Biggles' Mess

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Well you'd hard pushed to compete with us Ken - it started with the Point of Ayr and just got bigger and bigger and bigger - the Irish Ferry has to sail round them now! When I first moved to Hoylake 26 years ago you could look out over the sea to the horizon and see only the occassional ship. Now,...as you say "The War of Worlds" has nothing on it. None of them ever turn though!

Did you know that if they generate electricity with these things and we don't need it, they get paid anyway! It cost millions last year paying them for electricity nobody wanted! Crazy - no wonder the bills are so high.

BEB

[ken anderson.]

Posted by John Privett on 25/11/2013 20:41:09:

Do the ones at the harbour at Blyth ever go round Ken? Can't say I remember ever seeing them move - not that I've been up there for a year or two now...

.............................................

not now they don't john...they have been removed from the harbour after a 15 year lifespan.....and replaced by one giant one which towers over the town......and when the wind is in the right direction the residents complain about the noise off the enormous blades ....

ken Anderson ne...1.....enormous one dept.

[Erfolg]

It is much the same when coming down the M6, having passed Shap and approaching Kendal, the wind turbines seldom rotate,

Recently I was walking near Great Brougton (Cumbria), I was contemplating, that I had gone away on the one week end when the gales had finished, and now, not a breath of wind. When i spotted a whole forest wind mills, stationary, except one that slowly rotated, balancing the grid. I guess the operators get paid for that as well.

Being positive the IMechE reassures us that wind turbines do generate more power than their manufacture consumes. Strangely, they are very quite with respect to the question posted by perhaps a non believer, does that include the additional inter-connectors, the electrical conversion equipment, the access roads and decommissioning the mast and concrete base, and are the distribution losses considered. The questioner did not even raise the question of the necessary standby provisions, as highs tend to effect the whole of the UK.

Not only that, they potentially rob us of sites and that is far more serious.

[Wingman]

A 135 metre high wind turbine has recently been erected across the road from our flying field. It has never turned a blade in anger since being erected a couple of months ago - word is that it has been sighted too close to the road such that if it was to fall over it could land across the road and accompanying footpaths. This turbine is owned and run by the community council of the small (and if I may say so, rather scruffy) village a mile or so up the road. They obtained a £350,000 grant from the National lottery and were able to secure a £1.3 million pound 15 year bank loan to purchase it. It apparently will earn £1000 per day (yes, per day) when it's running. But, as I said, it has never run so I don't know who is paying the bank loan interest - maybe the bank will end up owning the village although I doubt that it is worth half of the loan value! However, I suspect that in the way of these things it will be you and I, the tax payer, who will be taking the hit! In my capacity as treasurer I did track down the responsible person in the community council in an effort to try and squeeze some funds out of the scheme but met with a stony silence. The wind turbine itself poses no threat to our flying whatsoever as we are not permitted to fly across the road, it cannot cause any flicker on our field, it will make more noise than we do and best of all there is no way anybody is going to think about building a house any closer than any of the existing ones (about a mile).

[ken anderson.]

this one on the left is the one I mentioned previous...it has replaced the one on the right-there was 9 of the smaller one's...and the one big fella is generating more than them all-they were 15 years old...

ken Anderson....wind dept/ne.

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

That's your 'fan' club I take it Ken?

Oh dear,.... sorry, couldn't resist!

BEB

[Erfolg]

To be honest I would not be as hostile if the things generated power reliably when needed, and at a competitive price.

Yet so much of wind turbines is pie in the sky, always conjuring up additional technologies to try and make sense of them, such as storing energy as compressed air on a massive scale, or kinetic energy from weights as in a Cuckoo clock, or pumping water to higher levels to use as hydro power. All, fixes, at additional cost, and yet further lost energy.

They only make sense to the operators and those who blindly predict that other forms of energy production will cost more in the future. One of the ways apparently is to apply taxes to other methods to tilt the playing field.

It is truly frightening the thought of the cost of electricity if it were all to come from wind turbines. But then again, the Germans are busy building coal fired stations and apparently the Chinese commission one coal fired station a month.

