[BITList] ok, well try this

[HUGH]

Colin,

That chap may have missed his vocation. Kicking paper balls around is not the only way to be ungainfully employed in an office (though by the clock it looked to be the lunch break). When I joined Odense Staalskibsvaerft at the end of July, 1965, along with 4 or 5 others from the UK, we were only there a few days when all but a handful of the Danes knocked off for the summer break. Naturally, we didn't get the holiday. Someone made a paper rocket - basically a long cone - and it flew OK, but not very far.  So we worked out a better means of launching.  As well as a desk, we each had a drawing board on a hydraulic or gas operated pedestal, with various levers that let it up or down or tilted it.  We found by experiment that a series of rubber bands looped together and stretched across a sloping board made an effective launcher, once we had solved the problem of how to shape a paper clip into a release hook. After a few disasters we got the weight distribution right by attaching paper clips to the nose, and we all (Danes included, daft as us) donned hard hats and goggles and did test flights, charting distance, height reached, angle of drawing board, and amount elastic stretched.  After a while we could fly one over the light fittings and into a waste basket, to loud applause.

Hugh.
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