A One-Man Fan

Get Out Of Here With Your Political Correctness!

For one thing, the milieu we are examining today was exclusively male, and for another thing, women are entirely too sensible to entrust their lives to inherently dangerous machinery, which men, on the other hand, simply delight in.  Small boys grown larger not wiser and all that.  Art!

     No!  It's not a trampoline trampolining.  What you see is the South Canadian Navy's "1031 Flying Platform", date of performance 1955.  You see, there was a burst of activity amongst our trans-Atlantic cousin's military organisations in the later Fifties, all looking to give individual soldiers airborne mobility.

     The rather hokey rationale put forward by various entities on teh Interwebz is that a devolved unit structure would be necessary on the new nuclear battlefield, where large aviation assets such as airbases, pilots and helicopter squadrons would all have been annihilated by atomic attack.  Art!

Well, that's 18 helicopters and 54 aircrew up the spout

     Allow me to show you an isometric view of the 1031 FP.  Art!

     Clearly visible is the minute platform the soldier stood upon, which is still a platform.  To control it, matey leaned in the direction he wanted to go in.  Top speed was only 10 m.p.h. or less than a speedy bike rider, which they couldn't improve upon, and the project was scrapped in 1963.  O and that rotary blade arrangement is known as a 'Ducted Fan', which is where today's title comes from.  Art!

     This is the Williams "X-Jet" or "Wasp", another attempt to turn infantry into angels.  Or airborne.  One of the two.  This thing could motor along at 60 m.p.h. and climb to 10,000 feet, with a range of up to 20 miles, which sounds brilliant, and yet it wasn't proceeded with.  Why not?  Well, for one thing, it had the manoeuvrability of a pig on roller skates.  A drunken pig on roller skates.  Unit cost was extremely high, and the jet exhaust directed downwards risked cooking the pilot on takeoff or landing.  Art!

     This is the "Lackner Aerocycle", which was a real thoroughbred amongst these aerial fandancers.  It could manage 74 m.p.h. and in 1955 that meant it could outrun many cars.  It had a respectable range of 14 miles.  Why didn't it go into prodution?  Safety again, I'm afraid.  Look at those counter-rotating blades, spinning round at many hundreds of revolutions per minute (yes yes yes I could have put 'r.p.m. but word count), and also look at the lack of protection for the pilot.  He had to control the Blades-of-Death-Bird by leaning, so if he slipped he became human salami-sandwich filling.

     One thing these solo-man fans have is that they fly through the air, where there is neither concealment nor cover.  I don't doubt - actually I've just been on Youtube and confirmed - that yes, these things are EXTREMELY LOUD.  You might as well trail a giant banner reading SHOOT ME NOW.

     What has inspired Your Humble Scribe to cover this technology in an Intro?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art!

     This is exactly what it looks lie: a man-carrying drone quadcopter, which clip was put up on Twitter as an example of being able to move a soldier (or more than one) across terrain by air not land.  Thus saving boot leather or something.  That hyphen is important or you'd be getting - Art!

     ANYWAY Conrad looks askance at yer big-boy drone.  Yes, it can carry a man.  Is it any use on the battlefield?  Rather dubious.  Once again you are out in the open with no protection.  Granted the motors may be electric, not internal combustion and therefore a lot quieter but I'd not want to chance my tender skin being hoisted aloft by one.

A Remembrance Of Things Past

Conrad was playing Athlete's "Tourist" CD for the first time in years at the weekend, which I think has provoked Youtube's algorithm to throw up a whole list of music videos from up to 15 years ago.  Art!

     "Yesterday Threw Everything At Me" is a real corker of a track, I'd forgotten how much I liked it.

     After four albums they called it a day in 2012 and even if they don't admit it, I think they broke up on extremely bad terms because there's never been a sniff of a reunion or a new album.

     Dog Buns.  "Tourist" is 19 years old.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

How d'you like that contrast?  I just felt like a change from the usual Screaming Scarlet.  Yes, we are banging on about Codeword solutions again, because I am entirely justified and am considering taking this to the ICC.  Let us proceed.

"DWEEB": Nothing in my "Collins Concise" so I've had to resort to teh Interwebz, which state "A boring, studious or socially inept person".  It is undeniably South Canadian argot that ought never to have crossed The Pond to pervert our language over here, although I am familiar with it thanks to <ahem> "Rude Dog And The Dweebs".  Art!

"RAITA": Yes yes yes, I got this one because I've eaten lots of Indian food in my time, thank you very much, and this is a side dish with a yoghurt base and salad vegetables.  Quite similar to the Greek dish tzatziki.  Art!

DO NOT USE FOREIGN RECIPE WORDS*!

"FONDU": Yeah, try solving a five-letter word that ends in "U" ta very much.  My CCD spells it correctly as "FONDUE" and their solution is the FRENCH spelling of the word.  Bah!  So much Bah!  Art?

More food.  I'm warning you.

DOG BUNS!

One of the people I follow on Twitter is "Spaghetti Kozak", whom had a promising Youtube channel that suddenly, post-SMO, stopped being updated.  It took me ages before putting two and two together and realising that he'd gone off to fight for Ukraine.  He'd posted vlogs of his visits to Kyiv on YT, he spoke Ukrainian and he'd served in the army so I ought to have made the connection quicker.  Art!

Spag and his incredibly ugly face.  Perhaps.

     He has a drinking game where he takes a swig for every internet troll and Krembot that tells him, if he loves Ukraine so much, why doesn't he go and fight there.  He might have to suspend it or his liver will quit.

     ANYWAY he posted this on Twitter tonight.  Art?

     Conrad, of course - obviously! - couldn't resist.

    Another Tweeter explained how it's a house centipede, is quite harmless to Hom. Sap. and eats up other, offensive creepy-crawlies.

     I see.

     BIOLAB ESCAPEE!

     Kill it before it carries off a small child!

"City In The Sky"

We now shift focus to the Australian communities on the southern coast, who are now going to witness the descent of Arcology One from orbit.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: Three By Nine

      A meeting of cultures, if not of minds, took place on the outskirts of New Eucla whilst the  Doctor and Orskan  were playing their deadly game of hide-and-seek in the Lithoi baseship.

     In accordance with their instructions, Alex and Terry had assembled everyone they could persuade, bamboozle, coerce or lie to, with transport and water and sunhats.  The Doctor had been big on sunhats for his own reasons. 

     This caravan of vehicles and horses stretched, creaking, clopping or rattling along, for half a mile, and it was a testament to the Doctor’s reputation that so many had turned up for a speculative mercy mission.  In a lying-up position to the west of Eucla, Ace and Kirwin had seen the approaching procession from their post outside the township.  At first they dismissed it as an unusually long trade convoy using the Eyre Highway, until it got closer and they realised the wagons and traps and silkies were empty.

     Their occasionally-present help and scout, the white-faced dingo leader that Ace had dubbed “Jack”, appeared at this most distracting moment and indicated it wanted at least one of the human pair to follow it.  Ace sighed, judged the approaching convoy to be at least ten minutes away and got up.

     Nope, sorry, no idea what that chapter title means.  The author was being deliberately obscure, I feel.

* Or I'll Remote Nuclear Detonate you.