I guess wind turbines are a new age religion, in that you have to believe, supported by some rather dodgy figures to show how good they are. Some believing in return for a anticipated knighthood, I suspect.

[Colin Leighfield]

What's more, these billions of pounds are being spent elsewhere in Europe, largely Spain, Denmark and Germany, creating virtually no employment in the UK. This is being driven by misguided government strategies which have set target dates for renewable energy based on absolute acceptance of the belief in global warming driven by man-made CO2. Even if it is true, these time-scales give UK manufacturing no chance to create capacity which could move manufacture into the UK.

However, I am increasingly beginning to believe that the whole CO2 based strategy is likely to be the biggest red herring since Moby Dick caught scarlet fever. Recent investigation of deep ice-core samples in Antartica has shown that in the last 12,000 years there have been 46 global warming events, the average temperature variation of these having been 1.2C. The current event which is claimed to have begun around the end of the 19th century is associated with an increase in temperature of 0.7C, i.e less than the average of the previous 46. What is more, this stopped about 20 years ago and there has been no global warming in this century. There is no correlation in the previous events with CO2 levels. The US Senate Hearing on Global Warming held on 17 July found that in spite of all of the manipulated hype about catastrophic climate events, they are actually at a lower rate than they were in the fifties and sixties. I've been alive for long enough to remember that these things have been going on for as long as I've been around.

We now have institutions which owe their continued existence to the perpetuation of this belief, politicians who have invested in it, individuals whose incomes and pensions depend on it. No wonder that they are kicking the can as far down the road as they can! We even have a jailbird ex minister who has walked out of clink straight into a highly paid position in the renewables industry. Surprise surprise! People are suffering as a consequence, the economy is being needlessly damaged and kids are being brainwashed with total fabrications about Polar Bears. If it wasn't such an absolute disgrace it would be funny, but it is a disgrace and beyond being a laughing matter. Those towering windmills will be a minument to crass stupidity and political corruption and we all suffer as a consequence.

Edited By Colin Leighfield on 26/11/2013 22:14:02

[Erfolg]

Colin

I suspect that there is more than a grain of truth in much that you say.

Some of the claims with respect to climate change and renewable energy, or perhaps the interpretations are rather suspect, The most recent was the claim that there had been a significant increase in the average temp in the UK of 0.8C, in 100 years. It did strike me, how can you be so sure? Were the temps measured by the same equipment set up etc and could a 0.8C increase could be a natural variation if it has occurred etc.

Perhaps what I find a little disturbing is the dependency of many scientific groups on funding that has to be funded from non governmental sources. In the company I worked for, this meant that reasons had to be conjured up, a need developed, just to keep teams and departments together.

Perhaps we need to be cautious on accepting any report or view from such sources, An example is that the Met Office receives funding from the United Nations climate change committee. You see the same from the various research centres that undertake research on aspects of building regulations and standards. That is why I suspect we see continuos changes the building regulations for domestic and commercial properties from electrical regulations through to insulation etc. Much has real benefit to us all, at a price, although some have been seen to be ill conceived, as real world experience does not show a benefit.

Yes, I think you are probably correct, there is more than a little vested interest and a lot more ideology at work.

[Colin Leighfield]

Erfolg, I atteneded a meeting last year in which a professor from Manchester University spoke about possible risks of historic industrial pollution from the heathlands North of Shefffield with increased heavy rainfall that would result from global warming. Afterwards I discussed with him some of his points, which did not seem to add up. He told me that the problem is that the Universities will not get government funding for any climate related project unless it supports AGW, (Anthropogenic Global Warming). i.e. warming caused by CO2 released by human activity. If they propose anything which is neutral or doesn't say it happens, they get no money. You then have the BBC, which has decided that this is "settled science". Consequently they will give no air time to anyone who disputes it. That is why you no longer see respected people like David Bellamy. He says it is not true, so he is banned.

