Yesterday I Spent at RAF Duxford Airfield and Cambridge

The real Memphis Belle is in the USAF Museum in Dayton.

Tuesday morning I woke up with no particular plan. Lulu was off to Stonehenge - and I had visited there 3 times already. Even though they were taking their own Mercedes bus - I wanted to see something new.

I had heard about RAF Duxford Airfield and even though it was all the way north by Cambridge - I decided it would be a perfect trip for the clear day we were having.

After my shave and shower - I walked to the train station. A round trip to Cambridge was 22 pounds ($33). By 11 - I was zooming north at about 80 MPH. The express train had no stops and in no time I  was at Cambridge Station. Just outside the door I saw a bus with RAF Duxford on the front. I paid the driver 16 pounds ($24) and that included the 1/2 hour drive to the museum and the admission.

Duxford is a small town about 12 miles south of Cambridge - actually back toward London. RAF Duxford is really a big grassy field about 1 miles by 2 mile. It was one of the main airfields during World War II. Many of the scenes from the movies "Battle of Britain" and "Memphis Belle" were shot here. The majority of the original buildings are still there. There are 8 museums in all - yes 8 giant buildings - and there is quite a walk between them. 

Most of the museums were real WWII airplane hangars with giant accordion wooden doors. The 8 museums were themed to a degree - but after a while they started to blend into each other. 

I had taken about 200 pictures - and I know you should not put so many pictures in one story - but I whittled it down to 45 - and dampened down the quality so that they are not too slow to load. If you double click on each picture - it will blow up to 4 times the size. Anything pictures I put on my web page are open game. If you use any it is nice to credit - www.harry.everhart.com - but you do not have to.

I roamed through all 8 museums from about noon to 4. There were not a lot of people there - you could tell it is geared for big crowds. In September they have a giant air show there - it is supposed to be a zoo. I am glad I had it to myself and maybe 500 people. In place this big 500 people is nothing. 

When I got to the last museum - I met a museum attendant that was in heaven. He lived in London for 60 years - worked in a high paying high pressure job (not teaching). He moved to Duxford to retire. He loved airplanes. He landed a job there as a walk-in. He said he would work for free if he had to. the airfield is busy with historic traffic. The planes stopped right before his work station - stop - rev up before takeoff. He has ridden on many - and taken pictures of even more. When I asked him how fa fit was back to the other end - he said one mile. I said I wanted to catch the 4PM bus - he got on his radio - called for a Mercedes shuttle - and I was wished down the taxi way - in a couple minutes - all by myself. 

When I got on the bus to Cambridge - a Russian family group was going to town with me. They loved the US hangar (number 7). When they found out I was American - they were full of questions about USA museums - aircraft - rockets - etc. Before I knew it I was back in Cambridge and I missed my stop. I stopped the bus - got out and walked thru downtown Cambridge. 

Cambridge is the closest thing I ever saw to a real town like Disneyworld. It was full of bright kids - tons and tons of bike traffic - narrow narrow streets - about 30 different colleges - lots of places to eat and drink - real buildings from the 1200's in excellent shape - nice weather - and a cute little ice cream cart with hand dipped cones for only a pound  ($1.50)  :-)    If you would take Harvard - Yale - Princeton - Penn - Duke - Georgetown - and multiplied it  by 5 - you would get the idea how it felt. There were no parking places for cars anywhere. If you owned a car - you had to have an off street parking place for it. No wonder bikes are so fashionable there - they are tied everywhere. I am not talking cheap Walmart or Sears bikes either. having a nice bike is fashionable - and I would guess they average about 500 pounds ($750) each. The kids were nice to me - it did not feel snobby as I expected it would. When Lulu took her students to Oxford - she kidded them that when they got off the train - they had to rent a gown to walk around in all day. They believe her.

At around 6 PM -  I walked back to the station (with my second ice cream cone). My ticket said I could catch any train - I had a choice of an early regular train or a later express train. I waited the 10 minutes for the express and beat the other brian to town by about 20 minutes. There is nothing quite as unnerving as blast through a station at 100 miles per hour with people just 3 feet away behind the safety of a yellow painted line on the platform. It is even more scarey to me being one of the standees. But I am guessing the scariest thing would be driving the train. You are the engineer with your hand on the throttle with a train coming at you at 100 MPH and you are going 100 MPH - the buffeting when they passed shook my heart. I can't imagine at night seeing that singular headlight coming straight at you. I keep keep thinking - what if something left a track switch open. 

