Departed during 2021

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Departed during 2021

#241 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Aug 23, 2021 2:01 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:43 pm
"Harding was still serving when the blame was attributed to pilot error by the inquiry,"

He had already resigned.

Knowing the "B word" aka "the Scottish Gp Capt" I would not be surprised if he would have been economical in his briefing. Harding had been CDS since 1992 and probably to remote at this point. As CAS before that he would be much dependent on his staffs.
So what conclusion can be drawn from this? Are we to believe that the uppermost ranks of the RAF at that time were filled with slippery, complacent shysters, one of whom who could not keep his keks on? If so it is not a very pretty historical picture at all!
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Re: Departed during 2021

#242 Post by Pontius Navigator » Mon Aug 23, 2021 2:02 pm

The latter is true. The B word was something else.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#243 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Aug 23, 2021 2:19 pm

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 2:01 pm
Are we to believe that the uppermost ranks of the RAF at that time were filled with slippery, complacent shysters, one of whom who could not keep his keks on? If so it is not a very pretty historical picture at all!



Buggah!


Ya done bust the code.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#244 Post by Pontius Navigator » Mon Aug 23, 2021 3:13 pm

Pretty pass though when lunch and a kiss is a resigning matter but avoiding a crisis by being on holiday is not.

I think he real error was being a poor judge of character.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#245 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Aug 23, 2021 7:42 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 3:13 pm
Pretty pass though when lunch and a kiss is a resigning matter but avoiding a crisis by being on holiday is not.

I think he real error was being a poor judge of character.
+1
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Re: Departed during 2021

#246 Post by FD2 » Mon Aug 23, 2021 7:50 pm

PN - Are you telling me that whatever post Harding was in, that he and several other people of Air rank had no idea what was going on with the Mk 2 Chinook? He was a senior serving officer at the top of the food chain and cannot have been ignorant of these matters, along with several senior MOD PE and other MOD sections who obstructed and prevaricated right through until 2011 when the two pilots were finally cleared of negligence. As I say, it's only £3.99 on Kindle and a very comprehensive explanation of the whole sorry business!

He was in post when the Mk 2 was wrongly released for service. As GG has shown in that section of the book, it was inconceivable that Harding didn't know. I suggest a read, when it will become clearer - there's a lot of detail and scandal involved - from the top downwards. Harding was still serving when the blame was attributed to pilot error by the inquiry - not as I wrongly stated as CAS though, in my haste.

I think that they were assured by their juniors and the MOD that the aircraft and its release to service was all being handled correctly. They were possibly afraid of telling those above them the truth and the MOD had also made a complete Horlicks of the matter.

The aircraft was wrongly released to service in 1993 or were he and several others at the top too busy with more important matters to pay attention? His downfall was of a sexual nature but he also had some other more serious responsibilities. ;)))

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Re: Departed during 2021

#247 Post by Pontius Navigator » Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:18 pm

I think your 3rd para nails it.

I'll give you an example.

A loaded nuclear weapon was secured with a safety pin through the carrier. The pin had to be removed before it could be dropped. When first accepted for QRA a crew would go through a checklist before accepting the weapon. Subsequent crews would accept that the initial crew had done the checks.

In this occasion, after 10 days at readiness a crew decided for practise that they would do the full checks. They found the pin in. What to do? Was it a check? They confirmed there was no entry stating the pin should have been fitted. They removed the pin and decided the safe course was to report the occurrence and accept that at least one other crew would get a rocket.

The station cdre realised that rumours might circulate and informed the 2*.

All he said was "I presume it has been removed".

I don't think the 4* was informed.

