole, (i.e. "of the Pool", a reference to Welshpool, formerly called just "Pool").[d][16][17] The ancient Kingdom of Powys had once included the counties of Montgomeryshire, much of Denbighshire, parts of Radnorshire and large areas of Shropshire, but by the 13th century had been reduced to two independent principalities – Powys Wenwynwyn and Powys Fadog – roughly equivalent to Montgomeryshire and South Denbighshire (plus Maelor Saesneg), respectively; Welshpool had become the capital of Powys Wenwynwyn, of which Owain had been heir. On the death of Owain, the castle passed to his daughter Hawys, who married Sir John Charlton.[17] The Charltons continued to live at Powis until the fifteenth century when two daughters, Joyce Tiptoft and Joan Grey inherited the castle and estates. Both were equally divided, each daughter and her husband living in a portion of the castle.[18]

 

In 1578 an illegitimate son of the last Baron Grey of Powis, began leasing the lordship and castle to a distant relative – Sir Edward Herbert (d. 1595), second son of Sir William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke. Edward eventually bought the castle outright in 1587, beginning the connection between the Herberts and Powis Castle which continues today.[19] Sir Edward's wife was a Roman Catholic and the family's allegiance to Rome and to the Stuart kings was to shape its destiny for over a century.[16] Sir Edward began the transformation of Powis from a border fortress into an Elizabethan country house. The major remaining element of his work is the Long Gallery.[19]

 

Herbert's descendent William Herbert, 1st Baron Powis (c. 1573–1655), was a supporter of Charles I, and was granted the barony of Powis in 1629.[19] His loyalty during the English Civil War cost him his castle and his estates.[20] On 22 October 1644 Powis Castle was captured by Parliamentary troops and was not returned to the family until the restoration of Charles II in 1660.[21]

 

The Herberts: 1660–1800

 

The Hercules statue which stood originally in the Water Garden

On the restoration, the Herberts returned to Powis, and in 1674 William Herbert (c. 1626–1696) was created Earl of Powis (of the first creation). The state bedroom was installed in about 1665 and further improvements, including the construction of the Great Staircase followed in the 1670s. These developments were most probably carried out under the direction of William Winde, who may also have designed the terraced gardens. His employer, although restored to his estates, and raised in the peerage, was barred by his Catholic faith from high office under Charles II. On the accession of the King's brother, James in 1685, Herbert became one of the new king's chief ministers, and was again advanced in the peerage becoming Marquess of Powis in 1687, but fell at the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and followed James into exile in France.[e] William III granted the castle to his nephew, William Nassau de Zuylestein, 1st Earl of Rochford. Herbert died, still in exile, in 1696.[24]

 

Despite their 30-year exile, the Herberts were able to continue with developments at the castle and even to live there on an irregular basis, the Baroque water garden below the castle being completed at this time.[25] Their fortunes were also materially improved by the discovery of a lucrative lead mine on their Welsh estates.[24] The second Marquess, also William, was reinstated in 1722. On the death of his son, the third Marquess in 1748, the marquessate became extinct, while the castle and estates passed to a relative, Henry Herbert (c. 1703–1772), of Oakly Park in Shropshire, who was made 1st Earl of Powis (of the second creation) by George II.[26] Herbert married Barbara, the fifteen-year-old granddaughter of the 2nd Marquess, in 1751. Their eldest son, George Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis (1755–1801), died unmarried and the earldom of the second creation became extinct.[f][27] Powis was much neglected during his tenure. John Byng, 5th Viscount Torrington, a diarist and traveller who chronicled his journeys into Wales in the 1780s and 1790s, described the castle in 1784, "In the gardens not even the fruit is attended to; the balustrades and terraces are falling down, and the horses graze on the parterres!!!"[28] The castle itself was in no better condition, a visitor in 1774 describing it as "in Neglect and Ruin".[27] Nonetheless, the potential of the site was recognised. George Lyttelton, the politician, poet and essayist, recorded his impressions in 1756, "About £3,000 laid out upon Powis Castle would make it the most august place in the Kingdom."[29]

 

The Clives and Herberts: 1801–1952

 

The Outer Courtyard with the Fame statue in the foreground

In 1784, Henry Herbert's daughter, Henrietta, married Edward Clive (1754–1839), the eldest son of Clive of India.[30] Clive had followed his father to India, and served as Governor of Madras. Henrietta's brother died in 1801, whereupon the title lapsed; in 1804, her husband was created first Earl of Powis (of the third creation). The Clive fortune paid for long overdue repairs to the castle, which were carried out by Sir Robert Smirke.[31][32] Their son, Edward (1785–1848), inherited his late uncle's Powis estates on his 21st birthday, taking the surname Herbert in compliance with his uncle's will.[30] Edward Herbert served in a range of administrations as an Anti-Catholic Tory, his speeches in the House of Commons being "cautious and pertinent, although marred by dull delivery". He died in 1848, following a shooting accident at Powis in which he was fatally injured by his second son.[33] No further major changes were made to the Powis estate during his time, or in the long tenure of his eldest son Edward Herbert, 3rd Earl of Powis (1818–1891), although the castle was well maintained. In honour of his great-grandfather, the earl was offered the viceroyalty of India by Benjamin Disraeli but declined, writing "Not worth considering. Powis" on the envelope containing the invitation.[34]

 

The final alterations to Powis Castle were undertaken at the beginning of the 20th century by George Frederick Bodley for George Charles Herbert, 4th Earl of Powis (1862–1952). The rooms designed by Bodley remain his only extant decorative scheme; the longevity of the 4th Earl, the deaths of his heirs, and his bequest of the castle to the National Trust saw the early 20th-century remodelling remain largely unaltered.[g][36] The 4th earl's wife, Violet (nee Lane-Fox), undertook the final transformation of the gardens of Powis Castle, which she felt had the potential to be "the most beautiful in England and Wales".[37] The Countess died following a car accident in 1929, and Lord Powis outlived both his sons, who died on active service, Percy from wounds received at the Battle of the Somme in 1916,[38] and Mervyn in a plane crash in 1943.[39] On his own death in 1952, he bequeathed the castle and gardens to the National Trust.[h][42]

 

The National Trust: 1952–present

The 4th earl was succeeded by his cousin, Edward Herbert, 5th Earl of Powis (1889–1974). Edward's heir was Christian Herbert, 6th Earl of Powis (1904–1988). He was succeeded by his cousin, George Herbert, 7th Earl of Powis (1925–1993),[42] who was in turn succeeded by his son, John, the 8th and current Earl.[43] The Herbert family continue to live in part of the castle, under an arrangement with the National Trust.[44] The Trust has undertaken a number of major works of restoration during its ownership, including the Marquess Gate,[45] the Grand Staircase,[46] and the sculpture of Fame in the Outer Courtyard.[i][47] The castle and its gardens receive around 200,000 visitors annually. Wikipedia

(radio broadcast from 334-341)

..in some unfortunate setbacks, we have come to learn that so-called "Doctors" across the Commonwealth are providing Synthetic humans with what they think is "freedom". in reality, destroying Synth components is bad. logic enhancing, greed and rage inhibiting processes are gone. suddenly, Synths will feel the urge to kill people to keep all crops to themselves. our defense robots don't like that very much

Frame :*SURLY* steamroller

Headset :*CHRIS KING* nothreadset 1 1/8 inch

Stem :*THOMSON* elite X4

Handlebar :*NITTO* Hi-bar

Wheels :*SURLY* ultra new hub × *VELOCITY* cliffhanger rim

Cog :*KUWAHARA* diavolo free wheel

Tire :*TERAVAIL* cannonball tire

Brake :*DIA-COMPE* brs 202 long reach brake

Brake Lever :*TEKTRO* FL750 brake lever set

Crankset :*BLUELUG* RMC crank set

Chain:*IZUMI* jet black bicycle chain

Saddle :*WTB* silverado race saddle BL special

Seat post:*THOMSON* elite setback

Grip :*BL SELECT* mountain grip

Pedal :*MKS* grafight-XX pedal

+++ 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 Hütter Hü 324 was the final development stage of BMW's 'Schnellbomber II' project, which had been designed around two mighty BMW 109-028 turboprops.

