RAF pilot flies jet THROUGH Tower Bridge

[Dj_Jestar]

We flogged the "old" London bridge to an American oil tycoon <LOL>

Quoting for longevity. Top ignorance on display there, Chris.

https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/was-american-really-conned-buying-wrong-london-bridge-1162

I see you got bored of having every single one of your arguments ripped to pieces in the Brexit thread. I say ripped, they just fell apart on their own, really.

 

[Chris Wilson]

No it's not. I've worked in OHS, and you're talking nonsense.



Due to the high cost of manufacturing here, which has everything to do with wages and other local costs, not OHS.



You're asking the wrong question. The actual accident rate has been largely reduced by OHS.

Just have a look on YouTube for Chinese manufacturing of wire fencing, barbed wire, plating, God knows what else and tell me their production costs are not also highly reduced by machinery and practices that would give a UK factory inspector the vapours....

 

[Chris Wilson]

Quoting for longevity. Top ignorance on display there, Chris.

https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/was-american-really-conned-buying-wrong-london-bridge-1162

I see you got bored of having every single one of your arguments ripped to pieces in the Brexit thread. I say ripped, they just fell apart on their own, really.

I see you edited your post, an older London bridge was sold to an American tycoon, I see nothing of ignorance in my post...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City)

 

[dowie]

Quoting for longevity. Top ignorance on display there, Chris.

https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/was-american-really-conned-buying-wrong-london-bridge-1162

I see you got bored of having every single one of your arguments ripped to pieces in the Brexit thread. I say ripped, they just fell apart on their own, really.

eh? You've just posted an article that seems to confirm that what Chris said is true... that we did sell the old London Bridge to an American tycoon - bit of a reading comprehension fail on your part no?

I'm really not sure what you were objecting to - possible confusion over this would perhaps usually be someone conflating London Bridge and Tower bridge(the bridge in question in the OP) or asserting that there was a con involved but neither of those things are the case here.

 

[Mobius 1]

I mean... 300mph isn’t at all fast, for a jet. (A spitfire has a top end of 370mph) Piece of cake to get that tiny plane through that huge gap at that speed tbh.

I’m not saying it wasn’t stupid, or irresponsible though. it makes a good story.

Edit. Thinking about it, 300mph must have been very close to stalling!

 

[Conscript]

eh? You've just posted an article that seems to confirm that what Chris said is true... that we did sell the old London Bridge to an American tycoon - bit of a reading comprehension fail on your part no?

I'm really not sure what you were objecting to - possible confusion over this would perhaps usually be someone conflating London Bridge and Tower bridge(the bridge in question in the OP) or asserting that there was a con involved but neither of those things are the case here.

They aren't, but by placing a massively exaggerated "lol" at the end of his post and talking about London Bridge, whilst quoting Feek who was talking about Tower Bridge, it did seem to imply that he was referencing the old rumour that McCulloch bought the former after confusing it for the latter. I guess it's plausible that he just finds the genuine sale of redundant architecture to willing customers incredibly amusing, but I can see why DJ pulled him up on it.

 

[dowie]

I can see why DJ pulled him up on it.

so can I, he pretty much hinted at it in his post... he dislikes the guy's opinion on Brexit and so saw an opportunity to pull him up on the slightest thing, even when there wasn't anything really to pull him up over

I know he's got some right wing views but it is a bit petty...

 

[dl8860]

So something that was already quite a rare event has become rarer over the last 30 years or so.

Two points..

#1 How much of that reduction is because the actual accident rate has reduced? And how much is because trauma care is better than it was 30 years ago??
Fatalities reduced to 1/5th, from 2.1 to 0.4. You could see this as for every 5 people dying in 1981, 1 dies now. I doubt much more than one of those people live rather than die due to trauma care. We aren't talking about the 1800s here. Not a significant point.

#2 What has been the cost of achieving this reduction. Not just in money terms, but in all sorts of other areas too??
What do you think these costs are? And do you not think they are worth the lives of ~530 people every year?

 

[Chris Wilson]

They aren't, but by placing a massively exaggerated "lol" at the end of his post and talking about London Bridge, whilst quoting Feek who was talking about Tower Bridge, it did seem to imply that he was referencing the old rumour that McCulloch bought the former after confusing it for the latter. I guess it's plausible that he just finds the genuine sale of redundant architecture to willing customers incredibly amusing, but I can see why DJ pulled him up on it.