Not everything it kicked upstairs. For many reasons the decision would have stopped at ACAS. Thereafter you have the potential for cover ups.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#248 Post by Undried Plum » Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:25 pm


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Re: Departed during 2021

#249 Post by FD2 » Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:31 pm

I think what would nail it PN would be a read of the book. The loss of 19 security experts threatened to expose some extremely serious problems and errors with the way the Mk 2 - a fundamentally different beast from the Mk 1 - came to be released to service with incorrectly fitted equipment, dangerous engine control software and flight control software etc etc. I can understand things being hidden from more senior people - I expect we've all done it to a greater or lesser degree - but when the top people were actually copied the information it starts to smell of a cover up - one that lasted through to 2011.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#250 Post by Pontius Navigator » Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:24 am

FD2, I was going to knock it off, but just want to say I agree entirely with a cover up, but the cover up can only exist post crash.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#251 Post by FD2 » Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:55 am

Yes I can see what you mean PM. The inquiry either deliberately or ignorantly didn’t listen to evidence that it should have but as i say the book really must be read to get an idea of the trail of mistakes made. Let’s knock it off but I really recommend the book but maybe not as a bedtime read!

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Re: Departed during 2021

#252 Post by Wodrick » Tue Aug 24, 2021 4:58 pm

Charlie Watts @ 80 Seemed a nice quiet man.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/ITORRO10?cm_ven=localwx_pwsdash

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Re: Departed during 2021

#253 Post by om15 » Tue Aug 24, 2021 5:16 pm

He managed to reach 80 which is quite amazing, must have been his healthy living and abstinence.
Made good music, RIP

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Re: Departed during 2021

#254 Post by FD2 » Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:46 pm

Watts the steady one, apart from a brief excursion into the group's drugs and booze excesses. Faithful to his family and admired for his steadiness.

Jagger the preening poseur impregnating the world, Richard(s) with a fried brain, Wyman fond of young girls but escaped, Jones dead in a pool and Woods looking like he exists on a leaf of spinach a day.

The rock n' roll lifestyle certainly took it out of them, except for the modest Watts who should have been the last survivor. Very sadly lost too soon but will be missed.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#255 Post by FD2 » Sun Aug 29, 2021 7:59 pm

Ed Asner https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a ... amily.html

'Lou Grant' from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, age 91.

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Re: Departed during 2021

#256 Post by Karearea » Sun Aug 29, 2021 8:07 pm

Ed Asner was perfect for that role. RIP.

A 1:23 clip from Season 5, Episode 5:


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Mikis Theodorakis, RIP

#257 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Sep 02, 2021 1:04 pm

Mikis Theodorakis, composer of Zorba the Greek, dies aged 96.
Mikis Theodorakis, the celebrated composer best known for the music from the 1964 film Zorba the Greek, has died in Athens aged 96.

Theodorakis was in the resistance to the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War Two and later served as an MP.

He was also a leading figure opposing military rule in Greece from 1967-1974.

Zorba the Greek told the story of an English writer in Crete whose life is transformed when he meets Alexis Zorba, a gregarious peasant.

The scene when Zorba dances barefoot on the beach became a popular image of Greek culture. The theme from the film, which won three Oscars, remains probably the most famous piece of Greek music more than half a century later.
.
"Today we lost a part of the soul of Greece," Culture Minister Lina Mendoni wrote on Twitter, calling him "the one who made all Greeks sing poetry"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58419832



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Re: Departed during 2021

#258 Post by FD2 » Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:00 pm

Jean-Paul Belmondo https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-11811293

For many women =((

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Re: Departed during 2021

#259 Post by tango15 » Tue Sep 07, 2021 9:25 am

Whilst there is no doubting the talent of Theodorakis, for me his greatest achievement was continually prodding the Greek military during 67-74. I was in Greece om a number of occasions during that period and the fear of the military was palpable. Greek friends who were around at the time still speak in hushed tones about living under the military regime.
Theodorakis' music was banned in Greece under the colonels. He spent five months in jail and was sent to the town of Zatouna in the Peloponnese. He then spent time in a concentration camp outside Athens. but was eventually released and lived in exile in Paris for many years, until it was safe to return.
I mentioned previously that I had met Demis Roussos some years ago. He spoke of Theodorakis with great reverence, both for his music and his stand against the regime. Theodorakis' politics were very much to the left, but this is quite common in Greece. It has one of the few communist parties still fully functioning in Europe, the KKE, which is a significant force in Greek politics.
RIP Mikis.

