My dad died when I was eight, but he was involved with DMWD in WW2 on a smoke laying rocket called the Swallow, it was one of Barnes Wallis's projects I believe, but Commander Norway (Nevil Shute) saw to the day to day running, it never went into service as the war had moved on, but they did lots of work on it, driving down from London to Bucklers Hard Beaulieu for testing from a tank landing craft in the Solent.
I had several transit vans and crewcabs etc including a Mk1 and a Bedford CF that both had the same Perkins 4.108 diesel ( I did meet the guy who designed that for Perkins he was retired and living in Topsham at the time), 65 mph! The advantage being 38 mpg, so not quite in the V8 class. Later I moved on to Iveco Daily vans, crewcabs and pickups which suffered slightly less from rust having a good strong chassis. Apart from rebuilding a Triumph Stag engine and the odd 3.5 Rovers I didn't have much to do with proper big V8s.
A friend had a Dodge Police car, not a replica, very high mileage and rough as a dogs behind, but the grunt that thing had was amazing.
I did fancy the idea of flying a Spitfire, but my reaction times and common sense stopped that
. I have a friend that flies light aircraft and occasionally brushes up other pilots helicopter skills, but apart from cheap package holidays in the late 70s financial commitments, (children and ex wives) have been a reality check flying wise
.
Flying planes you had helped put together? Probably less worrying than one someone else assembled.
A Stag , jeeze , i fancied a Stag . Gorgeous looking car , but i was always frightened it would get nicked . That was a 3 litre V8 if i remember correctly , but the engine has some longevity issues . Most i heard had been transplanted with a Rover unit . I almost brought one to replace the Fiesta i had at the time , but insurance was an issue . The Fiesta was only the second car i owned , and i spent a bloody fortune on it . It was the 3nd most expensive car that i've ever brought . A 1.3 ghia , silver , only 3/4 years old . The insurance was much cheaper than i thought considering the performance , and a fraction of the Stag . Fun to drive , but over powered , spent all it's time wheel spinning . Would go over the ton though , the most i had outta it was 110 , but that engine was making some really funny noises , it would do 105 happily though . Hopeless on fuel , i think only the high twenties . Course that could have been down to the way i drove it . I later had a mk 1 Granada 2 litre L estate , almost as big in the back as a tranny . Really comfortable , and though hopeless around town , on the open road it would walk all over the Fiesta for economy .
American police cars got the nickname "police special" . I've never been able to get it confirmed , but i believe they are souped up from birth . They are powerful , but then it's no good chasing a Jag in a Metro is it .
I gotta rude awakening quite early , when a work mate of mine brought a Pontiac Firebird . Blue , T top , full 6.6 litre , lovely looking car , but is was nicked something like 6 months after he got it , never to be seen again . He reckoned it was probably broken for spares , and that kinda affected the type of cars i brought , even now . I had become a trucker by then , so the car spent a lot of time sat in the yard , wrong car would have been easy meat . So i've always kept cheap old bangers . I did toy with getting a 4 wheel drive at one time , loved the early Range Rovers , but again insurance was an issue , that and the 18mpg . So i looked at the first Fiat Panda with it's little 1000cc fire engine . Only a little engine , but it's weight enabled it to almost match the Range Rover off road performance . I was looking for a new one to replace the Fiesta , but the salesman didn't really seem interested in selling one . In fact i seemed to know more about it than he did .
It was about that time Suzuki released the SJ410 , and i looked at that , until i discovered the release of the 413 was imminent , so decided to wait for one of them . Same engine size of my Fiesta , but the release was delayed when it failed the roll over test , i got cold feet and in the end brought a boat . I pretty much stopped looking at cars after that . Didn't return till the late nineties , when i brought a basket case 500cc motorcycle , and that is where i began to get really serious with spanners . Got 4 motors now , a 28 year Citroen diesel , that returns 72 mpg . A 16 year old Suzuki carry , and a 23 year Hymer motorhome , 2.8 idtd . Also got a little Skyteam Dax 125cc , now that is seriously good fun to ride . 110 mile to the gallon , basically a copy of a 70's Honda . Officially it goes on the back of the motorhome , but in reality ? . I sold my other bikes , 4 of them including the original basket case , that i returned to the road .
As for my flying , well i did finally gain my pilot ticket , jeeze i guess nearly 20 years ago now , on Hang gliders . I'm also rated power , so i can officially chuck myself off a cliff , or fly from a flat field . I sold my boat a couple of years ago , after buying the motorhome . Long story , short , i became involved with the hang gliding school where i trained , and began to spend long periods on site during the summer . The school is based in Spain , by a couple of ex-pats , but they returned here during the summer , to train in Norfolk . It kicked off with me camping , but i wanted a bit more comfort , and a reliable van to get over there , and maybe down to Spain as well . I've spent thousands on the duke overhauling , restoring , and updating it ready to get there , but then one of the partners had a stroke and died , just before Covid kicked off a couple of years ago , and right now the school is not really functioning . So with current events notwithstanding , and my own retirement close on the horizon , i've been giving serious thought to replacing the boat , maybe as soon as this year , and retiring completely . I just dunno yet .
I did live on my old boat for a couple of years , after being made redundant from where i worked . Frankly i loved it , but realistically at 25 ft it was too small . Fine for my age at the time , but now i'm older , i need a bit more headroom , so i'm looking for something about 5ft longer . I would have almost total control of pretty much everything , plus be able to move at will , to wherever I wanted . Being brutal , the futures not looking rosy here and i'm becoming increasingly uneasy with the direction this country is headed , especially from a pensioner perspective .
So , DWMD , gotta be honest , i've never heard of it . But Commander , Bucklers hard , LST's , hmmm does sound Navy to me , i'm gonna have to google that . I believe smoke was classed as something to do with weapons , but nah , i'm gonna have to look it up .
Never did fancy flying a Spit , would take a ride in one though . I love the thing , but they're too valuable to let me loose in one . In the main i've flown Pipers , Cessna's , and briefly a Fuji . Being up in a Bell 222 , and Westland Scout . Also messed around with a couple of microlights . I've got about 13-14 hours as p.u.t (pilot under training) , and about 25 P1 (pilot in command) on the Doodlebug , powered hang glider . God knows how much i've got as a hang glider pilot . Must be many hundreds of launches , some long , some just up and down . To be honest , i've never recorded them all , due to the school environment , so much to do , so little time to do it . Even got a little flight time on model aircraft , but i think it's safe to say that amounts to more crashes than actual landings .