 

These innovative engines had been developed since February 1941, but did not receive fullest attention due to the more promising jet engines. Anyway, it soon became clear that no jet engine with the potential to drive a bomber-sized aircraft - considering both performance and fuel consumption - would be available on short notice. Consequently, the BMW 028 received more attention from the RLM from 1943 on.

 

Biggest pressure came from the fact that several obsolete types like the He 111 or Do 217 had to be replaced, and the ill-fated and complicated He 177 was another candidate with little future potential, since four-engined variants had been rejected. Additionally, the promising and ambitious Ju 288 had been stillborn, and a wide gap for a tactical medium bomber opned in the Luftwaffe arsenal.

 

In may 1943, new requirements for a medium bomber were concretised. Main objective was to design a fast, twin-engined bomber, primarily intended for horizontal bombing, which would be able to carry a 3.000 kilograms (6.600 lbs) payload at 800 kilometres per hour in a 1.500km (900 ml) radius. The plane had to be fast and to operate at great heights, limiting the threat of interception.

 

Since many major design bureaus’ resources were bound, Ulrich W. Hütter, an Austro-German engineer and university professor got involved in the RLM project and BMW's design team which had been working on appropriate designs. In July 1943, Hütter moved to the Research Institute of the Graf Zeppelin works (FGZ) convened in Ruit near Stuttgart, and as head of the engineering department he was also involved in the development of manned missiles, underwater towing systems and the Hü 211 high altitude interceptor/reconnaissance plane.

 

Under Ulrich W. Hütter and his brother, Wolfgang Hütter, BMW's original and highly innovative (if not over-ambitious) Schnellbomber designs gave way to a more conservative layout: the so-called BMW-Hütter Hü 324.

 

The plane was conventional in layout, with high, unswept laminar profile wings and a high twin tail. The engines were carried in nacelles slung directly under the wings. The nose wheel retracted rearwards, while the main wheels retracted forwards into the engine nacelles, rotating 90°, and laying flat under the engines. The crew of four (pilot, co-pilot/bombardier, navigator/radar operator and gunner/radio operator) were accommodated in a compact, pressurised "glass house" cockpit section – a popular design and morale element in Luftwaffe bomber and reconnaissance aircraft of that era.

 

Construction of the first prototype started in February 1945, and while the aircraft cell made good progress towards the hardware stage, the development suffered a serious setback in March when BMW admitted that the 109-028 turboprop engine would not be ready in time. It took until August to arrive, and the prototype did not fly until 6 November 1945.

Initial flight test of the four A-0 pre-production samples of the Hü 324 went surprisingly well. Stability and vibration problems with the aircraft were noted, though. One major problem was that the front glas elements were prone to crack at high speeds, and it took a while to trace the troubole source back to the engines and sort these problems out. Among others, contraprops were fitted to counter the vibration problems, the engines' power output had to be reduced by more than 500 WPS and the tail fins had to be re-designed.

 

Another innovative feature of this bomber was the “Elbegast” ground-looking navigation radar system, which allowed identification of targets on the ground for night and all-weather bombing. It was placed in a shallow radome behind the front wheel. Performance-wise, the system was comparable to the USAAF’s H2X radar, and similarly compact. Overall, the Hü 324 showed much promise and a convincing performance, was easy to build and maintain, and it was immediately taken to service.

 

Despite the relatively high speed and agility for a plane of its size, the Hü 324 bore massive defensive armament: the original equipment of the A-1 variant comprised two remotely operated FDL 131Z turrets in dorsal (just behind the cockpit) and ventral (behind the bomb bay) position with 2× 13 mm MG 131 machine guns each, plus an additional, unmanned tail barbette with a single 20mm canon. All these guns were aimed by the gunner through a sighting station at the rear of the cockpit, effectively covering the rear hemisphere of the bomber.

 

After first operational experience, this defence was beefed up with another remotely-controlled barbette with 2× 13 mm MG 131 machine guns under the cockpit, firing forwards. The reason was similar to the introduction of the chin-mounted gun turret in the B-17G: the plane was rather vulnerable to frontal attacks. In a secondary use, the chin guns could be used for strafing ground targets. This update was at first called /R1, but was later incorporated into series production, under the designation A-2.

 

Effectively, almost 4.500kg ordnance could be carried in- and externally, normally limited to 3.000kg in the bomb bay in order to keep the wings clean and reduce drag, for a high cruising speed. While simple iron bombs and aerial mines were the Hü 324's main payload, provisions were made to carry guided weapons like against small/heavily fortified targets. Several Rüstsätze (accessory packs) were developed, and the aircraft in service received an "/Rx" suffix to their designation, e. g. the R2 Rüstsatz for Fritz X bomb guidance or the R3 set for rocket-propelled Hs 293 bombs.

 

Trials were even carried out with a semi-recessed Fieseler Fi 103 missile, better known as the V1 flying bomb, hung under the bomber's belly and in an enlarged bomb bay, under deletion of the ventral barbette.

 

The Hü 324 bomber proved to be an elusive target for the RAF day and night fighters, especially at height. After initial attacks at low level, where fast fighters like the Hawker Tempest or DH Mosquito night fighters were the biggest threat, tactics were quickly changed. Approaching at great height and speed, bombing was conducted from medium altitudes of 10,000 to 15,000 feet (3,000 to 4,600 m).

 

The Hü 324 proved to be very successful, striking against a variety of targets, including bridges and radar sites along the British coast line, as well as ships on the North Sea.

From medium altitude, the Hü 324 A-2 proved to be a highly accurate bomber – thanks to its "Elbegast" radar system which also allowed the planes to act as pathfinders for older types or fast bombers with less accurate equipment like the Ar 232, Ju 388 or Me 410. Loss rates were far lower than in the early, low-level days, with the Hü 324 stated by the RLM as having the lowest loss rate in the European Theatre of Operations at less than 0.8 %.

