A strange happening

I have owned my 1977 Porsche 2.7 for 20 years. For all of those 20 years the VDO dashboard clock has refused to function. In the early days I removed the clock from the dashboard. I disconnected it and bench tested it with a 12 volt power suppy. Nothing.

I have shaken it and tapped it with a screwdriver. I have driven the car over tens of thousands of kilometres of rough Aussie roads and still nothing. The clock has stayed frustratingly frozen.

I have consulted various forums and obtained an opinion from a repairer on the likely repair cost. It was way over what I thought was reasonable to spend on a clock which I rarely would look at.

I gave up on the clock years ago. It was there and that was it-until today when I took the car out for a run upto a friend's for coffee. The car had not been driven for 5 weeks and had stayed under a cover in the garage.

For some reason I happened to glance at the clock whilst stopped at some roadworks and noticed that the hands were no longer showing 10.15 as they had done for at least the last 15 years but now showed 10.32. I pulled onto the side of the road the other side of the roadworks and carefully watched the hands and I could see the minute hand moving. The clock had mysteriously sprung to life after a 20 year sleep. But how and why?

It's a total mystery but at 1.44 when I took the above photo it was still going strong-just like it's supposed to. A very strange happening indeed.

The Mono Awards 2020

A few days ago I was advised that my photo above-The Chicken Man-had been Commended in the Australian and NZ Mono Awards for the best Aus/NZ monochrome photos.

The winning photos were featured on the online Guardian newspaper on 19th August. See MONO AWARDS

The photo was taken in Tamil Nadu, India in the Ooty Municipal Market in November 2015. I used the Leica X1 and converted the colour photo to monochrome using Silver Efex Pro2.

I am very pleased to receive this commendation as the standard of the winning entries was very high and nowadays I very rarely do monochrome.

An icy blast

There's an icy blast over South Eastern Australia this weekend and snow is falling on ground above 500 metres. It's cold and windy in Terrigal. The snowfields are getting a big dump.
 But it is the middle of winter here and I remember my visit to visit my daughter and family in Montreal in late November 2009. Now that was really cold. It was a fleeting, solo visit on a cheap fare. Val was not having a bar of that climate and Air Canada economy and stayed in nice, warm Terrigal. I was doing the Santa Claus run.

But as well the pleasure of seeing my daughter and family I really enjoyed going to an ice hockey game with Nick, my son -in- law. Now tickets to the Montreal games are very hard to come by but Nick managed to pull a few strings at short notice and we had great seats.

It was the only ice hockey game I have ever seen and I found it really exciting, hard and fast moving. No wonder the Canadians have never taken to cricket.

The local team, the Habs- the Montreal Canadiens- were playing the Washington capitals-the Caps. Ten minutes out from the end the locals were well behind and the disgruntled fans were streaming out of the stadium to make an early exit from the underground car park. Then the game suddenly turned around and the Habs took the lead and won in the final minutes. And many of the fans missed it.

We stayed until the end and although we had a long wait to get out of the car park we had the satisfaction of having seen the locals win.

I took my little Canon G7 to the game in my pocket and although it was a real stretch for its capabilities I came away with one action photo which is a great reminder of a really exciting event.

The odd white line which passes over the player's boot at the bottom of the photo is the top of the glass panel that surrounds the ice to protect the crowd from a flying puck.

Postcard from Oman #2

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The second of my 'lost and found' photos from Oman taken in December 2018. I cannot understand how I overlooked this one.

The stall keeper has such a friendly expression as he stands in his tent in the desert eager to sell some Arabian souvenirs to tourists arriving with their guides-all on a commission I'm sure- in their four wheel drives.
His tent/shop seemed to be just one of his business interests. He also was trading in camels and there was camel meat drying on racks behind the tent. I'd already tried camel meat at a meal stop earlier. It's very chewy and slightly gamey. Not unpleasant but not something I'd choose.

