Found Collection

There I was driving home from the superb IRW at Largs (thanks again to all
who helped organise the event) when I turned left off the motorway onto the
A69 to go and pick up my wife from her parents in deepest Northumbria. I
decided to branch off and take the old Roman 'military' road along side
Hadrians wall. 'So what?' you say. Well naturally enough my mind was full of
rockets and what should appear but a sign saying 'Spadeadam 4 miles'. I
always thought it was in Yorkshire! As it is so close to my inlaw's I'm
going to pop over to see what part of Britain's space heriatge is still
there next time I go up, although I guess the place is still off limits to
civillians.

The Ariane 4 is about finished (bummer it never got to fly at the IRW) and
I'm looking ahead at my next project. Seeing the sign to Spadeadam made me
wonder about building a model of a Blue Streak missile. I've got some scale
data from Rockets of the World as it formed part of the ELDO launcher but
does anyone have any data of the vehicle as a missile? I've found a few nice
web pages showing pictures of the vehicle but none that any reasonable data
could be gleened from. I should have made that trip over to East Fortune
with the Permans on Thursday but I was working. Having the Blue Streak next
to the Ariane at the same scale (already found a tube!) would be quite nice,
a sort of progression of European vehicles.

By the way, I think I left two brand new cans of spray paint lying about at
Largs. One was a can of Pasticote primer and the other was Plasticote White
gloss. They may have been in a B and Q bag along with an unopened pack of
sand paper. Anyone find them at the end of the session? Bummer, I'd driven
over to Irvine (no not Jerry) specially for them.

Phil

Where? I presume this place has some significance to rockets...?

I can't wait to see the finished product, it looked too cool just sitting
there waiting to fly.

[Blue Streak stuff snipped...]

Doh! That turned out to be a very successful trip then! Ben, you still owe
us some dosh for that copper tubing, did you use it in the end?

Bob.                                            http://www.ocston.org/~bobar
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Lager is an imitation Continental beer drunk only by refined ladies,
people with digestive ailments, tourists, and other weaklings."        
                                               - Munchen Suddeutsche Zeitung

On Thu, 2 Sep 1999 00:21:29 +0100, "Phil Bulmer"

I think John Bonsor has the dimensions, I will enquire tonight..and
about the paint.

bob

--

 _______________BOB_______________
    But your wise men don't know
     How it feels to be TaaB
 _______________WARK_______________

Spadeadam (pronounced 'Spade-Adam', unless you are my father in law who
calls it 'Spud-ee-dum') is the place where Blue Streak was tested. Nothing
actually flew from there but they made enormous structures and blast pits to
static test the finished vehicles prior to shipping them off to Woomera. The
place is a rot hole now by all accounts -the whole story of British rocketry
is a sad one to say the least (blame Tony Benn, he was the twonk who pulled
the funding and let the French have 4 billion worth of satellite launch
trade).

It's getting cooler by the minute. It should be ready to fly on Sept 19th at
the next Thrust meeting or at K lob.

Yeah, scroll saw blades of the wrong size, paint I left 'somewhere' and
those Scotch pies were disgusting (They're normally fine when warm).

I'm not owed anything although I did speak to Ben and it turned out that he
wasn't the person who wanted it.

Zeitung

Strange that, larger is the only thing that actually gives me indigestion.
Who's this Munchen bloke anyway?

Phil

I've found this site and it is well worth a look if you are interested in
British rocketry, especially Blue Streak.

http://members.aol.com/nicholashl/ukspace/ukspace.htm

Phil

There's also this one:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/6133/index.html

--

David Hart
To reply, remove the XXX from my email address:

[snipped...]

Right, I figured it was something like that...

Cool, I don't know if I'll make the Thrust launch now that I'm going to K-Lob,
so it'd better not spack!

There was nowt wrong with those pies, they were ace!

It's a German newspaper... They did an article of the bland fizzy ***that
British brewers pass off as Lager...

Bob.                                            http://www.FoundCollection.com/~bobar
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Lager is an imitation Continental beer drunk only by refined ladies,
people with digestive ailments, tourists, and other weaklings."        
                                               - Munchen Suddeutsche Zeitung

I've got the bag Phil complete with paint and sandpaper...wondered who's
it was...dunno how it ended up in the MARS area but I found it when we
unloaded the van.

I'll give it to you at K-lob mate.

Ben

----------
Ben Jarvis
----------

Technical Director C4 ltd
'Industrial Fire and Brimstone'

Tripoli cert level 3
UKRA cert level 2
MARS flight crew

You mean we argued about who had blagged the paint, for nothing :)

bob 1
--

 _______________BOB_______________
    But your wise men don't know
     How it feels to be TaaB
 _______________WARK_______________

Ben,

I know how it got there. I took the whole bag of goodies over to the MARS
area because you had borrowed the scroll saw. I took the new pack of saw
blades out of the bag to fit one (wrong size as it turned out) and then
forgot to pick the bag up afterwards.

What was the copper tube for? Launch lugs?

K-Lob will do just fine for the paint. When exactly is K-Lob? We need to
book up a curry house in advance, we don't want to run about like we did
last year although that Chinese wasn't bad at all.

Whilst you're on the net, have a look at alt.binaries.model.rockets (our
special non plural 'model' UK version that nobody in the US can get) and see
the photos that Bob Arnott has put up. There's one of Kev Bullet Sticky
thing chuffing out some smoke prior to lunging skywards.

I'd like to second the EOS camera debate. I've got the EOS 50E and it is
superb. It's the top of the range before you get to the professional stuff.
Prices are good at the moment as the far east is having a bad time of
things. Alternatively buy one in the States when you're next over there,
they are much cheaper (as with everything over there) :-((

Phil.

Hi,

I can't seem to find it in my newsgroup list. Is it my ISP? (I use demon)

I can't get this one either, is it restricted to ***?

We get our feed from BT and I can see it, the newsgroup that is not anyone
else's posts except for mine...

Bob.                                            http://www.FoundCollection.com/~bobar
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Lager is an imitation Continental beer drunk only by refined ladies,
people with digestive ailments, tourists, and other weaklings."        
                                               - Munchen Suddeutsche Zeitung

It's a *** Net***up. I asked them to place a.b.m.r on the server but
rather than go and find the existing group they created a new one. I've
complained a few times but they are sooooo slow to reply and don't appear to
realise what they have done despite my clear explaination. They acknowledged
my last message but only to say that a.b.m.r would be added to *** Net in
14 days. They may add a third a.b.m.r if the same monkey is left at the
controls again.

And damn fine they are Bob. There are some real super photos there lodging
on the 'decoy' group. Got any more? I really like the aquajet showing the
streak of water followed by spray at 'burnout'.

Phil

Go look up their board-of-directors. Then call up the old number and ask
for the supervisor. If the supervisor won't help, ask for their
supervisor. Anyone who says they can't give you their supervisor, quote
them the name and number of the Board executives and tell them the next
number you will next speak to either their supervisor or the board
executives. Follow up. If the board is uncooperative then call the
government authority regulating them. Keep going. Right to the top if
you have to.

My dad always followed this tactic and it always worked. Here in the US
if a Govt Agency person wouldn't give their supervisor the retort would
be that you would file a FOIA request for that info and if they refused
then, they would be sued for the info. (This actually got action once
with Social Security).

People don't like you calling their bosses on them. Some of you may
think that your response to such a person would be to put their demand
on the bottom but that doesn't work in real-life when your boss calls
you and demands to "get this person off my butt". When their feet are
put to the white-hot fire, your request doesn't remain at the bottom of
their pile very long.