Author: Kev

So, its come to this.  As a young digger in the sixties I would have had a pinup of Marylin Monroe on my locker door. Now I’m reduced to Iggy Piggy and Upsy Daisy on the side of my bar fridge.

Maybe Upsy Daisy does has expressive eyes but seriously, I have no idea what Marylin’s eyes look like. You check them out  here (NSFW)

….Ok what colour are her eyes?

The bar I built the week before Christmas looks OK but it is let down by the Fridge adornment and I seriously I doubt I will ever be allowed to wind back the clock.

I come from the Karri and Jarrah forests of SW WA and bush fires were an integral part of life and death on the farms and town in the small community of Pemberton.

For these reasons I am always aware of the dangers; I feel for the victims and the volunteer and professional firefighters.  I would also like to think that the firefighters get the best equipment available..

Yesterday in The Australian Geoffery Luck wrote of lack of meaningful air support for these guys.

The huge Sikorsky/Erickson S64 Aircranes that Australia leases from California may look impressive, but they represent gesture politics. What counts in water-bombing is turnaround time and load. Each of the giant helicopters can carry 9500 litres of water, but they take almost a minute to suck it up; they fly slowly to the fire at 100km/hour; and they can remain airborne for less than three hours before refuelling.

He suggests an answer.

The Bombardier, a high-wing twin-turboprop aircraft, can scoop up its 6000 litres in 12 seconds, skimming any lake, river or the ocean at 130km/hour, fly to the fire at 300km/hour, dump and return for more while the Skycrane is still lumbering along with its first load. A single 415’s ability to deliver 80,000 litres an hour within a 4km radius of its water supply means a squadron could have saved Mount Stromlo in 2003 — as well as most of the 500 houses destroyed or damaged in the Canberra fires. The Victorian townships destroyed in 2009 were within operational reach of Lake Eildon, 60km away.

Spain has a mix of 14 older models and the new 415 series and  a GDP similar to ours so I wonder why the issue hasn’t come up before.  It can’t be the dollar and it certainly can’t be because we don’t have a need.

Queenslander and pilot Warren Bowen comments in a letter to the editor.

Australians should be aghast and dismayed we do not have a fleet of dedicated fixed-wing water bombers. The hire of American choppers must come at enormous expense each fire season. It is certainly high time federal and state governments, together with big insurance, embraced the concept. While Luck points out a fleet of six Bombardier 415 aircraft would only cost around $210m, the big costs come with crews and training.

As an ex-RAAF Vietnam vet and life-long airline pilot, I would guarantee hundreds of airline crew would volunteer for such a mission. Airline management would have to condone and authorise such arrangements as they “own” a pilot’s hours, which are restricted in time units by law. Many US airline pilots continue to fly fighters, bombers and transport aircraft as part of the National Guard and are subject to call for active service. If Greece can support a squadron of eight such aircraft, surely we could.

When I see the choppers operating it just looks like a thimble full of water being dropped into a huge furnace.

It has to be worth a debate at least.

BRITAIN’S first private navy in almost two centuries is being created by a group of businessmen to take on the Somali pirates who are terrorising an expanse of the Indian Ocean.

Simon Murray, Clencore chief, is building the force.

Its armed vessels – including a 10,000-ton mother ship and high-speed armoured patrol boats – will be led by a former Royal Navy commodore. He is recruiting 240 former marines and other sailors for the force.

The pirates will face former marines in armoured patrol boats capable of 40 knots and able to withstand incoming Kalashnikov fire. They will be armed with close-quarter battle weapons, such as the M4 carbine, and sniper rifles with a range of 2km.

I could never understand why shipping companies and/or their clients didn’t do something about the piracy. A well trained Infantry section of ten men could stop piracy dead in the water and they wouldn’t cost much. Include a cameraman to film the destruction of the pirates and their small craft and send that to be transmitted on local Somali TV and the problem would fade.

“The guys started off with their own PR being around poor fisherman having waste dumped in their waters. But sympathy disappears when you start killing people and extorting companies,” says Sharp. “There are 38 piracy training camps run by rogue special forces. It’s financed by people buying shares in their teams. So if you fund their boat, you get a share in the ransom.” Sharp believes the proceeds are fuelling micro property bubbles in places as far afield as Nairobi.
“Ultimately that’s being paid for by Lloyds and the insurance market,” he adds.

I admire the initiative and hope it comes to fruition

I’ve had to change theme due to the old one becoming unworkable.  The advent of Word Press 3.5 has brought many problems to the blogging community and a lot of theme coders are yet to catch up.

I guess the new year is a good a time as any to change and to prepare for the election year when we finally get the chance  to elect  adults to the Treasury benches.