Interesting facts

According to legend, or is it a leg-end, a Matilda is the Australian nickname for a bedroll.

Waltzing Matilda means wandering around Oz and wild camping whenever, and wherever one ends up.

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Bob Dylan is 5ā€™6/7" tall.I always thought he was about 6 ā€™

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Hats add inches ā€¦ :wink:

image

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and the Cuban heels. :grinning:

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As already posted on the Some Funnies for Today thread: -

During Operation Granby (British Military Operations during Gulf War 1), the American forces were convinced that the Brits had a secret airbase.

British aircrew would give their location as MMFD, or approaching MMFD, or leaving MMFD.

The Yanks were baffled by this and tried to track British aircraft with radar and satellites, but not always successfully. Flying at supersonic speeds at an altitude of fifteen metres, aircraft such as the Tornado fighter/bomber would descend to ā€œCombat Heightā€ of ten metres when engaged with or dodging the enemy.

The American High Command was on the verge of getting the FBI involved to locate this secret base when someone had the bright idea of actually asking the Brits what MMFD meant.

The answer stunned them.

Miles and Miles of F-ing Desert.

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Got any links for that? It sounds more like a joke than a fact. I couldnā€™t find anything on Google using ā€œoperation Granbyā€ and ā€œmmfdā€.

I have to say that Iā€™m a little dubious of some of the American ā€œfactsā€ I see here occasionally. Me reading them: :face_with_monocle::thinking:

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It is impossible to leave negative feedback on Ebay for toss pot, timewasting buyers , Ebay over the years has become a shite place to trade!

Related to me by an RAF Chief Tech who routinely listened to cockpit voice recordings amongst other stuff. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of his statement.
Iā€™ve heard it repeated by many other people ā€œin the businessā€.

During one UK military operation I was working at a base somewhere in England. Fully armed aircraft were flying off, some to a forward operating base, but a few were flying direct to the target and back several thousand miles away, ā€œtankingā€ and ā€œbuddy refuellingā€ there and back.

I asked ā€œsomeoneā€ why the latter were doing that instead of using the forward base. He said that the forward base was being used by the US military as well. UK aircraft were carrying a very specific weapon, and I was told, ā€œWe donā€™t want the Yanks to see it.ā€

You think this is straight up fact without a bit of hyperbole told to make the story funnier? Especially since itā€™s only from one side.

Where would they be flying over the US where itā€™s desert land? There are a few places but not many.

Iā€™m still :face_with_monocle: :thinking:

This was during Operation Granby, the UKā€™s military operations during Gulf War 1, the liberation of Kuwait.

Each allied nation was ostensibly under central command, but each nation had its own rules of engagement (ROE). It was found that the US ROE was incompatible with the UKā€™s ROE, to the point that some combat missions by UK aircraft were impossible.

Consequently, in certain combat roles, (interdict/strike against enemy aircraft), UK and US military did not necessarily know where the others were. The shooting down of a UK aircraft by the USA military was a case in point.

I should point out that I was not there, so I can only rely on information, uncorobarated gossip if you will, from people who were there.

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I am reliably informed that if you drive into one in the UK, ā€œGive-Wayā€ signs donā€™t.

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My old foreman was an artificer on a battleship during the war. He used to tell us that when the Germans fired their guns at us, the British ducked. When we fired back, the Germans ducked.
When the Americans fired, everybody duckedā€¦
:face_with_hand_over_mouth:

He also told us that when we fired at a German ship it was one short, one long, and the third was bang on target. The Germans would hit the target with their first shotā€¦Amazing accuracy.

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I was told a similar thing by a former instructor who had fought in the WW2 desert campaign.

When the Germans flew over, the British ducked.
When the British flew over, the Germans ducked.
When the Americans flew over, the Brits, the Jerries, the locals, and the camels ducked.

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The engineering company I used to work for produced diamond wall drills, or hole borers.
They were used for boring holes in brick, stone, granite, and anything hard that conventional masonry drills couldnā€™t drill. The majority of these drills were for pushing pipes through walls, hence the name ā€˜Wall Drillsā€™ However, some were very small and used in electronics and even watch and clock making.

An American company (I think it was Norton) claimed to make the smallest diamond hole drill in the world and sent us one as an example. It was around one eighth of an inch in diameter with a sixteenth boreā€¦We sent one back slid inside theirsā€¦
:sunglasses:

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That reminds me of a story told to me by my late American friend who had been a an aviator in the USAF, flying in the back seat of Phantoms.
When I met him, he was a volunteer at the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio.

When Packards set up a Shadow Factory to make Merlin engines in the USA, they were sent one to copy, along with all the necessary drawings. After while they had to admit that they could not meet the exacting Rolls-Royce specification tolerances of the sample product they had been sent.

Rolls-Royce replied, ā€œBut we sent you a used engine!ā€

My friend said he believed this was why Packard Merlin engines could never be run at full supercharger boost pressure without failing.

Donā€™t get me wrong. US technology is fantastic, and Americans are (generally) very nice people and I made many friends amongst them whilst working ā€œover thereā€. Itā€™s just that they arenā€™t always as good at certain things as they would like to think.

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And when Sputnik went up Bob Hope said " , ā€œAll this goes to show is that their Germans are better than our Germans .ā€

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This is a very interesting article with some stunning pictures

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Hereā€™s a good one for a pub quiz.

What is the name of the team leader in charge of the first recorded successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953?

Answer: - John Hunt, (Actually, Henry Cecil John Hunt, later knighted Sir John Hunt).

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When you know, you knowā€¦

Back in 1994, Gabriel met Christina at a party and really hit it off. They ended up getting married even though she was 30 years younger than him. They were happily married for 20 years.

However, Christina eventually decided that she wanted to get a divorce. But when she went to her lawyer, she was shocked to hear she was already divorced from Gabriel 20 years ago.

And this is because 4 months after their marriage, the couple went to Dominican republic for a vacation and Gabriel divorced her there because thatā€™s the only country where one party can file for a divorce without informing the other party.

He said he did this because he knew one day Christina would divorce him and try to take his money.

IMG_8175

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Poor girl,all that hard work for nothing.

A familiar tactic.
ā€œā€¦William IV was known as the Sailor King on account of his readiness to create any number of piers at moments of political crisis.ā€

(1066andallthat)

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