We took a trip to the nearby Stamford, an ancient market town where Maryanne spent her early school years, and returned daily via a bus for her A-level Years (equivalent to Senior High in the USA). Although Maryanne's family lived on the more modern outer areas of the town
We joined the local Morris dancers for the traditional Wassailing of the apple trees (it was a tad cold but worth it)
Of course the main purpose of the visit was to spend some quality time with family - so we did that too. Visiting with a couple of Maryanne's brothers:in this case Richard and his family, Paul (and his family), and also celebrating Dad's 77th birthday (and spoiling his dog Toby)
Our first big trip took us to Liverpool for a few days and then to Derby to visit cousins. Liverpool is a beautiful city, but the weird thing was that no one else seemed to notice that the weather was just AWFUL pretty much all of the time. Oh, how I miss the tropics. England definitely seems to be an indoor country.
Liverpool to see cousin Rachel - where we are kicking ourselves that we failed to get a group picture during our vist! Liverpool is also the place that Maryanne first went to University in the UK, and of course, home of the Beatles
With a sidetrip to the nearby Crosby beach with its artwork by Anthony Gormley
On the road between family we stopped at Tatton Park to enjoy a stroll with the deer (and a cuppa)
And on to Derby to visit cousin Nicola and her family (that visit was decades overdue, and we were especially delighted that both her children returned home to see us!)
The main non-family highlight for our visit to Derby was definitely the private tour we got of the Rolls Royce aviation engine factory's heritage area. Maryanne's cousin Nicola and her husband Daniel are both engineers who used to work there. Daniel now works for one of their contracting companies.
We got to see so many gems on the tour. The first was Henry Royce's own personal lathe, which he used to make the first engine parts that would eventually lead to the formation of the company which would become a multinational conglomerate.
They have one of the first cars here. It turns out Rolls Royce only produces the hidden machinery underneath. The bodies and all of the plush interior furnishings were later added by coach makers.
We then moved on to the part of the tour in which I was most interested - aircraft engines. They have a beautiful cutaway version of the venerable Merlin engines that powered Spitfires, Hurricanes, and P-51 Mustangs during World War II. Without this engine, the outcome of the war may have been very different.
We then moved on to jet engines. There were a lot of interesting examples to see, but even though they weren't the biggest, my two favorites were the AE3007 and the Olympus 593.
Now I realize that non-pilots may be starting to glaze over at this point, but bear with me. If you really can't take it, skip to where the numbers stop.
The first thing that struck me about these very different engines is that they are almost exactly the same size.
The AE3007 is the engine that I have by far the most time operating, being the one that powers the Embraer 135/145 series. I know this engine's systems inside and out. The ironic thing was that since it's mounted well out of reach on the airplane, I spent my whole career without ever actually being able to touch one, apart from indirectly through the engine controls. Now, I could poke around it to my heart's delight, which was a lot. Later, I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to find that NO ONE took a picture of me next to the engine.
The Olympus 593 is the engine that used to power the Concorde. The Olympus 593 is a pure turbojet engine, meaning that all of the air that enters the intake passes through the combustion section, where it is mixed with fuel and burned, whereas the AE3007 only uses the middle sixth, categorizing it as a turbofan. Plus, of course, Concorde's engines have afterburners, which adds even more fuel literally only a couple of centimeters from the back. This allows the Olympus 593 to produce four times as much thrust as the AE3007, which it achieves by burning sixteen times as much fuel. That is why airliners these days are all powered by big, high-bypass turbofans. The AE3007, however, would literally melt apart at Concorde speeds.
We finished the tour amongst the really big turbofans, and then Rolls Royce's experimental electric airplane, the ACCEL. It is only glider-sized, but has reached 336 knots and holds the world records for speed and time-to-climb for electric vehicles.
We were very pleased that out one-hour tour had graciously been extended to two. Of course, it could only really scratch the surface. Luckily, we had Daniel to fill in the gaps. He could do things like point out that the guide had totally glossed over some particularly interesting feature or another. For example, did you know that on the -453 version, they use a coriander infusion on the stipple-plating on the seals to keep the resonance coefficients from straying too far into the beta zone? It all has to do with viscosity at high temperatures and low pressures. Or was it low temperature at high pressures? I'm glad he's got it straight, because he's the one who works there. When he's not working, he's an internationally ranked hovercraft racer. Of course, he designs and builds the craft himself in the shop he has behind the house. I just wish I hadn't eaten all of those paint chips as a kid…
{Maryanne:While I was loving my time in the UK for spending quality time with family, I can see Kyle's focus may have been a little different - haha!}
After coming "home" for a few days, we did a long trip to see Maryanne's brother Russell and his family in Cornwall. Cornwall has a very well-deserved reputation for beauty and Russell has been there long enough to know the best spots for a flying visit.