The BBC huffs and puffs about the right to free speech and gives air time to obnoxious individuals on this basis, yet respected scientists who dispute this nonsense and produce demonstrate the folly in it are prevented from participating in the discussion. You hear the words "global warming" dropped into broadcasts of all kinds repeatedly.

There has always been global warming, and cooling. They are natural phenomena. There is no written historical evidence or pre-historical geological evidence that demonstrates any relationship between higher (including higher than now) global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels. There is however plenty of evidence that relates these continuing changes in both directions to the natural activities of the sun. However, this subject has been hijacked by vested interests and narrow minded zealots and the propaganda campaign we see now reflects those interests. We suffer as a consequence.

[Tony K]

RCM&E July 2013 page 92 quote, "It's a fact that global warming has altered our weather patterns".

There you are then, it's a fact.

[Colin Leighfield]

No arguing with that then!

[Erfolg]

To be honest I personally do not know if global warming is a real phenomena, and is indeed caused by the use of fossil fuels.

I do know that there has been to many significant mistakes (such as the hockey stick, ice sheet sizes ) to just accept many of the claims.

My major concern is that wind power does not appear to be a viable renewable energy. There are many issues with the technology. Perhaps the aspect I find most disturbing is the unspoken recognition that there are real problems with the availability and the costs of transmission etc. Yet the solution is to search for additional capital equipment that at present does not exist, much of the ideas are viewed with askance by many competent professional engineers with respect the viability of the basic concepts, not with standing the requirement of developing these technologies, which are almost certainly expensive fixes to the holes in the wind turbine concept.

I do like the idea of free energy, but then again I remember the claim that Nuclear power generated electricity will be to cheap to monitor, attributed to Lord Marshall.

The problem of us older people, is that we have experience. In the 60's natural disaster were put down to Atom Bomb testing. Also we forget that ain those days we did not know what had happened in the USA for example, sometimes for days, not almost instantly. Nor were foreign disasters reported as today. Populations were also significantly smaller. Every time these days there is a disaster, there is a suggestion or if Ed Davis, it is put down to global warming. With an idiot in charge of UK energy policy, I have fears for a rational future of renewables

[Colin Leighfield]

You're quite right Erfolg. It is very telling that one of the reasons for the parlous state of the Spanish economy was a massive over commitment to renewables by their government, solar and wind. It is now calculated that every job created in renewables cost two jobs in the wider economy. Now the renewables have been virtually abandoned in Spain those jobs have gone as well. The two major players in wind energy in Spain are Iberdrola and Gamesa. Strangely they are still doing quite well. How can that be if the Spanish market for turbines and their network infrastructure has disappeared? It is because they are now a major force in Scotland and responsible for a large part of the disfigurement of that beautiful country we now see as a result of massive and poorly though through contracts placed by the SNP lead government. Virtually no local jobs are being created but land-owners are raking in millions at everyone else's expense. Also if you take a look you will find that another major problem with these things has been found to be that they kill birds and bats in very large numbers. Large raptors like Golden Eagles are particularly vulnerable. Strangely the said Scottish land-owners are keeping quiet about this. A major industry for them in Scotland is grouse shooting and maintaining the grouse moors. Strange that they're saying nothing about reductions in the populations of the raptors that also kill their grouse on the land where the wind turbines are installed!

If you really want to find out more about how disastrous wind turbines really are, have a look at the web-site run by the Scottish MEP, Struan Stevenson.

[Erfolg]

It perhaps should concern us a little that Ed Davey appears to be blinkered supporter of wind turbines to the extent that he has mislead many with respect to the situation with respect to wind turbines in other western countries and the direction that respective governmental direction with respect their to wind turbines. Reporting a rosy picture of development, rather than a down grading the wind turbine policy.

It does appear, from a number of media reports that wind turbines have fallen out favour with many governments. Mainly on the grounds of economics.

In my opinion the solution to the UK energy needs with respect to electricity, is not obvious, given the EU constraints. I find particularly concerning is the German Governments attempts to hobble the UK with high energy costs, as reported in a number of newspapers last week, The motive appears to be the German policy with respect to electrical energy supply, which will put themselves at a disadvantage to other manufacturing nations. That is if levies and charges are not applied to competitors.