The train was pretty full. A couple of young co-eds sat down across from me. They were really enjoying life.they had some school work with them - one miss was obviously an artist. They were both dressed very nicely - and at the top of their life. they laughed and smiled - had food and drink and offered it to anyone around them. They asked questions - never once adjusting their hair or clothes - even though they obviously very pretty and smart. It made me feel very good about the leaders of tomorrow. They seem to follow the beat of a different drummer - probably I did  that once too - I am 3 times their age now. I chucked the other day when someone stole a TV in our neighborhood. I said, "A conservative is a liberal that had their TV stolen." Is that really what changes us? I remember when Judy Collins sang a song in the 60s called "Both Sides Now." I had no idea what she was talking about.

I have been retired almost 10 years now. I could never imagined I would be traveling so freely and having such a wonderful time. I have to thank Lulu mostly for that - I had visions of pinching pennies on teacher's pension. So far- they have been the best years of my life. A day in Duxford and Cambridge will do that to you.

They have a big air show in Duxford every year.

In WWII - they used to drop motorcycles out of airplanes like this.

This jeep is suspended on a crash pad to be dropped by parachute.

One of my favorite planes is the Harrier jump jet. It can take off and land like a helicopter - then fly straight at 500 MPH.

The Concord is the only passenger jet that could fly faster than sound.. It could go 1500 MPH - cross the Atlantic in 2 hours - but only people like Mick Jagger could afford the $10,000 ticket. They never made any money - it used too much fuel - only held 88 people.

Richard Branson flew this balloon gondola from USA to Britain. It flew in th ejet stream and took less time than Lindbergh to cross the Atlantic.

You could take a ride in this Hellcat aircraft carrier plane.

This plane was painted up like Memphis Belle - even though it was a B-17 named Sally B. It wa suited in the movie "Memphis Belle."

They would restore planes here. These are wings from a Spitfire.

This guy is working on a US plane.

This is a full restored and flying Messerschmidt. Keith and I saw it flying at an air show 3 years ago.

This is a real Duxford hangar from WWII - bricks and wood.

This is the original airfield tower - also used in Memphis Belle movie.

This is an operating USA P-51 Mustang. Itr was recently use din the movie  "RedTails."

This interesting Ford Model T was rigged to start airplane engines. In the old days you started engines by hand - very dangerous. This thing made fit safer.

You could take flights in authentic WWII planes here.

I took this picture of the sign - did not realize that I could have flown in a war bird for 40 pounds ($60).

This is an air raid shelter by the hangar.

This Messerschmidt crashed landed during the Battle of Britain..

This is simple a jeep with hand welded armor put on it. Not very effective but it made the people feel goos during the Blitz - expecting the Germans that never came.

This truck had a barrage balloon on it. these trucks were manned by women. When and air raid siren blew - they would put up the balloons hoping planes would run into the cables. The German chose to fly higher - with less accuracy. 300 V-1 Rocket Bombs hit the cable and crashed. 

These concrete pill boxes were built at the factory and carried by truck all along the coast. Again it made them feel good. During the day they sunk into the ground -during a raid - the gas cylinder would pop them back up if needed.

Search lights were placed in a lattice every 3 miles. When they saw a plane at night - they would hand it off to the next light - while guns tried to destroy the plane.

This was General Montgomery's field car.

Several small building on the base were restored to 1945 condition.

This was the Operations Room - notice the bomb mounds protecting it .

Inside the Operation Room - they conducted the Battle of Britain and movement of planes.

Here is a list of several airfields around London.

These buildings housed officers.

They buildings housed soldiers and airmen.

After the war - Britain needed 1 million new home. This is a prefab home - 4 rooms and a bath. They were delivered by truck - you put them together in 3 days. they were supposed to last only 10 years - but today many people still live in them. I lived in a kit home I assembled in Tamaqua for 30 years.

This is an Anderson Shelter. It was similar to a steel pipe you covered with dirt. There is one in the backyard of our London apartment. People did not like them and resorted to just going under their stairs in the house.

This is a portable cabin. It is like a trailer with no wheels. Notice they were stackable.

This is a German V-1 Buzz Bomb. They would launch them from France or Holland. they had no pilot just 2000 pounds of TNT. They would run out of fuel and fall. 6000 people were killed by them. The worst one hit in Chelsea - and it killed 100 Americans at once.