  

BMW-Hütter Ha 324A-2, general characteristics:

Crew: 4

Length: 18.58 m (60 ft 10 in)

Wingspan: 21.45 m (70 ft 4½ in )

Height: 4.82 m (15 ft 9½ in)

Wing area: 60.80 m² (654.5 ft.²)

Empty weight: 12,890 kg (28,417 lb)

Loaded weight: 18,400 kg (40,565 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 21,200 kg (46,738 lb)

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 810 km/h (503 mph) at optimum height

Cruising speed: 750 km/h (460 mph) at 10,000 m (32,800 ft)

Range: 3.500 km (2.180 ml)

Service ceiling: 11.400 m (37.500 ft)

Rate of climb: 34.7 m/s (6,820 ft/min)

 

Powerplant:

Two BMW 109-028 ‘Mimir’ turboprop engines, limited to 5.500 WPS (4.044 WkW) each plus an additional residual thrust of 650kg (1.433 lb), driving four-bladed contraprops.

 

Armament:

6× 13mm MG 131 in three FDL 131Z turrets

1× 20mm MG 151/20 in unmanned/remote-controlled tail barbette

Up to 4.500 kg (9.800 lbs) in a large enclosed bomb-bay in the fuselage and/or four underwing hardpoints.

Typically, bomb load was limited to 3.000 kg (6.500 lbs) internally.

  

The kit and its assembly

This project/model belongs in the Luft '46 category, but it has no strict real world paradigm - even though Luftwaffe projects like the Ju 288, the BMW Schnellbomber designs or Arado's E560/2 and E560/7 had a clear influence. Actually, “my” Hü 324 design looks pretty much like a He 219 on steroids! Anyway, this project was rather inspired by a ‘click’ when two ideas/elements came together and started forming something new and convincing. This is classic kitbashing, and the major ingredients are:

 

● Fuselage, wings, landing gear and engine nacelles from a Trumpeter Ilyushin Il-28 bomber

● Nose section from an Italeri Ju 188 (donated from a friend, leftover from his Ju 488 project)

● Stabilisers from an Italeri B-25, replacing the Il-28’s swept tail

● Contraprops and fuselage barbettes from a vintage 1:100 scale Tu-20(-95) kit from VEB Plasticart (yes, vintage GDR stuff!)

 

Most interestingly, someone from the Netherlands had a similar idea for a kitbashing some years ago: www.airwar1946.nl/whif/L46-ju588.htm. I found this after I got my idea for the Hü 324 together, though - but its funny to see how some ideas manifest independently?

 

Building the thing went pretty straightforward, even though Trumpeter's Il-28 kit has a rather poor fit. Biggest problem turned out to be the integration of the Ju 188 cockpit section: it lacks 4-5mm in width! That does not sound dramatic, but it took a LOT of putty and internal stabilisation to graft the parts onto the Il-28's fuselage.

 

The cockpit was completely re-equipped with stuff from the scrap box, and the main landing gear received twin wheels.

 

The chin turret was mounted after the fuselage was complete, the frontal defence had been an issue I had been pondering about for a long while. Originally, some fixed guns (just as the Il-28 or Tu-16) had been considered. But when I found an old Matchbox B-17G turret in my scrap box, I was convinced that this piece could do literally the same job in my model, and it was quickly integrated. As a side effect, this arrangement justifies the bulged cockpit bottom well, and it just looks "more dangerous".

 

Another task was the lack of a well for the front wheel, after the Il-28 fuselage had been cut and lacked the original interior. This was also added after the new fuselage had been fitted together, and the new well walls were built with thin polystyrene plates. Not 100% exact and clean, but the arrangement fits the bill and takes the twin front wheel.

 

The bomb bay was left open, since the Trumpeter kit offers a complete interior. I also added four underwing hardpoints for external loads (one pair in- and outboard of the engine nacelles), taken from A-7 Corsair II kits, but left them empty. Visually-guided weapons like the 'Fritz X' bomb or Hs 293 missiles would IMHO hardly make sense during night sorties? I also did not want to overload the kit with more and more distracting details.

  

Painting

Even though it is a whif I wanted to incorporate some serious/authentic late WWII Luftwaffe looks. Since the Hü 324 would have been an all-weather bomber, I went for a night bomber livery which was actually used on a He 177 from 2./KG 100, based in France: Black (RLM 22, I simply used Humbrol 33) undersides, and upper surfaces in RLM 76 (Base is Humbrol 128, FS36320, plus some added areas with Testors 2086, the authentic tone which is a tad lighter, but very close) with mottles in RLM 75 (Grauviolett, Testors 2085, plus some splotches of Humbrol 27, Medium Sea Grey), and some weathering through black ink, some enhanced panel lines (with a mix of matte varnish and Panzergrau), as well as some dry painting all over the fuselage.

 

All interior surfaces were painted in RLM 66 (Schwarzgrau/Black Grey, Testors 2079), typical for German late WWII aircraft. Propeller spinners were painted RLM 70 (Schwarzgrün) on the front half, the rear half was painted half black and half white.

 

Pretty simple scheme, but it looks VERY cool, esp. on this sleek aircraft. I am very happy with this decision, and I think that this rather simple livery is less distracting from the fantasy plane itself, making the whif less obvious. In the end, the whole thing looks a bit grey-in-grey, but that spooky touch just adds to the menacing look of this beefy aircraft. I think it would not look as good if it had been kept in daytime RLM 74/75/76 or even RLM 82/83/76?

 

Markings and squadron code were puzzled together from an Authentic Decal aftermarket sheet for a late He 111 and individual letters from TL Modellbau. The "F3" code for the fictional Kampfgruppe (KG) 210 is a random choice, "EV" marks the individual plane, the red "E" and the control letter "V" at the end designate a plane from the eleventh squadron of KG 210. My idea is that the Hü 324 would replace these machines and literally taking their place in the frontline aviaton units. So I tried to keep in line with the German aircraft code, but after all, it's just a whif...

  

So, after some more surgical work than expected, the Hü 324 medium bomber is ready to soar!

 

This abridgement of Universal's 12-episode serial Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe as Dick Calkins' famed comic-strip space adventurer. Buck and Buddy (Jackie Moran) and are recruited to battle against modernistic gangster Killer Kane (Anthony Warde), by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw). The duo travels to Saturn to get help in their mission, and after Buck and Buddy quell the internal struggles of the Saturnians, Buck triumphs over Killer Kane and his cosmic thugs.

Planet Outlaws Feature link: youtu.be/UD3xKy42KUY

 

Link to all 12 Serial Episodes:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtc-u3zFGk&feature=share&amp...

 

Starring Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran, Jack Mulhall, Anthony Warde, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Usher, William Gould, Philson Ahn. Directed by Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind.

Buck Rogers and Buddy Wade are in the middle of a trans-polar dirigible flight when they are caught in a blizzard and crash. Buddy then releases a special gas to keep them in suspended animation until a rescue party can arrive. However, an avalanche covers the craft and the two are in suspended animation for 500 years. When they are found, they awake to find out that the world has been taken over by the outlaw army of Killer Kane. Along with Lieutenant Wilma Deering, Buck and Buddy join in the fight to overthrow Kane and with the help of Prince Tallen of Saturn and his forces, they eventually do and Earth is free of Kane's grip.

