Why I am I writing this, 2 reasons, 1st I’ve always said we all have a book in us and we should each write our life stories for historians of the future to get an across the board view our past and 2nd lately mother has got to the stage where she can’t remember a lot of things and it leaves me thinking I better do this before I forget the lot. This maybe disjointed as initially I’m trying to get things down as I remember them and I hope to make sense of them later. This was supposed to be just about engineering through my life but I find myself also adding personal memories amonst it all.

  I was born in the late 1950's and loved drawing and making things. Although I couldn't read or write very well (still can't but thank god for spell/grammar checks) I could often fix things by looking at the pictures in instruction books, much to the amazement of my parents. In those day if you broke something you either fixed it or you'd have to start saving plus your parents would probably kill you. So learnt to fix things, mainly by breaking them first, not on purpose I've just always been a bit heavy-handed as I think it was then called.

  My first memories are of looking up from my cot and the time when we went to uncle John's and the Christmas pudding boiled dry and exploded across his ceiling. But already most of my early years seem to have vanished and things I do remember are like being told off for playing with my Christmas present while the TV was on and dad threatening to switch off the TV if I did it again. These were the days of one TV per house and two channels if you were lucky. I think we all missed Christmas night TV that year!

  As kids at that time we used to play on bomb sites, it didn’t mean anything to us they were just there, to us any war had been over a lifetime ago. We used get annoyed by the fact builders came and cleared our adventure parks and put new housing there. It seems strange now looking back on it that there were lots of streets that would only have a few houses standing and the rest of the street would be rubble, and yet we thought nothing of it, we had loads of building materials for our dens and there were forever bonfires burning. I guess as a kid you accept whatever is around you as normal! I guess what would seem strange to many people today is that although we lived in the middle of Bristol we could walk to fields in less than 15-20 mins. At this point in the early sixties there was very little car ownership and possibly none in our street, we were lucky, dad was a butcher and we got the use of the butcher van for outings. It was a Morris 1000 van, and on week-end us 4 and our 4 neighbours would squeeze into it and go to the seaside or somewhere.

  Terror as it is now, although now I know it probably won’t hurt, came from dentistry. In those days I seem to remember we went to the TA and people there shove you into a horrible chair and then came the belt driven drill which would slow and stopped if they pushed hard and they did all the time. I remember fighting to pull off the gas mask as it was held down on me for an extraction. When we finally got a proper dentist things didn’t improve, he taught at the dental hospital and said as long as he was insulting you it wouldn’t hurt and to worry if he was nice. But it always hurt, at this time I gave up having injections as this just meant more pain. Our whole family went to this man and I don’t think it was until my sister got married and left home and got a new dentist that we were aware you could have dentistry without pain. I had a wonderful dentist who has since given up adults and only does children, a loss to many of us. She was great and when she removed a tooth that was killing me, I sent a "thank you" letter for the removal of the tooth with the lack of pain during the removal. She was taken aback she’d never been thanked before! No wonder there is such a high suicide rate with Dentist. After she gave up adults I had to once again search for a new Dentist and found that even now you still get some rough ones, as we’d moved to Gloucestershire I went to a new Dentist to the area who’d moved over from the Isle of Man or somewhere. He convinced me that 4 of my old fillings needed redoing at £100 a time and that he only used white fillings. For 3-4 weeks after the first 2 fillings I couldn’t sleep and was in terrible pain all the time and even ended up taking pain killers. He still did the others and said nothing to me about the causes. I then went to another Dentist and first thing he said was, you didn’t have any adverse effects from the white fillings then, apparently white fillings can leach acid and cause problems for some people and Dentist are supposed to explain the risks and if you do get a reaction then you don’t have white filling again.

  From an early age I was drawing and making things from paper, card, wood and anything else I could get my hands on. We made go-karts (wooden chassis with pram wheels and axles) and later I got into control line aircraft and then Radio Control Aeroplanes. You may think what does making go-karts teach you? A lot, for one, small wheels low chassis made it turn great but it never went far. Big wheels and a high chassis were great over bumps and rolling miles but turn sharp and you parted company with it. You learn't how supporting things in different places could be the difference between a working axle, a bent one or even a broken one. Building flying models taught me about strength and lightness, you’d build a wing from balsa (or later foam) and then before flying lean it up against a wall and put your foot in the center and rest your weight against it. If it broke you’d save your plane from crashing and if it didn’t you knew it wouldn’t break in a high G turn. This is isn't as critical in the full size thing as the pilot cannot take the sort of loads you can put a model through.

