Westland Sea King (Haynes Manual)

To mark its final year of service in the forefront of UK Search & Rescue (SAR) Haynes bought out this manual on the Westland Sea King last year and its a very good edition in the Haynes line. The Sea King is iconic of course, originally a US designed and built helicopter, the UK version built by Westland has served in the Falklands, Gulf Wars, Afghanistan though this book concentrates on the HU5 version used for SAR duties.

The book starts with a short general history of the use of helicopters in rescue operations and then the development of the Westland Sea King. Much of the book is taken up with the Sea King's innards and how to maintain it (as you would expect from a Haynes manual!) What is most interesting here is the more specialised equipment unique to a SAR helicopter and role. The book ends with a few examples of the many rescues and recovery operations the Sea King was involved with during its career.

The end of the Sea King also means the end of Royal Navy involvement in SAR as the role passes to a civilian contractor working for the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, in a way the passing of the Sea King HU5 from service is sad but the new SAR fleet is much more up-to-date and modern which will be welcomed by anyone in trouble! One wonders though if the new service and it's equipment will get immortalised in a Haynes manual one day?

'D' For Diesels : 8 (Booklaw)

As with other titles in this series this book presents a good and varied collection of black & white photos from the early days of British Rail "modern traction", specifically the days before TOPS numbers and the diesels were largely (but not always) green. The photos are accompanied by captions written in a conversational style, often pithy (though sometimes it does fall a bit flat).

This volume mainly features the photos of Gavin Morrison and covers the whole range of BR diesels from lowly shunters to huge main line locomotives. The photos are mainly taken in the 1960s and show a rail network and indeed a Britain before the ravages of standardisation and corporate identities.

Maybe everything was all a bit simpler and more innocent back then but nostalgia, like everything else, is not like it used to be.

The London Underground Electric Train (Crowood)

There are many books on the development of the tube trains of London Underground, quite a few of them really good too and this is another one to add to that list.

This excellent book approaches the subject from a novel direction: instead of a standard history of the LU network and its rolling stock this book instead describes the development of the many technologies that went into the LU train as we know now and how they all fit together. So starting with the earliest electric traction in the first tubes we see how electric motors and control systems, bogies, bodywork, brakes et cetera developed over the decades.

The book is well illustrated throughout, with a number of diagrams that explain how the various systems work. The London Underground was the first deep-level underground system in the world but it owes so much to early developments in the US as well as decades of evolution and different paths (not all of which worked). Much development work is ongoing and the book is very up-to-date with the latest details of the New Tube for London which will finally replace my beloved 1972 Stock in the next decade (perhaps).

Bogies at the LT Museum Depot

Sopwith F.1/2F.1 Camel (Haynes Manual)

Once Haynes just did car manuals but sensibly have opened their horizons much further these days as less people are willing/able to maintain their own ever more advanced automobiles. Here is a Haynes manual therefore for the Sopwith Camel, the first truly famous British aeroplane. It could, of course, be of use for owners of the WW1 icon but the vast majority of readers will never own the plane, so is the book worth having?

Haynes manuals are very good value for the money, very readable and very well presented. These manuals for historic vehicles usually include a potted history of the type in question and then go on to technical details as to how it was built and how it can be maintained. The Camel book is no exception. The history of the Camel also includes a brief history of the origins of the RAF. Its a good read but maybe should have been gone in to a little more depth.

The technical portion of the manual does goes into depth on how the Camel was built. I find with these manuals there tend to be sections of interest and others which i skip over. The section on starting the engine for example is very good.

So yet again a good Haynes manual, and if ever i manage to get myself a Sopwith Camel (which isn't in 1:72 scale) i'll know how keep it all together!

N6812 at the Imperial War Museum

Colouring in is the new rock and roll

Colouring in books for adults are the latest hip trend some selling millions of copies, a colleague has even seen a typography related one (which is maybe a little too hipster). At first i could not see the appeal of colouring in which i thought was something i grew out of when i was about 8 then i saw the Haynes Cutaway colouring in book...

Yes cutaway drawings of cars from Haynes manuals to colour in! I got the book today along with a pack of coloured pencils and happily began colouring away. As others have said it is relaxing and takes you away from the cares of the world and also gets you away from technology. I recommend doing some colouring in. Even typography. As for my first project well it had to be the Lada Riva which was my first car...

Book Review : Transatlantic Airships - An Illustrated History

Airships are one of my obsessions and books on them i hungrily consume. Transatlantic Airships is not a general history of airships though does cover a great deal of their heyday and more recent developments. It concentrates on airships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean, seen as the great barrier in early aviation. Transatlantic passenger flights were seen in the 1920s as the great commercial opportunity for airships like the famous zeppelin, able to take passengers in comfort long distances. This was something the fixed wing aircraft of the time was far beyond being able to match.

In his well written and brilliantly illustrated book John Christopher describes the early history of the airship, both rigid and non-rigid and the advances in technology sparked by the First World War with the German zeppelins gaining longer and longer legs. The first airship to cross the Atlantic non-stop though was British, R34 which crossed from East to West in July 1919. Although the fixed wing aircraft beat it across with Alcock and Brown crossing in the other direction in their former Vimy bomber just 2 weeks beforehand, R34 did make the first return crossing by an aircraft. R34's epic journey is covered in great detail as are a number of other crossings, the book throughout is well illustrated with excellent photographs and period graphics and maps.

