The Greatest Mechanical invention

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

The late Neville Evans during the second part of his RAF career was a navigation and weapons aiming specialist and he did mostly inflight test and development work . He was a very clever man and I enjoyed having long talks with him about many diverse subjects .

On one occassion he was telling me all about navigation at night , over sea and in heavy cloud – ie no fixed ground marks or stars to be seen . In those pre GPS days there were radio beacons near most land formations but none that worked very far out to sea .

You had last landfall bearing , magnetic compass , Sperry gyro compass , indicated air speed and elapsed time to work with .

He told me that on a great circle route roughly East – West he could position the aircraft to an accuracy of +/- 5 miles per 300 miles run – pretty astonishing if you think about it . The really interesting thing though was that on a great circle route roughly North – South he could only initially position the aircraft within +/- 9 miles per 300 miles run . It was he that worked out why this was and developed a table of corrections .

As a little diversion he told me to go away and think about and see if I could work out as an abstract exercise what was happening and what the correction was .

I sat in my armchair for nearly 20 minutes before the penny finally dropped .

Michael Williams .

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

With a ship/boat, if you make landfall within 10 miles then you are a good navigator. Having sailed across the Atlantic in a 15Mtr. yacht the first sight of land after three weeks is very moving emotionally and mentally after three weeks on the sea.

We used way points that we used as markers and the daughter in law was a navigator and set these points which we sailed to and then reset to another. The display showed the sillouhette of a yacht sailing down a 3 mile wide channel and as long as we stayed in that channel on the display we arrived at at said waypoint. Navigating on sight of land was then by sight and chart.

Clive

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

My triumph of navigation was finding the summit of Cairngorm in fog with between 10 – 20 yards visibility one February morning.

On the way down we crossed alon the top of a large snow drift and I warned my mate about the risk of the edge being a cornice. The next day it avalanched killing two people.

Neil

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Michael Williams – Your Nav tale brings back memories of my Valetta conversion course back in the 50s. One of the course exercises was a night Navex around the North Sea. Navigator's charts and logs were handed in for inspection after flight and marked for accuracy/activity etc. One chap produced an immaculate track plot which showed remarkable accuracy all the way round with the major plots coming from 'running fixes' on an MF radio beacon (I even remember the callsign – MQI!!). The oddity about this beacon was that it was (according to the Nav's plot, in the MIDDLE of the N Sea!. Further investigation revealed that it didn't exist and that all the fixes were 'back-plotted' i.e. drawn in to 'agree' with where he should have been. This was ultimately ascribed to hypoxia – 8000', not on oxygen … hmm!

Said Nav aquired the nick-name'Mike Queenie Item' and was posted to El Adem as …Station Navigation Officer!!! The ways of Auntie Betty's Flying Club are, indeed, weird and wonderful

Rgds

Bill

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I had to laugh as my son and wife were plotting a course in the middle of the Atlantic using a blow up world ballon, she was showing him what a Rhumline was and how it affected navigation.

It is a path that follows the earths curvature as you dont navigate in straight lines.

The middle of the atlantic is full of life, birds and porpoise that came by the boat every morning and we were lucky to see a Right Whale.Flying fish plopped on deck as they were disturbed by the boat, also caught a 10kg Dorado which we ate the same day.

flotsam and wreckage abound as its carried around by the currents, we followed a line of empty wine bottles for ages but never saw the drinker and his boat. The Japanese trawlers were everywhere and a large mother ship.

Clive

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi all,

Back to the thread – sorry . I have just had my memory jogged and I think that in modern times one of the greates mechanical inventions, rather an evolution, was the safety bicycle. It came about around 1885 and within 10 years had revolutionised personal transport and industry

For those who don't know, the 'Safety Bicycle' was the forerunner of our modern bicycle with a crank and chain drive, trapezoidal tubular frame, pneumatic tyres brakes and steering. It was designed and made by J K Starley in Coventry. Previously bicycles and tricycles (mostly for women) were heavy, cumbersome and very expensive and some were very dangerous – the penny farthing, or 'Ordinary' was a deathtrap. until the Rover 'safety' ait was called a bicycle was way outside the means of an ordinary man or woman.

This invention led to quite significant social change. For the first time individual transport was available and men could get work at more distance than they could walk which meant more opportunity. Men and women could enjoy more leisure and get away from drab surroundings into the countryside.

Quote:-

"Even as the public eagerly awaited affordable automobiles, it rightly regarded the safety bicycle as one of the great technical and social contributions of the Victorian age. And although the humble bicycle would never again rule the road as it had in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it offered new and compelling opportunities for technical and commercial development."