Postcard from Oman #1

 Although we are not in lockdown here in NSW we are restricted in where we can travel in Australia and we cannot leave the country. These restriction have me searching my files for worthwhile travel photos I missed the first time and there are quite a few. This is first of the discoveries.

This photo was taken on a late afternoon, golden hour, walk along the beach at Salalah, south Oman, back on New Year's Eve 2018.

The camel minder gave rides along the beach to tourists but he told me business was slow-"very slow sir". The hotels in Salalah were brimming with tourists -it was the peak xmas/new year holiday period-but very few tourists venture outside their hotels. The tourists travel from Europe for the sun and they plant themselves down by the hotel pools for their 6 or 12 days breaks and that's the limit of their interaction with Salalah or Oman which is a real pity because I found Salalah absolutely fascinating. The owner of the souvenir shop in the basement of the hotel told me that he saw very few tourists- but maybe they already had enough "stuff'' anyway.

I really feel for all the tourist operators around the world now, and in particuar those in places such as Oman, where there is no government income/business support to help them through the pandemic.

The photo was taken with my wife's Leica C, a competent, pocket sized, small sensor camera. I have a vague recollection that I was using the C that evening as the battery in my own camera needed recharging.

Hopefully no regrets

Friend Justin has sold his beautiful 911 pictured above after 22 years of ownership to buy a more recent 911. I was surprised to learn that he had sold it. Hopefully he has no regrets.

Photos taken on the wet and cold 2019 NSW Matesgrüppe Classic Porsche Road trip.

Justin says he is looking to forward coming on a future Matesgrüppe road trip with his new car-which he has not found yet. Not so fast my friend-early cars only in Matesgrüppe. There will have to be a committee meeting on that one.

Minimal

Minimal. What else do you need apart from maybe a better padded seat and perhaps some brakes worth speaking of?

More 747 stuff

The second Qantas Boeing 747SP-VH EAB

My earlier story on the retirement of the last Qantas 747 has created a lot of interest.

Friend, David Nicholls, Porsche 356 guru and retired Qantas pilot wrote to me on the subject of the Qantas 747SP as follows:-

Now that you've mentioned the Boeing SP that was operated by QANTAS, you've made me pull my old Log Book from the top shelf.

I flew the SP from November 1994 till January 2001

The two QANTAS SPs had registrations VH-EAA and VH-EAB

Destinations that I flew them to included, 

Sydney, Bali, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Jakarta,  Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Manila, Nagoya, Narita (Tokyo), Seoul, Singapore, Tahiti, and Taipei.

The best cold beer was in Japan.

Total time on type 755.6 hours.

From my cloudy memory, some details that I recall include,

It had the same engines and thrust as the longer fuselage 747s, so it performed much better. The word "sports car" comes to mind.

Idle thrust at landing touchdown meant a higher power to weight ratio, compared to the heavier 747s. Something to remember if you hadn't flown it for a while, otherwise you'd touch down, further down the runway. 

The shorter length fuselage was the reason for the larger Vertical Stabiliser, to give it equal directional stability.

It had the same brakes as the longer, heavier 747s, and associated noticeably shorter stopping performance.

The wings and flaps were different because of the lighter weight, so the speed limitations were different, usually faster.

Being superseded by the 747-400, QANTAS relegated its SPs to much shorter sectors than it was capable of, and where passenger loads were less in number.

David tells me that he logged over 13,000 hours total, on the Boeing 747-SP, 747-200, 747-300 & 747-400. That's equivalent to 1.5 years just flying 747s and in addition David flew military aircraft for the RAAF as well as other commercial aircraft. That's one experienced pilot.

Now he stays on the ground with his 356 Porsches and his great 550 replica. Sadly not even retired Qantas pilots can afford a genuine 550.

Photos below shows him in his workshop fettling some 356 motor parts and his New Old Stock 550.

If you are interested to read more about the first Qantas 747 SP and to

see some interesting period photos go to http://www.aussieairliners.org/b-747/vh-eaa/vheaa.html