  Over the years thanks to hand-me-down through the family I learned a lot with Meccano, and programs like How, Blue Peter and Tomorrow's World and books and magazines like “How and Why”, “the Eagle”, “Ranger” and you cannot over look the influence of Gerry Anderson’s Stingray, Thunderbirds etc. and the many Stan Lee comics. By the time I was 16 I was helping fix Cars and Motorbike and was designing and flying model Aeroplanes and won the design for the local flying club Avon Marine and Aero Radio Club (AMARC) Badge. After school I’d pop around to my next door neighbour’s, Gordon, he was a few years older than me but he had a motorbike and his brothers had various cars and motorbike and sidecars. There would always be an engine coming out or something being rebuilt. I remember three of us taking out an engine from a Singer Gazelle to change the clutch, no hoist two of us one each end of a piece of wood and the third wriggling the engine off the splined shaft. We learn't early on that when fibre glassing and filling you didn’t put on too much. This was a new material to us and so we read the instruction and assumed it would be easy to build it up and sand it back. Wow the whole street was white, no one had garages or drives where we lived so everything was done in the road, painting, welding, glassing everything was done on the road in the gutter.

  I wanted to do Metalwork as an option at school as I wanted to be an Engineer. But as I was told I needed Physics and Tech Drawing and if I took those the time table was so arranged that you couldn't do Metalwork so I ended up doing Chemistry, which taught me a lot but I couldn't even pass the mocks let alone the real thing. Although I didn't know it at the time and no-one said , if they knew about such things, I found out in my forties that I was dyslexic! When you’re a teenager trying your best and you feel you know everything and yet you can't put it on paper. Probably the worst thing was I had an intelligent older sister who had gone to the same schools as me just a few years before me. All the teachers said I was good in class and at homework but when it came to tests and exams they'd said they'd taught her to and thought I was just lazy, "why couldn't I be more hard working like her"! Our school only did mainly CSE's, although for some reason even after my poor showing in the mock I was put in for O'level chemistry? I was also entered for O'level Tech Drawing which walking out before the end of the exam I thought I'd blown it. I didn't see anyone's looking the same as mine, but it turned out OK as I was the only one to get a grade A. Anyway me and a couple of others gave up french lessons to do O'level Maths and we went to night school to get our O'level Physics and as was the way we worked in the local supermarkets after school 2 nights a week and all day Saturdays. As dad was a butcher and I'd watched him over the years the local Tesco's gave me a part time job in there butchery department. And what an eye opener that was for a schoolboy. You could come in and find one of the women hung-up in the chiller room naked or being sent down on a conveyor belt tied up with a bikini half on! Apparently ours was one of the nicer stores, there was all sorts of rumours about the Bedminster store! I got on alright there and even worked the summer holidays before starting my apprenticeship and they even offered me a full time job!
  There were loads of rumours about the lack of Apprenticeship but it’s not until we started looking that we found out how bad things were. One of the guy’s I flew Radio Controlled Model Aeroplanes with Kieth, was a Design Engineer and said to find a small Company to do my Apprenticeship with as I’d get pigeon holed in a big Company and would not learn all I could.

  I applied to everyone I could think of and any anyone told me about (Rolls-Royce, BAe, BT and some small companies). I went for a BT Apprenticeship and got through to the last 10 out of thousands across the country but was not one of the 2 or 4 that made it. Funnily years later a guy I met racing and still know to this day said he was one of the few who got the jobs although he was in London and I in Bristol so we didn’t ever meet then. Then I got a call from a recruitment Consultants about the results of an IQ test I’d done for one of the small Companies. He said I had the highest score he ever seen and was wasting my time as the MD’s son would get the job as he wasn’t going to get the results to get a job any where on merit, and would I like him to introduce me to a Company that would jump at the chance of taking me. I said “Yes” Interviews for BT, BAe and Rolls-Royce had taken hours if not a day in some cases so my Dad dropped me off at Spare and Equipment Ltd. and I said I get the bus back home he could have waited I was out in minutes The MD said he’d heard all about me and would I like the job? I jumped at it.