History of The Bicycle -2004 by David V. Herlihy

This picture from 1894 shows how fast the technology had developed:

Regards

Terry

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

My sister tells the tale of how one night between Fiji an Vanuatu on their 16 M Catamaran, Don accidentaly bumped on of the throttle levers, dropping the revs to one engine, my sister heard the change in engine noise, but Don did not as he was partially deaf. Navigation was by GPS, with the course showing on a screen, and when Anne arrived at the helm the boat was making a large circle, you'v got to take note of whats going on. I think that 1/2 an hour and all back on the origional course.Unfortunately Don and Anne came home that year for Christmas(6yrs ago),and Don had a heart attack, and died, or they would still be motoring on, they intended heading for the Suez, and the Med.

As well as the GPS, they also had, and used a sextant, so were not entirely reliant on electronics.

Ian S C

[chris jParticipant @chrisj]

I'm surprised that the gun is not been the most influential.

That said we might all be better off if it wasn't invented.

I would vote for the foundry as without Iron & Steel pretty much everything mentioned so far on these posts would not be possible.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

How did they manipulate the wrought iron, a hammer and and anvil ! Every thing has a follow on as with the anvil then the trip hammer and the forge.

The Blacksmith, hence the name Smith etc. Horseshoes were important as were axles and wheel hubs leading to the Wheel Right and then onwards again up the ladder of development.

Clive

[chris jParticipant @chrisj]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 21/10/2012 22:17:25:

I had to laugh as my son and wife were plotting a course in the middle of the Atlantic using a blow up world ballon, she was showing him what a Rhumline was and how it affected navigation.

It is a path that follows the earths curvature as you dont navigate in straight lines………

Clive

That's sort of correct but as with all these things it's quite complex great circle,rhumb line, what kind of map, what's the distance grr.

 

 

 

Edited By chris j on 22/10/2012 15:25:46

[chris jParticipant @chrisj]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 22/10/2012 14:53:52:

How did they manipulate the wrought iron, a hammer and and anvil ! Every thing has a follow on as with the anvil then the trip hammer and the forge.

The Blacksmith, hence the name Smith etc. Horseshoes were important as were axles and wheel hubs leading to the Wheel Right and then onwards again up the ladder of development.

Clive

I guess that's true, complex eh.

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

Hi Graham ,

Aircraft are affected in flight in the same way that weather systems are by what are known as Coriolis forces . An aircraft flying on a nominally straight North South track experiences a force which causes its flight path to become a large radius curve . Pilot usually notes the changes of heading and corrects but simple correction of the heading is not enough and the aircraft continually sideslips at a very slow rate leading to a lateral positioning error after travelling longer distances .

'Systematic drift' as it was then called was known before the war but not really understood . Since long air journeys at that time were usually made in a series of relatively short hops and much of navigation was visually based no-one took much notice .

The coming of faster aircraft , longer non stop flights and more instrument based navigation methods made it nescessary to investigate the effect more properly . When investigated properly everyone was astonished to find how big an error it could introduce .

The effect varies with latitude and with direction of flight – North South flights worst and East West flights least .

On a 300 mile North South flight passing through latitude of UK error is 4 miles . On longer flights errors of up to 20 miles are possible .

The error is mathematically exact and for any given location , heading and speed an optimum correction can be calculated . Neville once showed me his nonogram for doing rapid corrections in flight .

The coming of much better electronic navigation aids from the sixties onwards made all the above academic since most modern systems give actual ground position and true heading and true speed . Any Coriolis force effect is now just lost in the almost continual small course heading corrections of modern flying .

Regards ,

Michael Williams .

PS : Neville never actually told me the reason but most of his fight navigation trials in very adverse conditions and his researches into dead reckoning navigation were taking place during the worst part of the Cold War – draw your own conclusions .

Edited By MICHAEL WILLIAMS on 23/10/2012 15:50:22

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

Posted by Terryd on 10/10/2012 15:12:31:

Posted by Trevor Wright on 10/10/2012 12:53:57:

Perhaps the first time a caveman made a stone hammer fills the bill, it seperated us from the animals and enabled the progress that eventually led to the agrarian revolution and the rest is history as they say.

But 'animals' use hammers – the local Blackbirds are adept at using an anvil ie a brick lying in the drive to crack open snails…

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 17/10/2012 10:21:30:

The new series on BBC4 "Order and Disorder" by Jim Al-Khalili, is superb.