Despite the British lead (whose interest in airships was finally destroyed in the R101 crash) it was the German zeppelins who made passenger flights across the Atlantic their own with airships of increasing size and complexity culminating in the Hindenberg. The airship was holding its own in its special niche in the 1930s despite increasing competition by aeroplanes. The level of comfort that could be offered unmatched until the wide-bodied jet airliners of the 1970s (albeit for the rich only). Of course the airship was a lot slower but when you are rich maybe the time to travel  does not matter too much as a smoking room and a grand piano, as the Hindenberg had, does. The Hindenberg disaster killed off the commercial airship business though by then it was largely restricted to the zeppelin Atlantic trade.

If the Hindenberg had not blown up on that dreadful day in May 1937 its interesting to consider for how much longer the zeppelins would have crossed the Atlantic. It is likely they could have continued for a few more years though the disaster and the Second World War killed off the dream. That is not the end of the story the book recounts however as the wartime exploits of the US Navy's blimp squadrons (or blimprons) which on occasion crossed the Atlantic to get to their assignments in Europe are also included. The book ends with a look at recent airship developments including the Zeppelin NT though airships crossing the Atlantic carrying passengers in decadent comfort is probably a dream that will never live again.

Dreams are something the book covers well. Many futuristic (and outlandish) designs for airships were made in both sides of the war, even nuclear powered airships being considered at one stage but all of these dreams came to nothing. But it is good to dream after all, even if the dream is ultimately doomed.

Book code

Last night i finally got around to reading an old paperback book which i had bought off eBay years before. The book (the novelization of Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" no less) is in reasonable condition though is rather faded and looks like it has passed through quite a few hands since it was printed in the early 1970s. The content itself is of course cheese central. But there is nothing wrong with that on occasion...

However on the second page of the story i found the word "man" circled. This struck me as rather random and i have not detected any other circled words yet. Of course having watched far too many spy dramas over the years i immediately thought of secret codes.

I suppose what might be fun might be to circle random words in a book you sell or give away and hope that one day you drive an amateur cryptographer mad trying to work out what you meant...

Tom and Jerry Annuals 1973 & 1979

Two more reviews of Tom & Jerry comic annuals.

Tom & Jerry Annual 1973

We approach the mid-70s and the Tom & Jerry cartoon has all gone a bit hippie. Tom is no longer trying to catch the mice but instead is drinking tea with them, that soon changes however but even then when he is catching them its because of some ulterior motive (i.e. money) than anything else.

Tom also tries his hand at a bit of sculpture and building a pirate ship. He does such a good job of the latter you wonder if his talents are being a bit wasted.

The stories in this annual are a lovely variety indeed including a Mouse Musketeers story supposedly set in pre-revolution France where Tom becomes a "pooseycat"!

Tom & Jerry Annual 1979

This annual includes some later artwork and the drawings arn't quite as good as before. The stories are up to spec though and include a memorable one where Tom becomes an ice skating waiter at a mountain top cafe in Switzerland.

In nearly all of the stories Tom is no longer chasing the mice but instead being menaced by ghosts or trying to become a TV advert star.

The best story however is a little more traditional (and has the classic era artwork natch). In one of my favourite Tom & Jerry stories Tom takes up knitting and confused by this change of behaviour Jerry and Tuffy begin a scientific study of the cat.

Mountain Engines

A long time ago, before a TV series bought them into the big time, i read and loved the Railway Series of books by the Rev. W. Awdry, Thomas the Tank Engine et al. I had all of the original series books, as well as some audio book versions which were recorded by Johnny Morris. The books might be in my parents' attic somewhere but i decided to buy a couple of the series anyway to have a bit of a nostalgic hit.

The first one i have got is Mountain Engines, set on a rack railway that climbs the mountain Culdee Fell. As i read it the memories came flooding back, lovely stories to grasp a childhood imagination and i was reminded of how beautiful the original artwork was by Gunvor and Peter Edwards.

Return to the Wild West

I read a lot, much of it fiction. Thats why i love my Kindle so much of course. On that (and dead tree volumes) i tend to read Star Trek novels and Scandinavian detective stories of course though occasionally i read something else. In fact last week i read a Nancy Mitford novel (Highland Fling), and it was very good though totally different to what i usually read of course.

One kind of story i used to read a lot were Westerns, i used to be an avid reader of books by the likes of JT Edson and Jim Slaughter. Many of these books i borrowed from Erdington and Shard End public libraries (readers who come across this blog post in some future archive may not know what a library is as the Tories are currently trying to abolish them but it was a way to borrow books for free).

I haven't read a western for years though but that changed when Jim Slaughter popped into my mind (as random things so often do) and of course within 5 minutes i was on the Amazon website buying one of his books (a second hand hardback older than me, though was only a couple of quids). Later on i also bought a Kindle-ified western story (Armageddon at Gold butte) for a similar price and that story i am reading now.

I think i prefer having my head in the stars but its nice to return to Terra Firma now and then, even if the setting of a Wild West gold rush town is probably just as strange as Deep Space 10. Though you probably get less Andorians.

Kindle sleeve

In January i bought a Kindle e-reader which i truly love, and you can read a post on my other blog about it here. However one thing about the Kindle is that it does feel less robust than some other items such as the iPad so i thought it was time i bought a sleeve or case for the Kindle. After some debate with colleagues via Twitter i decided upon this Timbuk2 sleeve which fits the Kindle perfectly. Its a very nicely made sleeve though rather pricy. You get what you pay for of course and hopefully this will keep my Kindle safe through countless Star Trek novels.