 

This is actually a pretty enjoyable serial, but it seems doomed to be forever overshadowed by the much superior Flash Gordon trilogy. Universal brought BUCK ROGERS out in 1939, in between their own chapterplays FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE; it also starred Buster Crabbe (but with his natural dark hair instead of Flash's golden curls) and although it is filled with space ships and weird gadgets, BUCK ROGERS lacks most of the elements that gave the Flash serials their intense emotional draw.

 

For one thing, there is none of the strong sexual charge that the Flash series had. Instead of nubile Dale Arden and sultry Princess Aura both competing for the hero's attention while the villain openly lusted for the heroine, Buck's epic featured Constance Moore as Col. Wilma Deering. Now, Moore is perfectly fine in her role, but she is after all a soldier in the resistance army and not a fair damsel in distress. She has a nice moment when she wrests a ray gun away from a guard and blasts her way out of her cell, but she and Buck seem to be merely chums on the same side.

 

Also, although BUCK ROGERS has plenty of futuristic gadgets (rayguns and buzzing spaceships which shoot sparks from their backs, teleportation tubes and invisibility rays), there are no grotesque monsters or nonhuman alien races on view. Prisoners have remarkably goofy metal helmets strapped on which turn them into docile zombies, and there are these homely goons called Zuggs moping around, but that's hardly as fascinating as Lion Men and Clay People and horned apes (that Orangapoid critter).

 

What's ironic about all this is that the comic strip BUCK ROGERS by Philip Nolan and Richard Calkins started in 1929, was immensely popular for many years and it success inspired the creation of Flash. Yet the Flash strip benefitted from the genius of Alex Raymond, one of the all-time great cartoon artists, and it produced stunning visual images (from the samples of Buck's strip I've seen, it was imaginative enough but pretty crude and drab). This contrast carried over to the serials.

 

Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are pilots who crash in the Arctic in1938 and survive for 500 years because the 'Nirvano' gas they were carrying put them in a state of suspended animation. They both seem to adapt to waking up in the year 2424 pretty well, where I would think most people would be so traumatized it would take a while to adjust. In this dystopic future, the Earth is ruled by a mega-gangster called Killer Kane (another setback; Anthony Warde would be okay as a crimelord but he just doesn't have the imposing presence to convince me this guy can dominate an entire planet).

 

Luckily, Buck and Buddy have been found by the small resistance movement hopelessly trying to overthrow Kane from their hidden city. Here is Dr Huer (C. Montague Shaw, who I just saw in the UNDERSEA KINGDOM doing the same gig with his wild inventions) and Wilma Deering leading the good fight. For some reason I missed, everyone immediately puts all their trust in Buck and he pretty much takes over. (Maybe he's just one of those charismatic alpha males or something.) Most of the serial involves desperate trips back and forth to Saturn to enlist the aid of the isolationist Saturnians, and this means running the blockade of Kane's ships. The usual fistfights and explosions and captures and escapes normal for this sort of situation ensue. It's a lot of fun if you take it on its own terms, with a strong linear plot and likeable heroes, but it really never kicks into high gear and seems a bit drab.

 

It's interesting that some (but not all) of the Saturnians are played by Asian actors. Prince Tallen, who gets caught up in most of the fun, was portrayed by a very young Philson Ahn, and I thought for years this was the same guy who in 1972 impressed us as the head of the Shaolin Temple in TV's KUNG FU (he taught all the styles, really amazing if you think about it). Turns out that was Phiip Ahn, Philson's brother.

 

Dir: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind - 12 Chapters

 

BUCK ROGERS (1939): Director Ford Beebe, who also worked on Flash Gordon (1938), came straight from The Phantom Creeps (1939) and then went back to finish Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940). Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe or, as his family knew him, Lawrence. Now, Lawrence ‘Larry’ ‘Buster’ Crabbe had previously starred in two Flash Gordon serials, a couple of Tarzan movies and a long string of westerns, so it was only natural for Universal to decide he was perfect as the heroic Buck Rogers, aka that blonde guy who saves the universe but isn’t Flash Gordon. Actually, Buster Crabbe wasn’t the first actor to play Buck Rogers in-the-flesh, so to speak.

That honour goes to an unknown man who played Buck in a Virginia department store, instead of their regular Santa Claus. Santa was off conquering Martians at the time, I think it was an exchange program of sorts. It strikes me that Buck Rogers is not unlike a male fantasy come to life. Just think of it – Buck gets to take a nice five-hundred-year-long sleep-in. With my busy schedule, I’m ecstatic if I can get twenty minutes nap on the weekend. Then, when he wakes up, Buck is the smartest, most dynamic guy around. In reality he’d be treated like something that’s escaped from the zoo. And finally, everyone needs Buck to go on exciting missions, fight the bad guys, test exotic equipment and crash rocket ships – out of the half-dozen flights Buck makes, he only lands successfully once. It’s easy to see the bullet cars used in the movie are the same ones from Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (1938), and even the script is rather suspect.

Planet Outlaws

This film is actually a compilation of the Buck Rogers serials that ran originally in 1939. The cliffhanger endings and recap beginnings have been edited out to make it flow better -- with partial success. Some new footage was shot for the introduction and summary. At the opening, there are some newspaper headlines about jets chasing flying discs, and the obligatory checkered V2 launch, etc. to add a modern segue. After that, it's pure 1939.

Sci-fi movie technology had come a long way in the 14 years since Buck's debut. Audiences had grown accustomed to sleek and pointy rockets, flying saucers, strange aliens, etc. The Buck Rogers style world-of-the-future must have looked oddly quaint. (if not laughable) Just why Universal Pictures thought re-releasing Buck Rogers was a good idea is a bit of a mystery. Kids who were 8 or so back in 1939 would be young adults in '53. Perhaps Universal was banking on those young adults would buy tickets for a trip down memory lane.

Plot Synopsis

After a bit of modern ('53) footage about the wonders of modern progress and "flying disks," the old serial begins. Rogers and Buddy crashed in the arctic while on a transpolar flight. They were in suspended animation due to the cold and a vague gas. A patrol finds them in the year 2500 and revives them. In the world of 2500, a despot named Killer Kane is trying to take over the world. The forces of good are holed up in the "hidden city." Buck arranges a decoy maneuver to elude Kane's patrol ships. They fly to the planet Saturn in hopes of finding help. On Saturn, the Council sees Rogers and party as the rebels, and Kane as the rule of law. Rogers et al, escape Saturn, return to earth and seek to disrupt Kane's bamboozling of Prince Tallen, the Saturnian representative. Rogers sneaks into Kane's city, interrupts the treaty signing and convinces Tallen of Kane's evil by revealing Kane's "robot battalion" (slaves wearing mind-control helmets). Rogers and Tallen get to Saturn and the treaty is signed. Rogers escapes Kane's patrols via the Dissolvo Ray which rendered them invisible. Rogers and the war council plan for war. Rogers enlists the Saturnians to help. Meanwhile, Rogers sneaks into Kane's city and de-zombies Minister Krenco to lead an uprising of freed robot-slave-prisoners. Rogers storms Kane's palace and puts one of the robo-slave helmets on Kane. The End

The industrial vision of the future is delightful to watch. The heavily mechanical look of everything is so radically different from the sleek rockets and glowing acrylic audiences were growing accustomed to. The space ships look like they were built at locomotive factories or steamship yards. They spew roman-candle sparks and smoke and buzz as they fly. There are no computers, no radar or electronics. It's a fascinating snapshot of what pre-electronic-age people thought the future would be like.