This is a map of the 8 museums at Duxford.

This is a drawing of the 8 museums at Duxford.

"Neve run the course of human events has so much been owed to so few." - Winston Churchill during the Battle of Britain. Spitfire and Pilot.

This is Trinity College in Cambridge.In the movie "Chariots of Fire" the race to beat the chiming clock was run here.

This is St Johns College in Cambridge.

The USA Museum was a clutter of planes - it was hard to get good pictures. Here you see and A-10 Warthog and a B-52 bomber.

Patton said 3 things won WWII - the Jeep - the Higgins Boat landing craft - and the C-47 Gooniebird shown here.

Jimmy Doolittle led a group of B-25's to bomb Tokyo right after the Pearl Harbor attack. It was a moral victory America needed at the time - it did not do much damage but really peed off the Japanese.

The SR-71 is the fastest planes in the world - it could fly 2000 MPH and take pictures from about 20 miles up. 

This is the engine of a Sherman tank. It is five 6-cylinder car engines arranged in a circle making 450 HP.  They are just regular flathead engines used in the 1930s - 1940s - and 1950s.

During the crisis in Northern Ireland - the Brits used this robot to get bombs out of cars.

Finally - a favorite of mine - a 1939 Volkswagen "jeep boat." It has 4 wheels drive and a sealed body with propeller. You could go straight from land to water  on the fly. The body reminds me of the American dune buggies of the 1960s.

If you stuck with me this far - thank you.

John McCain said - Sarah Palin Is a Better Candidate Than Romney

John McCain said these things 4 days ago - not 4 years ago - 

"Oh come on, because we thought Sarah Palin was the better candidate," John McCain told reporters Tuesday. "Why did we not take Pawlenty, why did we not take any of the other 10 other people. Why didn't I? Because we had a better candidate, the same way with all the others."

John the non-bragging war hero said, "Romney had all his money hidden in Switzerland. Sarah Palin was better, because she had never heard of Switzerland."

Why not Romney? Not because there was anything menacing in his tax returns. Because Sarah Palin was better. That's right. Sarah Palin was better. Sarah "Refudiate" Palin, who would not let the public rest until a Lifetime original series was dedicated to her, whose meandering remarks left you feeling as though you had been struck from behind by a blunt object, whose mere mention made millions of campaign-watchers cry out in terror and then go suddenly silent — was a better choice.

According to what criteria? Relative bizarreness of children's names. Hair care? Even then, the race is tight.

Unless the sole criterion by which the McCain campaign selected its helpmeet was resemblance to Tina Fey, I am not sure what the explanation was. Sarah has — er, more X chromosomes? She lives in a more remote area of the world? She has never strapped an animal to the roof of her car that was not already deceased?. I suppose she shook up the race more, in the sense that a tossed grenade shakes up a cocktail party.

One said, "I can see Russia from my house." The other one said, "I can see thousands of the jobs I created from one of my Russian houses."


Portions stolen from the Washington Post

Keith Bought Tickets For The Opening Ceremony of the Olympics For Us

We will be sitting in section 250 for the opening ceremony. The stadium hold 80,000 - slight less that FSU's Doak Campbell Stadium hold at 84,000.

Notice the rivers circles the stadium on 3 sides. It is almost like a moat - everyone goes in over bridges.

After the Olympic - they will remove the top half of the stadium - taking it down to 30,000 seats.

Tallahassee Had Lots of Rain Yesterday

My buddy George sent this video of a storm back at our house. Notice it is raining so hard that you cannot see the lake. We got 1 inch of rain in 16 minutes. For comparison - Tamaqua PA gets about 40 inches of rain a year. Tallahassee gets 60 inches of rain a year - but for the last few years we have been having a drought. The lake behind our house - normally about 10 feet deep down to 3 feet at its deepest point. The lake is a sinkhole and rises and falls with the water table.

RAF Duxford Air Base

I am at Duxford - took the express to Cambridge and bus to air base. I found a deal. 16 pounds for admission and bus. It is 25 minutes to base. There are 8. Yes 8. Giant hangars full of 200 planes. They are so packed it is hard to take pix. I only went through one so far. Lighting is poor. Should have super wide lens.

During war US bombers were stationed here. Also the P-51 Mustangs. It is a big wide square grassy field. They used to land in dirt. 7 more buildings to go. Lots of pix. Weather is perfect. I figure lots of Americans will come here for Olympics. Free wifi.

