Where Australia leads we follow

[AES]

Thanks Mr_P, that's not exactly as I remember it (it IS a long time ago), but a good one all the same.

Was the one I remember Bill Oddie? (Note to self - must remember to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page). I seem to remember it was a cricket bat, not bag (but, as above, it's a long time ago now).

Again, sorry for thread drift

Krgds
AES

 

[Mr_P]

Sorry can't help before my time. You are doing well if you remember anything from the sixties, my Mother couldn't remember Winston Churchill's funeral at all.

 

[AES]

OK, Mr_P, thanks anyway.

P.S. I WAS at his funeral!

AES

 

[Mr_P]

Amazing, we need details, details, details.

Just a watcher or in your official capacity as a member of the Royal Air Force ???

 

[AES]

Not very exciting I'm afraid. During my RAF training (1961-4) we did get tasked with a number of Royal Route Lining parades (start off from Horse Guards Parade, then out along past the Cenotaph) for various State Visits. Also some official (non-London) Military Funerals (the command was - Rest on your Arms Reversed - I MAY still be able to remember how to do it, even though it had not a lot to deal with servicing military aircraft).

But by the time Winston died I was on my first Squadron (19, EE Lightnings - "Frightenings" in the parlance) and we were detached from Leconfield to Coningsby to provide part of the official Fly Past over Whitehall. I was ground crew so wasn't at the actual funeral but we had several days of Fly Past practice, plus the actual event itself, so in common with the other blokes we felt a bit a part of it.

So I do remember it quite well.

AES

 

[Jonzjob]

You could always tell a Mk 6 Lightening ground crew bloke by his black hat, berry actually, but I ain't falling into that one :mrgreen: Used for beating out Avpin fires on a mis-start :shock: :shock:

The imperial system is still used here in France. You can buy a livre of spuds, or anything else for that matter. Even when it was illegal in the U.K..

The pint was guarded and allowed, but you still can't legally buy a pint of shandy! The beer is in pints, but the lemonade in in litres :? :?

I still work in ' and " and find it so much easier to measure to 1/16" rather than a milli-metric thingy.

I remember a mate going into a woodyard and asking for some 10' long planks. He was told that they could only sell metrique lengths. He was also told, when he asked how much, 10d a foot!!! A long while back that!

 

[AES]

Not only Mk 6 Frightenings Jonzjob, they all did that, and not just "from time to time" either - and leak fuel all over the place like a sieve too.

But all this is real thread drift, sorry to the OP.

Back to topic (I think) - I still find it easier to visualise very small sizes in inch thou and small sizes in inches (e.g. 4 x 2), though living in a metric country I can mostly manage that OK too. But I do still have trouble with centimetres (mms and Ms are OK), and deci-litres and quadrat-decimetres are a REAL pain for me!

:x

AES

 

[Mr_P]

I'm pretty sure the op has something to do with Australia and currency and if the original poster had been worried about thread drift he should never have mentioned Winston Churchill or "The Deck of Cards"

Did you know Winston Churchill started his political career in Oldham ?

Stood for MP in 1899 and lost but won the seat in the general election the following year.

Drift away, please. RAF stories far superior to mm vs inches.

ttfn,
Carl (Grandson of WW2 RAF Navigator who sadly did not talk about the War).

 

[Jonzjob]

Now hectolitres!! That I understand, especially when I am asking questions of a French friend who just happens to produce lots of hectolitres of very nice wines 8) 8) Very generous with his tastings of his new wines too :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

That's one of the real hazards of living nearly in the middle of the worlds largest vinyard :wink: :wink:

It's quite amusing when I'm talking to one of our neighbours. She's 20 and at university and fascinated by the proper way of measuring things. Feet, inches, yards, chains, poles, perches, etc. and 1760 yards to a mile? Well #-o #-o #-o

Lucky for me AES, the closest I ever got to those things was on the same flight line at Tengah in the late 60s. I was on a much nicer aircraft, Canberra PR7s of 81 Sqdn, cartridge start, much more civilised! I do believe I will start a thread of our own wot-hoo :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[Fat ferret]

The ironic thing is we use metric lengths for imperial fractions. If we had totally bought into metric there would be 5 meter lengths of wood, but how much easier to have 4.8's which divide easily into 2,4,6,8,12 and so on.

Problem is what I call the metric drag. 4' is 1.22 m s=even though people use 1.2m t describe it. So you can have studs that wont take metric sized plasterboard ect. 25mm is so close to 1" but the .4mm mounts up.

However cause I learnt metric at school and imperial at home working with my dad I am bi-lingual. I suppose that's kinda neat, as the yanks would say, who still use inches and get on fine!

 

[RogerP]

I have several digital "verniers" which all do inches or mm but my latest does fractions of inch as well.

Being in my early 70's I am bilingual, either imperial or metric is fine by me, but having that quick cross reference check on the new "vernier" with fractions of an inch is very handy when looking at US plans.