When originally released in 1939, the Killer Kane character was a thinly disguised allusion to Hitler. In 1953, Kane was intended to represent a communist despot. It wasn't as tidy a fit. The narrator sums it up voicing a hope that scientists will develop the means for men to stand up to today's dictators and make the world safe for democracy. In the early 50s, there's little question of who they meant.

Simple Colors -- One endearing trait of Buck Rogers is the simplicity of the characterizations. The good guys do nothing but good. The bad guys are pure bad. The good guys are crack pilots and sharp shooters and tough as nails. The bad guys do nothing but bad, have trouble hitting a flying barn and are easily knocked out with one punch.

Industrial Baroque -- Somewhat like the baroque era's compulsion to decorate every square inch with swirls and filigree, Industrial Baroque sought to fill every space with heavy-duty hardware. The sets, and especially the rocket interiors are like flying boiler rooms. Valves, pipes, levers, dials, wheels, large flashing light bulbs. To look more "high tech" in the 30s meant cramming in more industrial hardware. Buck Rogers' ships show more affinity for Captain Nemo "steampunk" than the proto-space-age of the 50s.

Family Resemblance -- There is a noticeable similarity in the sets and costumes of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Even serials of the early 50s, like Captain Video and the various Rocketman serials, look more like Flash and Buck than George Pal. The industrial baroque look and costuming are distinctive, making them almost a sub-genre of their own. In that regard, Buck has a timelessness.

Another take on the story and additional background info.

A round-the-world dirigible flight commanded by US Air Force officer Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) encounters dangerously stormy weather above the Himalayas; said weather, along with disastrous panic on the part of Rogers’ crewmen, causes the aircraft to crash. The cowardly crewmen ditch the ship and meet quick ends, but Rogers and young Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran), son of the aircraft’s designer, survive the crash. The pair use a cylinder of “Nirvano” gas to place themselves into suspended animation until a rescue party can reach them, but an avalanche buries the ship and all searches prove fruitless; the dirigible and its two dormant inhabitants remain beneath rocks and snow for five hundred years.

Finally, in the year 2440, a spaceship unearths the wreck, and its pilots restore Buck and Buddy to consciousness. The holdovers from the 20th century soon learn that their rescuers are soldiers from the “Hidden City,” a pocket of resistance to the super-criminal who is ruling the 24th-century Earth–one “Killer” Kane (Anthony Warde). Rogers immediately pledges his support to Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould) and Scientist-General Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), the leaders of the Hidden City exiles, and is soon en route to Saturn, hoping to convince that planet’s rulers to aid the Hidden City in freeing the Earth from Kane’s tyranny. To cement the Saturian alliance, Buck must battle Kane’s legions at every step of the way, with able assistance from Buddy and from Dr. Huer’s trusted aide Lieutenant Wilma Deering (Constance Moore).

 

Ever since its original release, Buck Rogers has stood in the shadow of Universal’s Flash Gordon serials; the studio encouraged such association by casting Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe as a different sci-fi hero, obviously hoping that the chapterplay would capitalize on the goodwill generated by Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars. The serial did succeed in reminding audiences of the Flash outings–but it reminded them of how much they had liked those serials and forced inevitable comparisons that were not in Rogers’ favor. Universal’s plans for a second Buck Rogers serial were quickly scrapped when the first outing failed to please matinee audiences; the intended Buck sequel was then replaced on the studio’s production schedule by–what else?–a third Flash Gordon chapterplay. Even today, Buck is typically dismissed by fans as a pale echo of the great Gordon serials.

It’s easy to see why Buck Rogers came as a disappointment to audiences expecting an outing in the Flash Gordon tradition. Its production design, while futuristic, is less quirky and more uniform than that of the Gordons; there are no monsters and no weird semi-human races besides the rather uninteresting Zuggs; there are also no supporting characters as developed or as interesting as Dr. Zarkov, Ming, King Vultan, the Clay King, Princess Aura, Prince Barin, and other major figures in the Flash Gordon chapterplays. And yet, taken on its own terms, Buck Rogers is far from a failure; it does not approach the Flash Gordon trilogy in quality, but then few serials do.

Buck Rogers’ script, by former Mascot writers Norman Hall and Ray Trampe, is fast-moving and manages to avoid repetition for most of its length. The trip to Saturn, the attempts to convince Saturnian leader Prince Tallen (Philson Ahn) of the justice of the Hidden City’s cause, the subsequent rescue of Tallen from Kane’s city, the second journey to Saturn to cement the alliance, and the attempts of Kane’s henchman Laska (Henry Brandon) to sabotage it–all these incidents keep the narrative flowing very nicely for the serial’s first eight chapters. As in many of Trampe and Hall’s Mascot scripts, however, the writers seem to run out of plot before the serial’s end. While Chapters Nine and Ten remain interesting (with Buck being converted into a hypnotized robot, Buddy’s rescue of the hero, and an infiltration of the Hidden City by one of Kane’s men), the last two chapters have a definite wheel-spinning feel to them, throwing in a redundant third trip to Saturn and an unneeded flashback sequence.

The last-chapter climax is also something of a disappointment, with Kane being overthrown quickly and undramatically instead of being definitively crushed. Here, Trampe and Hall seem to have been leaving room for the sequel that never came and trying to avoid duplicating the dramatic but very final destruction of MIng which closed the first Flash Gordon serial (and which needed to be explained away in the second). The other weak spot of the scripting is Buck and Buddy’s rather calm reaction when they realize that their old world (and everyone in it) is dead–and their extraordinarily quick adjustment to their new one. One wouldn’t have wanted the writers to dwell on our heroes’ plight (which would be absolutely crushing in real life), but I do wish Trampe or Hall could have given Buck and Buddy a few emotional lines about their displacement before getting on to the main action; Hall in his scripts for other serials (Hawk of the Wilderness, Adventures of Red Ryder), showed himself capable of far more dramatic moments.

  

As already mentioned, the serial’s visuals are less varied than those of the Flash Gordon serials, but that’s not to say they aren’t impressive by serial standards. Pains seem to have been taken to avoid duplicating too much of Gordon’s “look;” the spaceship miniatures are completely different than the ships in the Gordon trilogy, while Kane’s stronghold–probably the best miniature in the serial–is not the quasi-Gothic palace of Ming but rather an ominous, futuristic-looking version of New York City, complete with towering skyscrapers. The Hidden City’s great rock gates are also nifty, and the massive Saturnian Forum (a life-size set, not a miniature) is very visually impressive. The barren Red Rock Canyon area works well as the Saturnian landscape, but I think it was a mistake to also use the Canyon as the area between the Hidden City and Kane’s capital; Saturn and Earth shouldn’t look so similar.