Harry's iPhone

NCAA Throws the Book at.........Cal Tech

Throw the Book at Penn State

By JOE NOCERA from NY Times

You just can’t make up a coincidence like this.

On Thursday, the same day Louis Freeh, the former director of the F.B.I., issued his damning report about the cover-up of Jerry Sandusky’s sexual crimes by the Penn State hierarchy, the N.C.A.A. lowered the boom on — are you ready for this? — the California Institute of Technology.

One of the world’s great engineering schools, Caltech is never going to be mistaken for Penn State as an athletic force. With fewer than 1,000 undergraduates, it is a Division III school, which means, among other things, that it doesn’t grant athletic scholarships. Its basketball team ekes out about five wins a season, and its baseball team, according to The Times, has lost 227 games in a row. At Caltech, unlike your typical athletic powerhouse, “student-athletes” truly are students.

Part of being a student at Caltech means “shopping” for courses for the first three weeks of each trimester. Students are allowed to sample classes before they have to register for them. “During those three weeks,” read an N.C.A.A. press release issued on Thursday, “because they were not actually registered in some or all of the courses they are attending, some students were not enrolled on a full-time basis.” And part-time students, you see, are not allowed to play intercollegiate athletics. Between 2007 and 2010, according to the N.C.A.A., this happened with 30 athletes in 12 sports.

It would be hard to imagine a more frivolous violation of the rules — or one that could do less harm to the integrity of college sports. What’s more, Caltech turned itself in after a new athletic director realized that the practice of shopping for classes probably violated N.C.A.A. rules. Yet the punishment imposed on the school was severe: three years of probation, a postseason ban in a dozen sports, the erasure of wins and individual records that were gained with ineligible athletes, and more. Indeed, Caltech was cited for “a lack of institutional control,” which is pretty much the worst thing you can be accused of in N.C.A.A.-speak.

In the wake of the Freeh report, there has been a lot of speculation about what punishment the N.C.A.A. should impose on Penn State — and even whether the Sandusky scandal is within its purview. I’m in the camp that says the N.C.A.A. should throw the book at Penn State. The legal system will take care of whether others besides Sandusky deserve to go to prison for failing to report his predatory behavior. Penn State itself will almost surely finish the painful process of removing the halo from the head of its late coach, Joe Paterno, which the Freeh report has begun. But only the N.C.A.A. can impose the so-called death penalty, forcing Penn State to shut down its football program for a period of time. Yes, it would make a mess of television schedules, not to mention the rest of Penn State’s athletic teams — which rely on the revenue that football generates — but it’s the only way to send the right message.

That message is this: no university should ever be as beholden to its football program as Penn State was. At other big-time sports schools, there are all kinds of daily hypocrisies that people avert their eyes from in the name of college football or men’s basketball. Sadly, we accept these hypocrisies as the price to be paid for the money college sports generates and the entertainment it provides.

But at Penn State, football was of such overweening importance — and Paterno was such a godlike figure — that a sexual predator was allowed to roam free because of his association with football. A janitor spots Sandusky in the shower with a boy but is afraid to say anything because crossing Paterno “would have been like going against the president of the United States.” Sandusky uses the lure of the football program to attract his victims. Paterno and others in the Penn State chain of command, in Freeh’s words, “repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky’s child abuse” — to avoid bad publicity for the football program. A great university sold its soul to its football team.

As regular readers know, I don’t have much faith in the N.C.A.A. It has congealed into a bureaucracy that cares only about enforcing its rules, no matter how silly or retrograde. But here is a chance to put its money where its mouth is. The N.C.A.A. proclaims that part of its mission is to “integrate athletics into higher education.” If it really believes that, it will impose the death penalty on Penn State, to send a signal that no school should put football above its own integrity.

Anything less than that will send another signal entirely. Namely, that in the eyes of the N.C.A.A., what happened at Penn State is no worse than what happened at Caltech.

Hotel Lobby in Durham

In Durham for the Miners' Gala - we stayed at the Premier Inn. We had a very nice small room -  modern furniture and motif. The restaurant in the background on the left - served a wonderful breakfast.

Honestly - with so many people in town - I was surprised Lulu got us a room - just 4 days in advance. 