I cannot say i am a fan of Nuclear power, certainly not reprocessing, which appears to have been a way in the past of hiding the true cost of the UK weapons industry and now is a high cost way of saying we have no way of disposing of used fuel rods. A direct disposal route is needed, and we have no sign of one arriving in my life time.

[malcolm woodcock 1]

Just have to brag that I've flown 12 batteries out at over 6 minutes each being a irresponsible hooligan with my Hummer. Not bad for the last week in November.

[Colin Leighfield]

That's not irresponsible, that's lucky. I managed to get a day off yesterday and spent four hours at the field. I got in four at about six minutes with my Tucano and two at five minutes with a foamy Spitfire. What stopped me doing more was a sharp breeze making my eyes water so I couldn't see half of the time. It was too dark in the afternoon to wear sun-glasses and even when I did, with the wind from my side it seems to blow between the glasses and my eyes and make it even worse. Beyond wearing my RAF Mk. VIIIs, (don't laugh), does anyone have a good solution to this one, or is it just me?

[scott finnie]

Posted by Colin Leighfield on 28/11/2013 14:48:48:

That's not irresponsible, that's lucky. I managed to get a day off yesterday and spent four hours at the field. I got in four at about six minutes with my Tucano and two at five minutes with a foamy Spitfire. What stopped me doing more was a sharp breeze making my eyes water so I couldn't see half of the time. It was too dark in the afternoon to wear sun-glasses and even when I did, with the wind from my side it seems to blow between the glasses and my eyes and make it even worse. Beyond wearing my RAF Mk. VIIIs, (don't laugh), does anyone have a good solution to this one, or is it just me?

Hi Colin,

Ive been using my ski goggles , wooly hat and scarf and its been great, the only downside i've seen so far is on a damp day they start to steam up in the corners, though for a big investment of £5 on gumtree it makes flying alot happier and bearable in this weather,

Scott

[malcolm woodcock 1]

Colin, I know I'm lucky to be able to fly when I like, I'm retired, the hooligan element is how I fly, anything else and I'm not really trying. Anyway foam repairs easily.

[Colin Leighfield]

Hi Scott and Malcolm. I like the sound of the ski goggles, might try that!

A few months ago I flew the (Dynam Spit) through the fence and took a wing off. Glued it back on with 5 minute epoxy and you'd never know. From being a total cynic I'm getting to quite like foam.

[ken anderson.]

colin.... a look in 'home bargains' - they sell reasonable priced ski goggle's....

ken Anderson ne..1 goggles dept.

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

I must admit that at first I didn't like foam models much. What converted me was the PZ Extra. That model is indestructable! I know - I've tried! Once I was in a "spin 'till you die" comp with it - and the inevitable happened I just pushed it too far - 22, 23, 24, 25,....recover, Ohhhh very near the ground big pull out,...she flicked and in she went - BANG! Fuselage had a broken back, elevator had ripped loose, as had the wing mounting and the undercarriage. The front looked like a bulldog!

Bit of the hot water treatment to re-expand the foam, some surgery with the cocktail sticks and epoxy and it was all back together - 30 minutes work - top whack. And it flew fine afterwards! Amazing.

There is a lot to be said for that level of convience - especially in a day-to-day hack.

BEB

[Colin Leighfield]

Ken, thanks for the advice about the ski goggles.

Must agree with you BEB. These things have added a new dimension to what we do.

[flytilbroke]

Not so long ago their were some enquiry regarding Myron Beaumont. Just off the phone to him, his ''''''''''puter is acting up and has been a bit back and fro' to the menders. A few might be aware that he is not as limber as he used to be, but he still sounds the same old Myron. Chrissie is still doing fine I am pleased to say.

Cheers guys.

Bob

[Erfolg]

It is good to read that Myron is about.

It is so easy to forget many people as we start to concentrate on near family, especially the young who you want to have happy experiences that will live with them for some time.