East Lomond (NO 243061, 434m)West Lomond (NO 197066, 522m)Bishop Hill (NO 185043,461m) 20 kilometres710 metres of ascent Having previously climbed West Lomond and East Lomond from the Craigmead car park, and having made a more recent traverse of Bishop Hill from the Holl Reservoir car park, I decided it was time to chain all three … Continue reading Lomond Reservoirs Circuit
All posts by Oikofuge
How To Model Rotating Propeller Discs
There are some things I hate about “in-flight” models of piston-engine aircraft. One is when the aircraft appear to be flying without a pilot; the other is a stationary propeller.
Modellers have a couple of ways of dealing with this second problem. One is to simply remove the propeller blades, leaving only the filled and smoothed spinner visible—it’s a well-recognized technique which many feel produces the most realistic appearance. But it always makes me think, Where’s the propeller? I find the complete absence of anything in the space where the propeller should be is a little distracting. I’m also not very keen on the photo-etched “prop-blur” option, which aims to produce a blurred sector for each prop blade, reproducing what we see in photos and movies, but not what we see with the naked ey
R.A.J. Matthews: Tumbling Toast, Murphy’s Law And The Fundamental Constants
Robert A.J. Matthews published this seminal bit of applied physics in 1995. The journal reference is European Journal of Physics 16(4): 172-6, and you can access the full paper at ResearchGate, here. For his efforts, he was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 1996.
Matthews was the first (but by no means the last) to use mathematical physics to explore the popular claim that “dropped toast always lands butter-side down”. The usual “explanation” invoked for this perceived rule is Murphy’s Law—“If anything can go wrong, it will”—but Matthews sought to show that there were sound physical principles underlying the phenomenon.
Keplerian Orbital Elements
1. All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun at one focus.2. A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.3. The square of the period of any planet is proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of its orbit. Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion (formulated … Continue reading Keplerian Orbital Elements
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The Sound(s) Of wh
You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together, and blow. Lauren Bacall, To Have And Have Not (1944) No, your browser hasn’t had a stroke—this post really has wh in its title—that is, the two letters at the start of the word whistle. For most of the English-speaking world, … Continue reading The Sound(s) Of wh
Supermodel 1/72 Blohm & Voss 138 “Flying Clog”: Part 2
I finished my previous post having painted the finicky yellow stripe on the rear of my aircraft. Having masked that off, I sprayed the RLM65 blue underside, and masked that, followed by a base layer of RLM72 dark green for the upper surfaces. Then there was a lot of tricky masking for the even darker … Continue reading Supermodel 1/72 Blohm & Voss 138 “Flying Clog”: Part 2
Bishop Hill Circuit
Bishop Hill (NO 185043, 461m) 13.5 kilometres370 metres of ascent Bishop Hill is a prominent ridge on the far side of Loch Leven for anyone driving on the M90. Together with West and East Lomond, it encloses an area of tilted terrain, dotted with reservoirs, northwest of Glenrothes. I parked at the Holl Reservoir car … Continue reading Bishop Hill Circuit
T.J. Bass: The Short Stories
He stood up and walked to the still form of his assailant. A female. Her abdominal muscles were still twitching, but no breath moved through her open mouth. He felt no pulse. Between her breasts he saw his brown-stained heel print. The sternum was depressed and made gritty sounds when he palpated it. Fractured. And … Continue reading T.J. Bass: The Short Stories
Fata Morgana
As the weary traveller seesIn desert or prairie vast,Blue lakes, overhung with trees,That a pleasant shadow cast; Fair towns with turrets high,And shining roofs of gold,That vanish as he draws nigh,Like mists together rolled,— Henry Longfellow “Fata Morgana” (1873) I took the photograph above in Kolyuchin Inlet, in the Russian Far East, one evening in … Continue reading Fata Morgana
Supermodel 1/72 Blohm & Voss 138 “Flying Clog”: Part 1
This is an old kit I’ve had lying around in the attic for years. It has more recently been reissued by Revell—same parts, but a better set of instructions (available online from Scalemates) and decals. Blohm und Voss is a German shipbuilding company, which diversified into aircraft production during the Second World War. Under the … Continue reading Supermodel 1/72 Blohm & Voss 138 “Flying Clog”: Part 1