On route to Cornwall we stopped at Cheddar Gorge for the scenery and a bit of traditional cheese making (and sampling)
Visiting Maryanne's brother Russell and his family in Cornwall. In between rain showers we throughly enjoyed the great outdoors - but again failed to remember to get a group shot during our visit - Doh!
Russell convinced us to swing by Roche Rock before we left
I was keen for Kyle to visit The Eden project with its two magnificent biomes (Rainforest and Mediterranean)
We fitted in a cream tea at the Jamaica Inn famed for its smuggling past (and the Daphne Du Maurier's book of the same name, and its brief ownership by writer Alistair Maclean)
Visiting Cousin Helen in Colchester, along with Uncle Neil - we got to explore the local sightseeing highlights and some old family haunts. And AGAIN failed to get the group family photo with us all in it when we were treated to a fine meal that first evening!
On the way north, we stopped in Essex for a week or so to visit more family for more trips down memory lane. Then we topped it off with a visit to Richard and Jan, from SV Morpheus of London. We had last seen them in Queensland, just as they were selling Morpheus and heading home to the other side of the planet. It was nice, and weird at the same time, to be reunited in their beautiful house with British rain streaking the windows outside.
Meeting up with Jan and Richard (of SV Morpheus of London); another fun weekend with a side trip to Leeds Castle where the weather obliged and we were also able to enjoy a falconry show (picture is of one of their owls)
On the way back to Maryanne's Dad's house, we finally made a trip to the International War Museum (IWM) at the Duxford airport. Maryanne has been telling me she has been wanting to get me there pretty much from the day we met. Things kept coming up that made it inconvenient to go, but now we had a car and it was practically on the way home. It reminds me of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in its scope and variety of examples for the aviation enthusiast to enjoy.
And the Duxford's Imperial War Museum with its fine collection of old planes kept Kyle enthralled
My favorites were the Concorde, the inside of which looks like two Embraer 145 cabins laid end-to-end. At the pointy end is a cockpit that now looks decidedly stone-age. Also they had an SR-71, which is never going to be anything other than super cool.That one, you can walk right up to and touch. Maryanne humo(u)red me as I dragged her around and gave her far more detailed explanations of various things than she strictly needed.
The last one came as she was wearily trying to make for the exit. I had spotted a rotary engine and dragged her back to see it. I had only read about it, but had never seen one for real. Basically, the engine was a fantastically bad idea that fortunately was only in use for a short time. It looks a lot like the subsequent radial engines you see on 1940s era aircraft like the DC-3, but with one important difference: Unlike the radial engine, which uses the pistons to turn a crankshaft which is attached to the propeller, in the rotary engine, the crankshaft is bolted to the airframe and the WHOLE engine spins with the propeller. The spinning mass caused so much torque and gyroscopic precession that any airplane equipped with a rotary engine was ridiculously difficult to control, not to mention being a maintenance nightmare. I chuckle thinking about that moment when the light bulb went on and somebody realized that could bolt down the big part and let the little part spin instead. Thus, the wildly successful radial engine was born. With that last thing explained, Maryanne was finally released to return to the car for our drive back "home" to her Dad's.
We then went northwest to visit more family in Lancashire. Maryanne has a new big sister, Heather, which is beautifully pronounced "‘evah" in the local dialect. She and her husband Mark welcomed us into their beautiful home pretty much sight unseen. We all got along great, although the visit was a short one.
The swing north gave us the opportunity to do a couple of side-stops along the way. The first was a quick detour to Preston to have a look at the ol' marina where we spent the winter of 2010-2011. it's still pretty grim, even though it was much warmer this year than then. When we went to the marina office, I was sad to see a memorial photo of Chris Miller, who was the founder and manager during our winter there. He died in 2016. He really was a great guy who worked hard to take care of us and all of the others.
A side trip to Preston Marina, where we'd once spent a very cold 8 months or so between June 2010 and March 2011
Maryanne's first time meeting with her (older) half-sister Heather - one of the many highlights of this trip back to the UK
We even managed to fit in a small lunch stop at Annie and Mike's, where we'd spent Christmas. Annie insisted on feeding us way more than we had needed. Even so, we managed to keep up our laugh per bite ratio until it was time to drag ourselves away and return to Bourne again.
No comments:
Post a Comment