Wings & Wheels, Ursel, Belgium: 6-7-8 August 2004

Originally posted by tankbarrell
I have already recorded the 'music' onto CD for the Chrysler Museum. They have a Multibank on display and wanted to have an audio experience to go with it!

You'd think they would have a running one having made shedloads of them, but, like most things, at the time its mundane and ordinary, no one thinks to the future when the ordinary daily items sudenly become highly interesting.

Then of course museums have a habit of sectioning stuff so the grockles and tyre-kickers can see the internals; there is no more comprehensive way of ultimately wrecking an engine than this.

Even the Science Museum has a sectioned Napier Sabre (37 litres of H configured sleeve valve) and latest news suggests Kermit Weeks may never get his Tempest V flying with Sabre power since Ricardo's down here (probably the world's only source for re-worked esoteric aero engines) have declined to handle them owing to the sleeve re-manufacture necessity and potential liability claims.

Of course the sleeve manufacture beat Napier at the time and they sub-contracted them to Bristol who were very secretive about their techniques and materials, I suspect the know-how is lost and even Kermit cannot fund a start-over and re-qualify project.

Luckily, all I have to do to get my fix is go in the shed!

Yes, all very well for the few tankbarons around but a bummer for the remaining hordes of mere mortals.

Mind you, the price of fuel being what it is....

I can see me doing a minor divert and dropping in with a jerrican of fire-water next time I visit mother ("Why can't you just have a nice little car like everyone else?") in Fakenham. . . . . . . . . . . .

R.