 

The only major prop or set reused from the Gordon serials are the “bullet cars” from Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars; they’re just as fun to watch in action here as in the earlier serial. Other incidental props and sets–Kane’s robot room, his mind-control helmets, the various televiewing devices, the anti-gravity belts, Dr. Huer’s invisibility ray, and the Star-Trek-like molecular transportation chamber–add further colorful touches to the serial., and are respectably represented by Universal’s always above-average array of sets and props. The Zuggs, the “primitive race” ruled by the Saturnians, are somewhat disappointing, however; while suitably grotesque-looking, they’re nowhere near as menacing or memorable–in appearance or demeanor–as their obvious inspiration, the Clay People in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.

The serial’s action scenes are brisk and energetic, suffering not at all from a general lack of fistfights–thanks to the swift-moving direction of Ford Beebe (a Mascot veteran like writers Trampe and Hall) and his co-director Saul Goodkind (usually an editor). The few hand-to-hand tussles–most of them on the rocky hills of Saturn–are executed routinely but skillfully by Dave Sharpe, Tom Steele, Eddie Parker, and other stuntmen; the best of the bunch is the fight between Buck and a Kane man in the control room of the Hidden City, although this is more exciting for the suspenseful situation (Buck trying to close the gates that the henchman has opened to Kane’s oncoming armada) than for any particular flair in the staging.

Most of the action sequences consist of protracted chases and pursuits (both on foot and in rocketships), with occasional quick combats thrown in. Many of these lengthy chases are very exciting–particularly the long incursion into Kane’s city that occupies most of Chapters Three and Four, a great combination of action and suspense. Buddy’s later stealthy visit into Kane’s fortress to rescue Buck from the robot room, and the following escape, is also good, as are Buck’s skillful and repeated elusions of the rebellious Zuggs in Chapter Eight and the bullet car getaway in Chapter Six.

  

The cliffhanger endings are generally well-staged, with proper build-ups, but too many of them involve spaceship crashes that our heroes rather implausibly live through. The impressive collapsing forum at the end of Chapter Eleven and the bullet car crash at the end of Chapter Six provide nice variety amid the spaceship wrecks, but (alas) are also resolved by mere survival. Still, this is preferable to the blatantly cheating resolution of what is otherwise one the best chapter endings–Killer Kane’s pursuit of Buddy in a darkened council chamber and his apparently lethal zapping of the young hero. At least the resolution features a good stunt bit by Dave Sharpe.

The leading performances in Buck Rogers are all excellent (although most other critics would make a single exception; see below). Buster Crabbe, as always, makes a perfect serial hero–both genially cheerful and grimly serious, unassumingly polite and aggressively tough. As in the Flash Gordon trilogy, his down-to-earth attitude also helps to make the wild sci-fi happenings seem perfectly normal.

Jackie Moran (oddly “reduced” to serial acting only a year after playing Huck Finn in David O. Selznick’s big-budget classic Adventures of Tom Sawyer) does a fine job as Buddy Wade, handling his character’s frequent “golly, gee-whiz” lines in a low-key fashion that keeps Buddy from coming off as too naïve; his chipper but calm demeanor complements Crabbe’s well, and he has no problems carrying an entire chapter and part of another on his own.

Constance Moore, despite being saddled with perhaps the most unflattering costume ever worn by a serial leading lady (basically coveralls and a bathing cap), manages to come off as charming. Her Wilma Deering is self-possessed and capable-seeming but never too coldly efficient; she remains warmly likable even when piloting spaceships or explaining technology to Crabbe.

Henry Brandon is very good as Killer Kane’s chief henchman Captain Laska–suave and sly when acting as Kane’s ambassador to Saturn, haughtily arrogant when threatening people, and nervously jittery in the presence of his overbearing leader. Hard-bitten tough guys Wheeler Oakman and Reed Howes, along with the slicker Carleton Young , form Brandon’s backup squad.

As Killer Kane himself, perennial henchman actor Anthony Warde has been almost universally panned by critics as “miscast.” I have to dissent strongly, however; Warde does a fine job in the part and plays Kane with a memorable combination of viciousness and uncontrollable anger. The character is not a diabolical schemer like Ming, but rather a super-gangster who’s blasted and bullied his way to the top–and Warde’s bad-tempered, aggressive, and thuggish screen personality fits the part perfectly. He veers between intimidating ranting and harshly sinister sarcasm–as when he describes himself as a “kindly ruler” just after wrathfully sending a formerly trusted councilor to the robot room–but is quite menacing in both aspects.

Philson Ahn, brother of frequent serial and feature actor Phillip Ahn, does a good job as Prince Tallen of Saturn; he possesses his sibling’s deep and distinctive voice, which serves him well as a planetary dignitary. His manner also has a slightly tougher edge to it than his refined brother’s, which helps to keep the viewer in uncertainty in the earlier chapters as to whether Tallen will turn out to be friend or foe. Guy Usher plays Aldar, the head of Saturn’s ”Council of the Wise,” and does his best to seem suitably imposing and dignified, despite the almost comical way in which the “Wise” continually change their opinions–backing Kane, opposing him, giving into his demands, defying him, etc. Cyril Delevanti is enjoyable as a grumpy subordinate member of the Council.*

C. Montague Shaw has limited screen time, but is very good as Dr. Huer, balancing statesmanlike dignity with shrewdness and a touch of enjoyable scientific eccentricity (the last is particularly noticeable during his demonstration of his invisibility gas in Chapter Five). Energetic Jack Mulhall is typically affable and enthusiastic as Captain Rankin of the Hidden City, while Kenne Duncan has a rare good guy role as Mulhall’s fellow-officer Lieutenant Lacy. Perennial screen “underworld rat” John Harmon also plays against type as a Hidden City soldier, as does Stanley Price as a Hidden City pilot rescued from existence as a human robot. The dignified but stolid William Gould is good enough as Air Marshal Kragg, but I would have preferred a more dynamic actor in the role–Kragg is, after all, the top military leader of Kane’s enemies. Mulhall could have handled it well, as could Wade Boteler–who does an excellent job as the grim and concerned Professor Morgan in the first chapter, intensely instructing Buddy and Buck in the use of the Nirvano gas.

Lane Chandler also appears in the first chapter, as a military officer who demonstrates the Nirvano gas to a reporter played by another old pro, Kenneth Harlan. An unusually subdued Theodore Lorch is one of Kane’s councilors, while Karl Hackett has a good part as another councilor who gets into an argument with Kane that leads to Hackett’s being converted into a human robot (his terrified pleas as he’s dragged out of the council chamber are quite chilling). Al Bridge has some memorably sinister lines (“when this helmet is in place, you’ll never think or speak again”) in his periodic scenes as the slave-master of Kane’s human robots.

Unusually for Universal, several bit roles are filled by stuntmen; Eddie Parker and Tom Steele pop in as various soldiers and officers, but aren’t as noticeable as Dave Sharpe, who’s given multiple speaking roles as a Kane soldier, a Hidden City soldier, a Saturnian officer, and a Saturnian soldier. His ubiquity can get a little distracting at times, particularly since some of his appearances follow right on the previous one’s heels; he also seems to have a bit of trouble with the formal-sounding Saturnian dialogue, coming off as much more stiff and affected than in his co-starring turn in Daredevils of the Red Circle.

