Ops-Normal.org

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/science-skipping-stones-water?google_editors_picks=true

I can't help thinking that this has all been done before by a one-man development unit.

boing wrote:I can't help thinking that this has all been done before by a one-man development unit.

Not only that, but normally by the age of 15 at the latest !

I think I would have been about 8 by the time I perfected it, but I did have the benefit of spending a vast majority of weekends near large bodies of water (power stations, canals, gravel pits, the Wash).

Cannock Chase Gravel pits were awesome, heaps of the right stones and great water.

I can definitely remember getting 13 - 15 skips.

Gosh, that brings back a memory of my father showing me how to skip stones, on a lake, many years ago. Happy days...

One still does it on Amorgos. Some cracking pebbles on the beach. Usually a bit snookered by waves though. Our dog used to chase after them.

I can't believe you still do it Ex-Ascot. You ruin my image of quietly drinking bier sitting in your beloved chair.

My personal record is three but I am not a pilot so I guess some people here would do it much better.

My dear chap it is when walking between pubs along the beach. Or when our dog was still alive sitting on a remote beach with our boat and of course a cooler box full of beers.

Yes, the pebble beach or gravel pit is an ideal location for hand skimming flat stones with rounded edges, and I expect that most of us have attempted to get more and more bounces from that innocent pastime.

Yet the allusion in the OP to Barnes Wallis's "one-man development unit" is an apt reminder that at that critical time in WW2, a far more serious development of the basic principles involved was found well worthwhile. But who could have predicted the major changes needed to the "flat stone" concept, to achieve the highly ingenious end result?

First, the flat object shape was rejected as impractical for a bomb which had to contain enough high explosive material to generate dam-fracturing blast waves, leading to initial model trials with spherical objects - glass marbles. Then full sized trials of spheres with shaped wooden packing bound around cylindrical steel drum cores was tried, but the initial impact with water surfaces from air drops kept destroying the wood packing. So the spherical idea was abandoned, and the bare cylindrical shape was tried, and for good measure a judicious amount of "back-spin" was added. All good sound engineering pragmatism, with just a touch of inspiration from the splendid game of cricket, carried out under immense wartime pressure to make it all work. Then more testing, calculations to get the optimum aircraft speed and height, and drum rpm, followed eventually by successful full-scale test drops. It takes a very special breed of engineer to persevere doggedly through such a process, in the face of severe scepticism from those above him, in order to achieve ultimate success. All typical of his many inspired projects, including designs of airships, aircraft, specialised bombs to destroy massive concrete structures (Tallboy and Grand Slam), and many, many others. Yet it is also typical of our cockeyed country that the well-merited accolade of a knighthood was only grudgingly awarded to him towards the end of his life ...

Rwy in Sight wrote:I can't believe you still do it Ex-Ascot. You ruin my image of quietly drinking bier sitting in your beloved chair.

My personal record is three but I am not a pilot so I guess some people here would do it much better.

I could regularly get 5, but after that the bounces are usually too quick and close together to count properly

Did I not read somewhere of someone (possibly Crun-nish in personality) building a machine which would shoot saucer-shaped objects (deep frozen ice from a mould) up a ramp with unequal sides (so as to impart rotation) out across the sea where they would bounce happily off into the distance ? If not, someone should. An interesting project. Returning to hand-thrown ones, I think the most number of bounces I ever got was seven. (Off Eastbourne beach, near the bandstand).