Your favourite machine.

stimpsonslostson

EricTheWeary said:

stimpsonslostson said:

I've spent the day at the Scottish Museum of Flight & seen Concord up close. 
Wow. 
What a feat of engineering! Beautiful design & form following function. 
So what's your favourite machine?

I had a walk through Concord many years ago. What I mostly remember is thinking how dated the upholstery looked and how small it was in there. 

I don't get very excited by machines except for the 'posh' cars of my youth so I'll nominate a MKi Ford Granada Coupe. Yum. 

I'd agree that the interior was dated, cramped and dark, but the exterior is amazing. As is the ability to fly a reasonable number of passengers across the world at mach 2. 
It was poignant reading all the info about how it's a great example of two countries working together to achieve a dream.. especially in the light of Brexit etc. 

EricTheWeary

stimpsonslostson said:

EricTheWeary said:

stimpsonslostson said:

I've spent the day at the Scottish Museum of Flight & seen Concord up close. 
Wow. 
What a feat of engineering! Beautiful design & form following function. 
So what's your favourite machine?

I had a walk through Concord many years ago. What I mostly remember is thinking how dated the upholstery looked and how small it was in there. 

I don't get very excited by machines except for the 'posh' cars of my youth so I'll nominate a MKi Ford Granada Coupe. Yum. 

I'd agree that the interior was dated, cramped and dark, but the exterior is amazing. As is the ability to fly a reasonable number of passengers across the world at mach 2. 
It was poignant reading all the info about how it's a great example of two countries working together to achieve a dream.. especially in the light of Brexit etc. 

Quite hard to concieve of it doing what it did when it was so much like an elongated Austin Allegro. I don't mean that in a rude way, it's all the more amazing that in an era when no one could make a reliable car that they had the ambition to make a passenger plane that could break the sound barrier.

mike_l

nick_s said:

As much as I love the Spitfire, it has to be the Avro Lancaster.  My uncle was an engineer in the RAF during the war, and worked on them.  He had a life long passion for them afterwards, and it is something I picked up on.  In his later years, I helped him build various kits of the Lancaster, and to this very day, if I hear or see one, every hair on my body stand on end.

If you haven't already, then the film Reunion of Giants is a must watch for you. It was filmed when the BBMF and Canadian Lancasters were together a couple of years ago.

mike_l

Alnico said:

The Avro Vulcan, a jet-powered tailless delta wing high-altitude strategic bomber, which was operated by the Royal Air Force from 1956 until 1984.

http://i.imgur.com/6jb4IaZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/9sl79OF.jpg

As I said yesterday, Dad used to fly these beasts. Including XH558, on the OCU.

Alnico

mike_l said:

Alnico said:

The Avro Vulcan, a jet-powered tailless delta wing high-altitude strategic bomber, which was operated by the Royal Air Force from 1956 until 1984.

http://i.imgur.com/6jb4IaZ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/9sl79OF.jpg

As I said yesterday, Dad used to fly these beasts. Including XH558, on the OCU.

Aside from it's awesome capability as a machine, i just love how everything is so intregral, from the air intakes right back through the airframe it's all just perfect and the sheer size of the monster but with such graceful looks is incredible.

I'm heartbroken there isn't one left to fly in, should i have been able to arrange or afford that.
I could literally spend hours stood looking at one from inside and out.

Stunning.

mudslide73

Breville 4x sandwich toaster, Chinook helicopters and The Mallard. 

Dominic

Electric Chair
 - quite bizarre the strange lengths humans have gone to to invent an execution machine -especially the fact that Americans have always had a fascination for killing things with Electricity
In New York ,late 1800s and early 1900 s there was a fascination for publicly demonstrating the power of electricity by electrocuting large animals as a public spectacle ............Numerous draft horses etc but the fascination reached its zenith with the much publicised  public electrocution in 1903 of TOPSY the elephant - in fact the first scheduled date was postponed at the last minute because so many thousands came to watch the 'spectacle' that there wasn't enough crowd space for viewing....
 In total 3 or 4 elephants were electrocuted in New York including 'Jumbo "who was electrocuted 2 or 3 times as he was only badly burnt the first time !
 Cue Sambo video post "Ride the Lightning "......

Rocker

Any battery powered screwdriver/drill/masonry drill. No question, the most useful machine/tool known to man.

skunkwerx

This thing. The Lockheed Martin 'Skunkworks' SR-71 Blackbird.

It still makes my hairs stand on end and blows my mind!!! Was lucky enough to touch one last year at Duxford. Ohh how it made me hard.


Built in the 60's, still the record holder for the fastest jet aircraft ever flown..

Great engineering!

Electro_Ham

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff212/larz55_2007/mx52_zpsgw3kiqfr.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff212/larz55_2007/mx5lnk3_zpsac9s9hvd.jpg

Nomad

ThePrettyDamned said:

Nomad said:

Concorde, Land Rovers from Series 1 to Defender, and the Leica M2...

Quite possibly the most intuitive and pure photography experience I've ever had, and that's with an all-manual clockwork camera that doesn't even have a light meter.

Ooo that makes me think if my rolleiflex. 

Made in the 1930s, still works beautifully today, and requires less maintenance than a rangefinder. I'd love a newer one from the 60s but I absolutely adore mine. Ticks beautifully. 

They all need a CLA sooner or later - if nothing else, the lubricants age and can get gummed up, and it's possibly more down to luck if an old camera is still going. Agreed that a rangefinder probably needs more work come service time. The M2 is from 1962 and has never had any maintenance that I'm aware of, and it still works superbly. I also have a IIIf...

...from 1954 (with 1953 collapsible 50mm lens) which has had a CLA and needed a replacement take-up spool because the original was no longer gripping the film (there's some guy who makes exact replicas by hand). The IIIf is quirky but fun to use, in a not dissimilar way to a TLR, while the M2 is 'modern' and has everything where I expect it to be and thus extremely intuitive to use. The wider view in the finder suits me better as well (35mm frame lines, while the IIIf has no lines and is limited to a 50mm FoV). Need to use an external finder with the IIIf for other focal lengths, seen here with the same 35mm lens as on the M2 above...