God, hardly worth replying but if you look at my original (and unedited) post the B of bridge is not capitalised, meaning an older bridge (lower case) than Tower Bridge, cited as an ancient monument by a poster, was sold to a Yank entrepreneur. I think DJ misunderstood, being magnanimous, (or was increasing the size of his genitalia)

 

[Dj_Jestar]

I see you edited your post, an older London bridge was sold to an American tycoon, I see nothing of ignorance in my post...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge_(Lake_Havasu_City)

By confusing London Bridge in a thread about Tower Bridge, per chance referencing the common misconception that the American thought he was buying Tower Bridge?

Unless you think it is just inherently funny that someone bought a bridge? That wouldn't actually surprise me. Simple minds, simple pleasures.

 

[inogen]

Put far more eruditely than me. But missing that most of those ~530 people who died would have been in high risk industries, so a fall to 1/5th across the board is a much higher fall in those.

Not that the narcissists people who question H&S actually give a ****. Otherwise they wouldn't be questioning it in the first place.

 

[ubersonic]

You have to remember, this fella was an RAF pilot. Not an idiot.

According to his actions he was both...

 

[inogen]

According to his actions he was both...

idiotic actions /= idiot. But yeah. I get your point.

 

[Outcast]

"Permission to do a fly-by"

"Negative, The Patterns full"

"Mwahahahahahahaaaaaaaaarahahaha"

 

[Werewolf]

Don't see the fuss, trained pilot flying a precision jet through a massive hole.

Not a "massive hole" compared to the size of the jet and the speed at which it was moving, not to mention he by his own words had forgotten several major landmarks that posed a risk to his intended route (there is a reason the likes of the red Arrows train so much at tight manoeuvres and pilots doing displays near the ground tend to study everything in the area beforehand).

It's a great story, but completely irresponsible for a trained pilot to have done so I'm not surprised they questioned his mental capabilities and then threw him out as he endangered a vast number of people and showed a complete disregard for even the far lower level of safety that was accepted in the 60's (I suspect many professional pilots would admire that he managed it, but shudder at the thought of what could have gone wrong - you don't muck around in an aircraft over heavily inhabited areas at high speed/low altitude as you have zero margin of error).

 

[esmozz]

The width of the middle span of Tower bridge is 80m, the wingspan of a hunter aircraft 10m, the height of the area through which he flew, approximately 50m, the height of a hunter aircraft 4m.

Personally, I would have thought it well within the capabilities of an operation front line fast jet pilot in the 1960's to fly straight and level through a hole that size. Stupid from a career point of view but not the huge risk people are making out.

Also, whilst I am not particularly pro or anti OHS, I have seen instances where it's clearly useful, as well as instances where it seems to exist purely as a job justification exercise. However I am curious about the posted graph of the decline in fatalities at work over previous decades. It would seem to me to match quite well the decline in heavy industry in the UK.

 

[glenimp617]

Jet fuel is well know for incinerating steel

so is a tonne of tnt hidden in an underground car park

 

[Rroff]

Edit. Thinking about it, 300mph must have been very close to stalling!

I could look it up but IIRC those aircraft have a fairly low stall speed for a jet - for some reason in the back of my mind 180mph for the "failsafe" but in some conditions probably lower than that or I might be completely wrong.

The width of the middle span of Tower bridge is 80m, the wingspan of a hunter aircraft 10m, the height of the area through which he flew, approximately 50m, the height of a hunter aircraft 4m.

Personally, I would have thought it well within the capabilities of an operation front line fast jet pilot in the 1960's to fly straight and level through a hole that size. Stupid from a career point of view but not the huge risk people are making out.

That close to the ground though any error is amplified - and you are more likely to encounter sudden changes in the environment which could produce small but much more significant destabilisation, etc.

 

[Mobius 1]

I could look it up but IIRC those aircraft have a fairly low stall speed for a jet - for some reason in the back of my mind 180mph for the "failsafe" but in some conditions probably lower than that or I might be completely wrong.

You’re totally correct. I read somewhere earlier, that the plane would stall at 125 knots with 800lb of fuel remaining, no armaments.

Edit. So he was flying at a speed well above stalling.

Still, pretty reckless thing to do seeing as there are so many variables that could have caused an accident.

 

[ChroniC]

It's health and safety gone mad I tells ya.

All this h&s crap and all its managed to do is save 1.5ppl per 100k. Hardly seems worth it.