The serial’s music score, like most other Universals of the period, is an eclectic but usually effective array of stock music, some of it cues from the Flash Gordon serials but the majority of it culled from Universal’s horror features, including (most notably) Franz Waxman’s score for Bride of Frankenstein, which furnishes some memorable opening-titles music.

All in all, though Buck Rogers has its share of flaws, it also has more than enough virtues (the acting, the fast pace, the interesting sci-fi trappings) to make it a good chapterplay. Despite its similar themes, it shouldn’t be pitted against the Flash Gordon trilogy–a match it’s bound to lose–but rather judged against the field of competition in general. When judged in this fashion, it’s just as entertaining–and often more entertaining–than many serials with less shabby reputations.

 

*One has to wonder, though, why some Saturnians are Orientals like Ahn and others Occidentals like Usher and Delevanti; my own theory is that men from various countries emigrated from Earth to Saturn sometime before the bulk of the serial took place; this would explain the racial assortment and also explain why the Hidden City chooses Saturn in particular as an ally (as usual, I’m probably putting too much thought into this).

 

www.myspace.com/wowFL

 

Lake City tonight and then on to Atlanta.

  

*edit 6/24* Back in Florida. My laptop broke, so that's an enormous setback. I have my ab800 now, so whenever I get my laptop fixed I'll be uploading a lot of pictures from the road as well as the Georgia Aqarium and some lighting pictures. Stay tuned.

Located in the heart of Merritt Island’s commercial district we find Merritt Square Mall, Brevard County’s oldest enclosed shopping center. Even with a few recent setbacks, Merritt Square is still a rather lively place that attracts shoppers from all over Brevard County (although primarily the Central and Northern parts, which use Merritt Island at their primary commercial hub). Dating back to 1970, Merritt Square opened with anchors JCPenney, Ivey’s, Jordan Marsh, and a 6 screen AMC cinema, in addition to a Publix on an outparcel behind the mall. While technically older than Merritt Square by 7 years, Melbourne’s Brevard Mall was originally built as an open air complex. Brevard Mall didn’t enclose their complex until the mid-1970’s, mostly as a way to better position themselves against (the much larger) Merritt Square Mall during a time when enclosed malls were becoming all the rage.

 

Merritt Square Mall was a big deal when it first opened just prior to the Christmas shopping season in 1970. This article does a fantastic job of explaining this mall’s grand opening and early days, in addition to including a few pictures of the mall from the 1970’s. Merritt Square was originally built by the Alpert Development Company, who would later sell the mall to the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. The John Hancock Company controlled the mall from the 1970’s all the way through 2002, and invested quite a bit into the bustling mall during their ownership. The John Hancock Company also spearheaded some expansion projects at the mall in the late 1980's. Those expansions included the construction of a new wing on the western side of the mall, a fourth anchor (Sears, who relocated from an older location across the river in Rockledge), and a new shopping center attached to the Publix behind the mall (which included a detached 6 screen annex for the mall’s AMC theater and a Jungle Jim’s restaurant).

 

Over the years, the mall’s Jordan Marsh store would close amidst that chain’s financial troubles and be converted into Burdine’s (which in turn is now Macy’s). Ivey’s sold out to Dillard’s in 1990, the AMC Theater closed and was replaced with a Cobb 16 screen multiplex the late 1990’s, and Publix relocated down the road to a much more visible location in 2002. A Book-A-Million was added as a junior anchor sometime in the 1990’s I believe, and Sports Authority was added to the mall in 2013. Even with all of this change, Merritt Square still has all four of its anchor spaces filled, with the only glaring vacancy in the mall itself being the empty Sports Authority (which upon my most recent visit in May 2018, had some construction going on inside of it, although I haven’t found anything confirming a new tenant for that space just yet). The former Publix behind the mall is still empty, and the small shopping center adjoining the former Publix building is nearly vacant. Due to how hidden the former Publix building is behind the mall, finding a new tenant for that space has proven difficult. The former AMC annex at the opposite end of the strip from Publix was torn down in the early 2000’s and is now an empty lot.

 

After the John Hancock company sold Merritt Square Mall in 2002, the mall changed owners a few times before ending up in the hands of the previous owner, Washington Prime Group (now WP Gilmcher), in 2007. In 2016, Merritt Square Mall was foreclosed upon after WP Glimcher mysteriously stopped making payments on the mall’s mortgage. At the foreclosure auction in May 2016, Namdar Group bought the mall and they remain the mall’s current owner to this day. The new owners seem to be keeping everything at Merritt Square the same for now, as I haven’t seen or heard of any major renovations or such coming in this mall’s future. To this day, the interior of Merritt Square still has some parts that feel like something out of 1970, but overall it’s been kept up well. As this photoset progresses, we’ll take a look at all of the anchor stores (Sears, JCPenney, Macy’s, and Dillard’s), the two junior anchors (Books-A-Million and Sports Authority), the mall itself, and the Publix outparcel. To get us started, we will begin our tour of the mall with Sears. Those Sears photos will get me through to when my Summer Break will begin, with the remainder of this set continuing sometime after I return to uploading later this summer. Like I said before, I took a lot of photos here, but there sure is plenty of interesting stuff to see at Merritt Square! I hope everyone enjoys this extended look at Merritt Square Mall!

The word "goose" is a direct descendent of Proto-Indo-European root, *ghans-. In Germanic languages, the root gave Old English gōs with the plural gēs and gandres (becoming Modern English goose, geese, gander, and gosling, respectively), Frisian goes, gies and guoske, New High German Gans, Gänse, and Ganter, and Old Norse gās.

 

This term also gave Lithuanian žąsìs, Irish gé (goose, from Old Irish géiss), Latin anser, Greek χήν/khēn, Dutch gans, Albanian gatë (heron), Sanskrit hamsa and hamsi, Finnish hanhi, Avestan zāō, Polish gęś, Ukrainian гуска and гусак, Russian гусыня and гусь, Czech husa, and Persian ghāz.

 

The term goose applies to the female in particular, while gander applies to the male in particular. Young birds before fledging are called goslings. The collective noun for a group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; when in flight, they are called a skein, a team, or a wedge; when flying close together, they are called a plump.

  

Chinese geese, the domesticated form of the swan goose

The three living genera of true geese are: Anser, grey geese, including the greylag goose, and domestic geese; Chen, white geese (often included in Anser); and Branta, black geese, such as the Canada goose.

 

Two genera of "geese" are only tentatively placed in the Anserinae; they may belong to the shelducks or form a subfamily on their own: Cereopsis, the Cape Barren goose, and Cnemiornis, the prehistoric New Zealand goose. Either these or, more probably, the goose-like Coscoroba swan is the closest living relative of the true geese.

 

Fossils of true geese are hard to assign to genus; all that can be said is that their fossil record, particularly in North America, is dense and comprehensively documents many different species of true geese that have been around since about 10 million years ago in the Miocene. The aptly named Anser atavus (meaning "progenitor goose") from some 12 million years ago had even more plesiomorphies in common with swans. In addition, some goose-like birds are known from subfossil remains found on the Hawaiian Islands.

