100-Tons of Inspiration
In which I dig into the Brabazon’s 100-Ton roots plus the usual round up of stuff online.
This week has been a week of more Brabazon research as I work on pulling together the information for the chapter on how a short paragraph in a government specification was turned into the designs for the largest land plane ever built in Britain.
This piece from a book called Take Flight (Andrew and Melanie Kelly - 2010) that I picked up at our recent visit to the Aerospace Bristol museum has to be one of the best summaries of the aircraft design process I’ve read:
“Designing and building an aeroplane is a long, complex business, which takes inspiration, imagination, hard graft, trial-and-error, team-work, luck, and capital, among other things. There is an element of risk-taking and the acceptance of failure, although physical risks obviously have to be minimised when dealing with large civil airliners as too many lives are at stake.
The complexity of the process increases as the aircraft gets bigger. It can start from a brand-new idea that no one has ever thought of. More often, the idea improves or builds on something that has gone before.”
Although the unique aspects of the Bristol Brabazon project give the impression that it was a one-off design, in fact it was based in part on an existing idea.
The Bristol Aeroplane Company had already done a design study in 1937 for a long-range strategic bomber, so when invitations were extended in 1942 for studies related to a heavy 100-ton bomber, they were at an advantage. This led to a design with a range of 5,000 miles, 225-foot wing span, and eight buried engines driving four pusher propellers. It had a thin fuselage and butterfly tail. (See the illustration below) However the Royal Air Force decided to stay with the proven Lancaster bomber, so nothing came of the Bristol design.
But many aspects of the 100-ton bomber design, such as the buried engines, were later carried over into concepts that were incorporated into the Brabazon design. More on that to come in the coming weeks.
Other Stuff
Thanks to the new subscribers who have joined since last week. I really appreciate your interest and support. If you would like to join them you can subscribe below.
Word Slinging
Earlier in the week I took my iPad with me while the car was in for a service with aim of working on a short story I’m currently writing. - Nothing. Nada. No words were forthcoming.
I stopped by the cafe at Barnes & Noble afterward to grab a coffee and get out my notebook and pencil - Wham - 1000 words and set up for the next major scene just like that.
I guess sometimes you just need to change the medium to get the words to flow.
That seemed to unlock the creative juices for the following day I added a few more pages in the notebook, and I now have the story planned through to its conclusion. I guess I’ll be completing the rest of the work with good old-fashioned paper and pencil.
Pages and Screens
Books Read in 2023 - “No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy” by Mark Hodkinson
The story of a young lad growing up in Manchester in the 1970s and discovering a love of reading, and collecting books. That’s me!
To start with this was a definite trip down memory lane, not just in finding familiar places and stores name-checked, but also in the descriptions of what it means to lose yourself in a book, the self-discovery, education, and escapism of reading.
But about halfway through I lost interest. Probably in part because mine and the author’s life experiences from the 80s onwards diverged and that thread of nostalgia was broken; but also because the narrative became less about the love of reading and more a self-indulgent, meandering semi-biographical series of stream-of-consciousness diversions.
Podcast Procrastinations
Before They Were Beatles podcast -.This week we’ve been in full-on editing and production mode for the upcoming episode that focuses on the creation of the new Beatles tribute band - Tha Savage Young Beatles.
And talking of Before They Were Beatles, just a reminder that if you’d like to keep up with the progress of the work on the 20th Anniversary edition of the Before They Were Beatles book you can sign up for a subscription to the dedicated Substack monthly newsletter HERE. -
Weekly Web Round-Up
This week my latest column for CMS Wire was published, check it out HERE to find out how a conversation about singers in Black Sabbath led to some thoughts about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in eCommerce.
Batman On The Cover - This week we continue our look at the Bat books from around the world released in December 1967 with contributions from Denmark, France, Germany, and Italy.
The standout for this week has to be the German one for its fun color palette and sense of movement. You really get the sense of the Dynamic Duo rushing to the scene of yet another dastardly crime.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s Rambles. As always don’t forget to sign up for a FREE subscription so you don’t miss future updates.
See you next time
Alan J. Porter