[BITList] RR Engine for A-380

[HUGH]

John,

Fitting these things in RN vessels is why Britannia no longer rules the 
waves and we can hardly afford to build warships.  I had a close 
approximation during my penance as 2E/O on GTV Morar, where we had a 
partially marinised turbine from god knows what stable (some of the comments 
given against the Trent ring a bell with me), and free gas and pissifiers 
that looked like scaled down versions of the Trent - a different thread on 
every nut and few user friendly bits.  Despite the latter, we had to 
persuade the bits to at least be civil to us users. I remember with 
nostalgia fitting extensions to extensions to extensions with a socket on 
the end, poking the 6 foot long floppy assembly through a gap and finding 
the socket the wrong one for the distant nut.  In a really bad day the 
outward half of the assembly would disconnect and fall down.

Oil leaks on motor bikes are god's way of keeping them clean, much as with 
diesel leaks on Doxfords.  I've got a copy of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle 
Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig (1974), and  Pirsig is philosphical about 
worse than oil leaks.  On my first bike, an Enfield Model G (respectful 
pause), I stripped a couple of the bottom set screws holding the cover on 
the timing gearbox and managed to effect a repair using a mixture of prayer 
and Hermatite jointing compound.  The engine sometimes lost a bit of oil 
over a period, but I put it in as fast as it came out, so all was well.  One 
day in Gourock I heard a clanking sound and deduced I'd run a bottom end.  I 
clanked to the nearest garage and put in a load of oil, then clanked home. 
It was, indeed, the bottom end.  I repaired it - no problem on the Enfield, 
though my mother would have preferred it to be done outside and not in my 
bedroom.  Only the engine was in the bedroom. My brothers were in the Army, 
so at that point it was my bedroom.  Not long after that I joined BI, and 
the bike had barely been run since the repair.  Somewhere out east I got a 
letter from my pals to say they had borrowed the bike and were setting off 
on a tour of the Highlands.  The next letter described their ordeal after 
the bottom end ran again somewhere on a remote road.  You can't get that fun 
out of a Yamaha.

Hugh.