An article written just after COVID...........by Vic Davey

 

Last month I bemoaned the fact that I had little or nothing to write about due, in the main, to ‘The Virus’. That wasn’t strictly true. In the early days of the lockdown I had come across a couple of amusing stories which I could have included but had half-forgotten them. Uppermost in mine and most people’s minds then was concentrating on staying safe, observing the rules, wearing the gloves and mask, social distancing etc.  That’s my excuse anyway.

One of the stories concerns a British Institution, Rolls Royce. However, since they sold off the Car Division to the Germans awhile ago, they are probably now only half a British Institution. For some reason that has always rankled with me….I believe  the remaining Aero Division is still doing pretty well.  

Anyway, their Engineers were asked by the Aero Industry if they could develop a means of testing Aircraft cockpit windscreens. A major problem for airlines is bird strikes which cause not only untold damage but has led to crashes and fatalities, especially when the birds get sucked into the engines. These usually occur during take-off and landing although some have been recorded at high altitude. 

Perhaps the most famous occurrence of this in recent times was the ditching of an Airbus A320 into the Hudson River, New York back in 2009. The incident became the subject of a feature film in 2016 called ‘Sully’ which starred Tom Hanks as the Pilot and was directed by Clint Eastwood. Definitely worth a watch….

Anyway, back to the plot. Rolls Royce successfully developed a special gun which would fire dead chickens at the windscreen of a mock up Aircraft cockpit to test its strength. It’s true, I promise you……

Over in the US, Engineers working on behalf of the US Rail Industry heard about the Rolls Royce gun experiments and requested details. Apparently bird strikes are also a problem for trains, especially the driver cab windscreen, something which had never occurred to me before. Rolls Royce duly complied and sent across a sample of the gun and all the technical data.

Picture the American first test shot.  Engineers observing the test were horrified when the chicken smashed the Train cab glass to smithereens, broke the back of the seat the driver would have been sitting in and embedded itself into the back wall of the cabin. 

They immediately sent the data to Rolls Royce for analysis and recommendation. However, the response was not what they were expecting….just one line…”First defrost the chicken”…..

The response from our US cousins is not suitable for printing

The second story I stumbled across is a transcript of an actual radio transmission between the Irish and a British Naval ship off the coast of Kerry….

Irish:      Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision. 

British:  Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the                                        North to avoid a collision.

Irish:       Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

British:   This is the captain of a British Navy ship. I say again, divert your course.

Irish:        Negative. I say again, you will have to divert your course

British:     This is the Aircraft Carrier HMS Invincible. The second largest ship in the British Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, two missile cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course. 15 degrees North, I say again, 15 degrees North or counter measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

Irish:      We are a Lighthouse. Your call.