If you missed the first part; catch it on iPlayer.

MichaelG.

Reminder: Don't forget to watch Part 2.

MichaelG.

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Steve,

Animals are known to make limited use of tools such as you mention but it is strictly a single use. The hammer as opposed to a stone is a deliberately fashioned and constructed versatile tool. For the first time a poorly equipped relatively defensive ape, i.e. early man could easily kill other animals instead of scavaging the left overs from other hunters or harvesting roots and seeds. They could defend themselves. The hammer could be used to smash open the tough hide of animals and break bones to release the nourishing marrow.  The hammer could be used to make other tools in the same way that the lathe did in the industrial revolution – no blackbird does that.  He sees the stone as an anvil and nothing more.

It is thought that the increase in meat content of the early man's diet was a major factor in increasing brain size and capacity because of the high protein content.

This is my post No 1666 so I should mention The Great Fire of London!

Best regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 24/10/2012 11:57:45

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

The "great motivator" for any advancements in a species is hunger, the quest for food

From watching stuff over the last 20 years of dogwalking I'm guessing that crows would have become the dominant species if humans hadn't come along

Us humans are a serious genetic anomaly

Dinosaurs didn't build a mud hut in 200 million years

Humans are on the moon in 10

The real key to species survival is getting off planet earth before it's turned into toast from a big rock etc

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Wouldn't it be just our luck to get to that new planet just before it was struck by the astereoid

Best regards

Terry

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Bear in mind that the nearest cluster of stars is 7 Light Years away, that is at the speed of light, it would take 7 years to get there !

Now I like to travel fast but never yet at the speed of light so lets say half the speed of light, thats 14 years to get there.

Still not possible so lets say one sixteenth the speed of light which is 112 years, thats over one generation in space.

Then you get there and find there are no habitable planets, what then ?

The logistics are enormous, food and water and prolonged time in space would wreak havoc on the human body.

I think I will just watch Star Trek.

Clive

[Richard MarksParticipant @richardmarks80868]

Gentlemen

All very interesting but can I ask you to consider the" Hinge" and its derivatives, useful for transferring power, repetitive location etc, also used a lot in the greatest mechanical device ever devised

THE HUMAN BODY

Dick

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Crows modify plant materials to use as different tools. Lots of research on new Caledonian crows. they even worked out how to do the Aesop's fable trick.

Another transatlantic navigation tail – my stepson agreed to crew a yacht from Grenada to UK via Azores. Not far out of the Azores a strom took out the autorudder so the two of them had to work alternate watches 24 hours a day. Lost all steerage in the channel and nearly got run own by a Tanker and escorted in by the coastguard!

Neil

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

"Then you get there and find there are no habitable planets, what then ?

The logistics are enormous, food and water and prolonged time in space would wreak havoc on the human body.

I think I will just watch Star Trek.

Clive"

Re: no habitable planets – I just hope you could get a decent coffee and a bacon sandwich for under $10 there….

Re: wreaking havoc on the body – can't be much worse than driving from Toronto Ontario to Winnipeg Manitoba in February…. Winnipeg in Feb reminds me of the description of the planet Pluto anyway, but Pluto might be a bit warmer…

Re Star Trek – I never got why, if they could beam down to a planet, why not just beam to the next galaxy they were going to, and save the hassle and elapsed time of warp drive?

One of them replicators they had on Star Trek would be mighty handy for making the wheels and brake gear for a 7 1/4" gauge 4-8-8-4 locomotive though.

JD

[Cyril BonnettParticipant @cyrilbonnett24790]

the printing press, without it information about most things wouldn't have been made so widely available.

My favourite is the sewing machine just about one of the most useful pieces of machinery every invented, why? cos it keeps the wife happy for hours on end.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Bear in mind that the nearest cluster of stars is 7 Light Years away, that is at the speed of light, it would take 7 years to get there !

Now I like to travel fast but never yet at the speed of light so lets say half the speed of light, thats 14 years to get there

——

The weirdest bit is:

As a pioneer you will be on the 14 year trip… risking everything

5 years later warp drive is invented

You arrive at planet A and it's already colonised because everyone arrived en-masse seven years ago…

Edited By Ady1 on 25/10/2012 01:11:27

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Like that last one Ady1, my guess is that the interplanetry travel will take a number of generations, maybe if it were possible to colinize the moon, it could be moved out of orbit, and used as the transport vehicle, it at least would have a small amount of gravity. Never say never! Ian S C

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

sorry double click Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 26/10/2012 11:31:37

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