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RIP Sir Clive Sinclair 1

#260 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:41 pm

Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies aged 81

Creator of the landmark ZX Spectrum and the less commercially successful C5 died after a long illness

Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor and entrepreneur who was instrumental in bringing home computers to the masses, has died at the age of 81.

His daughter, Belinda, said he died at home in London on Thursday morning after a long illness. Sinclair invented the pocket calculator but was best known for popularising the home computer, bringing it to British high-street stores at relatively affordable prices.

Many modern-day titans of the games industry got their start on one of his ZX models. For a certain generation of gamer, the computer of choice was either the ZX Spectrum 48K or its rival, the Commodore 64.

Belinda Sinclair, 57, told the Guardian: “He was a rather amazing person. Of course, he was so clever and he was always interested in everything. My daughter and her husband are engineers so he’d be chatting engineering with them.”

He left school at 17 and worked for four years as a technical journalist to raise funds to found Sinclair Radionics.

In the early 1970s he invented a series of calculators designed to be small and light enough to fit in the pocket at a time when most existing models were the size of an old-fashioned shop till. “He wanted to make things small and cheap so people could access them,” his daughter said.

His first home computer, the ZX80, named after the year it appeared, revolutionised the market, although it was a far cry from today’s models. At £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 assembled, it was about one-fifth of the price of other home computers at the time. It sold 50,000, units while its successor, the ZX81, which replaced it, cost £69.95 and sold 250,000. Many games industry veterans got their start typing programs into its touch-based keyboard and became hooked on games such as as 3D Monster Maze and Mazogs. The ZX80 and ZX81 made him very rich: in 2010 Sinclair told the Guardian: “Within two or three years, we made £14m profit in a year.”

In 1982, he released the ZX Spectrum 48K. Its rubber keys, strange clashing visuals and tinny sound did not prevent it being pivotal in the development of the British games industry. Much-loved games – now in colour – that inspired a generation included Jet Set Willy, Horace Goes Skiing, Chuckie Egg, Saboteur, Knight Lore and Lords of Midnight.

Sinclair became a household name as his products flew off the shelves and was awarded a knighthood in 1983. But he would also become synonymous with one of his less successful inventions – the Sinclair C5 – which would cost him financially. The C5, a battery-powered electric trike, was launched in January 1985, with Sinclair predicting sales of 100,000 in the first year.

But it flopped, and Sinclair Vehicles found itself in receivership by October of the same year. Reviews expressed concerns about the safety of driving a vehicle below the sight line of other motorists, as well as exposure to the elements. The following year, Sinclair sold his computer business to Amstrad.

The Sinclair TV80, a pocket TV, was another device, like the C5, that did not catch on, although people now regularly view programmes on their mobile phones. And although they do not look like the Sinclair C5, which later acquired cult status, electric vehicles are, of course, all the rage today.

Belinda Sinclair said: “It was the ideas, the challenge, that he found exciting. He’d come up with an idea and say, ‘There’s no point in asking if someone wants it, because they can’t imagine it.’”

But he did not make personal use of his own inventions. His daughter said he never had a pocket calculator as far as she knew, instead carrying a slide-rule around with him at all times. And he told interviewers he used neither a computer nor email.

Outside inventing, his interests included poetry, running marathons and poker. He appeared in the first three seasons of the Late Night Poker television series and won the first season final of the Celebrity Poker Club spinoff, defeating Keith Allen.

He is survived by Belinda, his sons, Crispin and Bartholomew, aged 55 and 52 respectively, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... es-aged-81
viewtopic.php?p=307389#p307389

Though you remain
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To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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