 

Geese are monogamous, living in permanent pairs throughout the year; however, unlike most other permanently monogamous animals, they are territorial only during the short nesting season. Paired geese are more dominant and feed more, two factors that result in more young.

 

Other birds called "geese"

  

Cape Barren goose

Some mainly Southern Hemisphere birds are called "geese", most of which belong to the shelduck subfamily Tadorninae. These are:

 

Orinoco goose, Neochen jubata

Egyptian goose, Alopochen aegyptiacus

The South American sheldgeese, genus Chloephaga

The prehistoric Malagasy sheldgoose, Centrornis majori

The spur-winged goose, Plectropterus gambensis, is most closely related to the shelducks, but distinct enough to warrant its own subfamily, the Plectropterinae.

 

The blue-winged goose, Cyanochen cyanopterus, and the Cape Barren goose, Cereopsis novaehollandiae, have disputed affinities. They belong to separate ancient lineages that may ally either to the Tadorninae, Anserinae, or closer to the dabbling ducks (Anatinae).

 

The three species of small waterfowl in the genus Nettapus are named "pygmy geese". They seem to represent another ancient lineage, with possible affinities to the Cape Barren goose or the spur-winged goose.

 

A genus of prehistorically extinct seaducks, Chendytes, is sometimes called "diving-geese" due to their large size.[5]

 

The unusual magpie goose is in a family of its own, the Anseranatidae.

 

The northern gannet, a seabird, is also known as the "Solan goose", although it is a bird unrelated to the true geese, or any other Anseriformes for that matter.

  

Well-known sayings about geese include:

 

To "have a gander" is to examine something in detail.

 

"What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" means that what is appropriate treatment for one person is equally appropriate for someone else.

 

Saying that someone's "goose is cooked" means that they have suffered, or are about to suffer, a terrible setback or misfortune.

 

"Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs," derived from an old fable, is a saying referring to any greed-motivated, unprofitable action that destroys or otherwise renders a favorable situation useless.

 

"A wild goose chase" is a useless, futile waste of time and effort.

 

There is a legendary old woman called Mother Goose who wrote nursery rhymes for children.

PLEASE, NO invitations or self promotions, THEY WILL BE DELETED. My photos are FREE to use, just give me credit and it would be nice if you let me know, thanks.

 

Lipizzan mares and foals.

 

The Piber Federal Stud is 555 hectares in size and approximately 250 horses are kept there, including 70 broodmares.

 

Only stallions from the Spanish Riding School are used as breeding stallions, and all six classic stallion bloodline families are used.

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The Piber Federal Stud Farm is dedicated to the breeding of Lipizzan horses, located at the village of Piber. It was founded in 1798, began breeding Lipizzan horses in 1920, and today is the primary breeding farm that produces the stallions used by the Spanish Riding School, where the best stallions of each generation are bred and brought for training and later public performance. One of Piber’s major objectives is "to uphold a substantial part of Austria’s cultural heritage and to preserve one of the best and most beautiful horse breeds in its original form."

 

The Lipizzan breed as a whole, suffered a setback when a viral epidemic hit the Piber Stud in 1983. Forty horses and eight percent of the expected foal crop were lost. Since then, the population at the farm has increased, with 100 mares as of 1994 and a foal crop of 56 born in 1993. In 1994, the pregnancy rate increased from 27% to 82% as the result of a new veterinary center.

IMAGE INFO

- The photographer's viewpoint is looking south from the northern side of Coogee Beach.

- Although first plans for the pier were made by the developers in 1923 (during the post-war boom period), there were numerous planning & approval setbacks which delayed the actual start of construction until April 1926.

- I have re-dated this particular image to Circa November 1927 based on other construction progress photos & dated newspaper progress reports (available through Trove). The construction phase has progressed past the central widening seen in the previous images (where the bandstand will later be placed).

- Coogee Ocean Pier Co. had been granted a 28 year lease. The Pier was to extend 180 metres out across the middle of Coogee Beach & well into Coogee Bay. It was to boast space for 21,000 people, including a 1,400 seat theatre as well as numerous restaurants, shops & arcades.

- However, unlike the calmer waters at Brighton, the incessant pounding, powerful surf that regularly smashed into the pier with every south-easterly "blow" were unrelenting. Sadly for many Sydneysiders, Randwick Council & the Pier's management inevitably capitulated in the face of mounting & un-economical repair costs (repairs alone estimated at £4,000 in May 1933 (over $480,00 today).

- Indeed, by as far back as January 1930, the developers had already sunk £78,300 into the project - around $7,000,000 in todays money - unsuprisingly, they never made any profit during the short life of the project).

- Unsurprisingly then, with mounting financial losses over the period 1931-1933 the by-now-derelict pier remains were sold off for a relatively paltry £2,800 (around $230,000 today) & was finally demolished during the period December 1933-March 1934.

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SOURCE INFO

- One copy of a photoprint from the Hood Collection.

- The original was digitized by the State Library of New South Wales

- The digitized original was available from the SLNSW online collection (link unavailable).

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CREDITS

- Sam Hood Collection for the original print.

- State Library of New South Wales for their valuable work in digitizing, archiving & making available online this rare historical content.

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COPYRIGHT STATUS

- Per SLNSW advice:

Out of copyright: created before 1955.

Digital downloads may be used for research, review or study purposes.

- Regarding my own work in creating this unique cropped, restored & duo-toned version from the digitized original, I have applied "Attribution-Share Alike".

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PROCESS INFO

- I downloaded a copy of the digitized original (badly faded with uneven exposure).

- Using Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 8.0, I enlarged by approx. 250%, adjusted areas of uneven exposure, restored contrast & sharpness & used a dark sepia duo-tone curve for better tonal range.

This is my old-school 35mm Olympus XA camera. It used to be one of my mainstays before digital got to be too easy. (My other really old-school was my Minolta SRT-100). Digital can make me lazy, though, and with a film camera I have to really think about every shot. But gosh, do I really want to go back to buying film, getting it developed ... and then probably scanning it in and doing touch-up with Photoshop? Hmmm ... think. Think about it.

Here is a beautiful edge on galaxy about 33 million light years away that I shot in November! I was still fine tuning my mount, so I used 60s exposures at ISO 1600 to minimize star trailing. Despite these setbacks, I think I got data that was good enough to reveal some nice details in the dust lanes! I'll definitely revisit this object in the future to do it justice, but for now I love this image. Galaxy season is incoming!! If you check my story, you'll see an annotated image where every blue circle is highlighting a galaxy in this field of view When I see how many galaxies are just in this small patch of sky and think about the scale of the universe, it just blows my mind. God's power to breath all this into existence with His word is incredible and clearly reveals His indescribable glory. I'm so thankful He allows me to share His creation with you all through my telescope. I hope y'all enjoy :)

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Orion 8" Astrograph

iOptron CEM70

Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector

Stock Nikon D5500

ZWO ASI 120MM mini Guide Camera

ASIAIR Pro for acquisition

Processing in Pixinsight & Photoshop

 

Subs from 11/16/2020

138 x 60s lights @ ISO 1600

No Darks

20 Flats

100 Bias

Total Integration Time: 2.3 hrs