The funniest part for me was the hotel lobby. You walked in the door - at the counter was a computer right next to a row of beer taps. You could order a room or a Guinness beer - or both at once. I was sitting on a couch and took this picture. The woman on the right is getting a room key - the woman on the left is ordering her second beer. The group on the left was one of the colliery bands. Their equipment was being loaded onto the bus directly behind me. They were going home - and the Miners' Gala Parade was still going on - it was that long.

I was astonished with how vibrant and area the Coal Regions of England are - 25 years after the mines were closed down by the government. They adapted on one hand - but respect the past with their annual miners' parade.

NCAA must strip Paterno of record

This was written in the Tallahassee Democrat - not by me.
The wins record should go.
There, I said it. We all should say it.
Joe Paterno's name should no longer sit atop the record books as the winningest coach in major college football history.
Call it punishment. Call it the right thing to do. But don't call it self-serving.
This isn't about Bobby Bowden backing his way into the record. Bowden himself would take no pleasure in any of it. He would prefer to be carried off the field following a victory, the way he was in 2003 after passing Paterno to claim the top spot.
No one wants to receive the ribbon years after the race.
But this isn't about Bobby Bowden. It's about the guy Bowden's career has been linked to for so many years, and unfortunately will be for eternity.
The guy who allowed a child rapist to continue preying on the innocent to save his empire. Who took Win At All Costs to a level we've never seen before. Who essentially tried to protect his legacy by sacrificing young boys to a monster.
That's why the wins record should go.
And people in Tallahassee, and people who support Florida State, should not be embarrassed to take that stance.
While fans and media types around the country are focused on removing Paterno's statue from the Penn State campus and shutting down the football program, it's only natural that people who follow Florida State are more focused on the wins record. That's how we have identified Paterno for so many years.
In the end, we all want the same thing. We want honors to be reserved for the honorable.
And Joe Paterno deserves no such distinction.
I certainly understand sports are not morality plays — that the good guys don't always win, and the line between good and evil is sometimes indiscernible — but that doesn't mean we should ignore everything that takes place off the field and outside the classroom.
How could we ignore this?
While some have said the entire sordid mess is outside of the NCAA's purview, we all should argue the exact opposite. If the NCAA can't penalize a coach and university that likely committed crimes by covering up heinous, violent acts by one of its leaders, then what is the point of existing?
If you strip this down to its base, you have a head coach, athletic director and university president conspiring to cover up crimes that would have cost them their jobs, damaged the university's ability to recruit top players, and ultimately hurt the football program's chances of winning more games.
That's no less an NCAA violation than boosters paying players or tutors providing answers on tests. And if Bowden could be stripped of victories because of an academic scandal he knew nothing about, then Paterno damn sure should lose wins that occurred after he took part in covering up rapes in 1998.
The wins record should go.
Not because Bobby Bowden deserves it.
But because Joe Paterno doesn't.

On Train To Durham

The train to Durham is fast - smooth - and crowded.


Free wifi but only 15 minutes.


Overcast all the way. About 40 minutes to go.


We are stopped right now due to a freight train problem. Up to now we zoomed.


Supposed to be in Durham by noon.


Harry's iPhone

Lulu Flying Her Kite on Primrose Hill

Lulu and kite on Primrose Hill - London - picture stolen from Brandy Milburn

Yesterday Lulu's class included a trip to Primrose Hill. The gushing librarians knew that this is the place where Mary Poppins flew her kite in the  movie. I am sure they were all singing "Let's Go Fly A Kite" but they should have been doing "Singing in the Rain" as it started to hail.


Mary Poppins is a series of children's books written by P. L. Travers. Throughout the Mary Poppins series, which lasted from 1934 to 1988, Mary Shepard was the illustrator and acted as a second author.^[1] The books centre on a magical English nanny, Mary Poppins. She is blown by the East wind to Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, London, and into the Banks' household to care for their children. Encounters with chimney sweeps, shopkeepers and various adventures follow until Mary Poppins abruptly leaves, i.e., "pops-out". The adventures take place over a total of eight books. However, only the first three books feature Mary Poppins arriving and leaving. The later five books recount previously unrecorded adventures from her original three visits. - From Wikipedia.


Today - July 12th - is Lulu's birthday. We were married 41 years ago - she was 4 years old at the time.

London Car of the Day - CHROME LIMO

 I am not even sure what brand this limo was - but it was certainly chrome plated.

Every day from now on I will pick the most interesting car I see in London and post a picture.