  The Apprenticeship

  The first year of the Apprenticeship was spent at Soundwell  Tech College workshop in Kingswood 4 days a week and 1 day at Soundwell Tech College in Soundwell. First day at College was strange, quite a lot of kids from school were there and some from other schools I’d know from sports or working at Tesco’s. I don’t remember what I’d expected but near the end of the course we were chatting and one guy said after a few months he’d felt like giving up and joining the forces but they’d told him to finish his apprenticeship and come back in 4 years if he still felt like that. It was amazing we’d all done it (I’d gone to the RAF and was told the same) but none of us had told the others until then. We lost quite a few to Rolls-Royce who would not take you until you had your exam results so they’d contact you after you’d started your Apprenticeship to tell you they wanted you. Loads left, but I thought I’ve got what I want so why change, it would have been more money but I don’t think I’d have learnt as much as I did. There were 2 of us taken on that year, the other being Steve S who's dad worked for Rolls-Royce and issued contracts to companies like ours and as he wasn't good enough to get in at RR we took him to keep the RR contacts coming. He was laugh an ex apprentice Tony F and I used to mees with cars at dinner time and Steve asked if we'd tune his car (a A35) and was said yes loosen off the distrubutor clamp and will tune it. A few minutes later he came back and we said is loose and he said yes here it is, and it was in his hand. He got a bit disliked because we were supposed to move from section to section to learn how to do everything but when he got in to the flame cutting shop he wanted to stay and even though he kept getting the patterns wrong he stayed there. He was terribly gullible and wanted to be in on everything so someone thought up Cockle Shooting. We took him to the Feeder a local waterway, then we'd shot an air rifle and run down the path and pick up an empty snail shell and say that it got away. Expaning that you had to hit them just behind their heads or else they'd just scare and leave their shell behind. We didn't manage to bag any that day but he loved it so we got the secretary to type out an application form for a Cockle shooting licence and he filled it in sent it off. If we weren't working Tony F and I were working on cars or down the scrap (junk) yards finding bits.
  We had some great times I used to tune guys bikes but had none of my own. My cousin had had an accident some years previous on the back of someone’s bike and ended up with one leg shorter than the other and all sorts of back problems! So my parents said if I got a bike I’d be thrown out of the house. So I spent my spare time jetting around on the back of our peoples bikes, which wasn’t without it hazards. Such as the time we were doing just over a ton (100mph) coming back from Weston-Super-Mare when someone pulled out in front of us. This was the days before front wheelies but I think we were close, I was felt taller than when I’m stood up and at that speed it was terrifying, luckily for me Kevin J was a good rider and we didn’t even come off. From my school days when kids got mopeds which in those days would certainly do 50 and some would say they’d got near 70mph. Anyway from then on friends started to die and strange as I write this only a few years ago one of my friends, Mark F, I did my apprenticeship with died on the way to work. He was one those people I guess who try to recapture their youth in their 40-50 by going back to bikes. It’s amazing more didn’t die years ago I remember Dave M picked up his brand new Suzuki 250 and that night I was on the back of it and luckily we both thought there was something wrong and we stopped and had a good look. We’d both thought it was a puncture, but found none, on closer inspection a weld had cracked so the rear wheel was only attached to one side of the frame! These were the days when Suzuki where renowned for there pigeon shit welding and that wasn’t the last cracked frame we heard of.
  We and a lot of police at the time thought you could drive a three wheeler on a provisional driving licence it turned out the law had been changed, and unfortunately I didn’t find out until after I’d got mine. My parents were determined I would not get a motor bike so convinced me to get a three wheeler, my thoughts were a Morgan sportscar, the reality was a 1958 Mk IV Reliant Regal with a Austin 7 side valve engine that only ran on 2 of it's 4 cylinders (their first one with hydraulic brakes on all 3 wheels) for which I paid £35 and it cost the same to insure it although only third party as fire and theft was way too expensive. When we picked it up it wouldn’t pull up the camber of the road. Gordon, my neighbour drove it back for me which must have been difficult. Gordon was great, when he got it home we started taking it apart and we even rebuilt the engine in his living room, which didn’t please his mum. Neither of us had ever rebuilt an engine before so didn’t realize we should have had the engine rebored and had new bigger pistons. We just took it to pieces got new rings, shells, gaskets and 2 valves which had bent and jammed open and put it all back together again. I learnt a lot from this build the main one being get a torque wrench. We stripped and snapped a lot of the studs and bolts because we didn’t have one. It ran great if a little smokey, and Gordon used to come home from work and have his tea and then go out with me so I could learn to drive. Often he’d just sleep while I drove and other times he was more hands on like pulling on the handbrake while I was driving or switching of the lights whilst driving through Chedar gorge in the dark, thank god he couldn’t reach the indicator. Luckily I had replaced the standard switch in the center of the dash with an indicator stalk, in those days you could buy them in a car accessory shop. We used to fit all sorts of things like heaters, front and rear screen demisters, anti-roll bars all of which were options on new cars and of course seat belts which weren’t a legal requirement in those days.
  I had 3 or 4 proper driving lessons and then, because we’d put in for cancellation got an early test. I waited for the car to come and waited and waited. We were supposed to have an hour lesson before the test and then the test but the instructor arrived just before my test was to start with a different car. I had been driving my reliant, my dad’s Austin 1100, and the driving schools Escort 1100 so the 1600 Escort was a bit of a shock especially when he said they’d only just got it back together and the clutch didn’t seem quite right. Anyway I did my first practice emergency stop on the way. When the examiner got in I said he should wear the seat belt as it was fitted and he said he wasn’t going to and I’d better get moving. From the description guys at college gave me I got the guy who never passed anyone. I noticed twice I was speeding slightly but hoped he hadn’t noticed and when it came to reversing around the corner it wouldn’t go in gear but a few attempts back into neutral and eventually it was in. I couldn’t believed it when we got to the end and he said I’d passed. I let the instructor drive me home and he drove like a maniac, and said you can forget all that and drive like this now. When I went back to College I drove my three wheeler and for the first time I was on my own and responsible for my actions, pulling away first time was probably the worst pull away I’d ever done. later that week I nearly lost my licence, a learner friend asked me to sit with him whilst he drove. He drove into Bristol, a part I didn't know that well and he assured he knew like the back of his hand and promptly pull straight across a main road in front of a police car. I have to say they were very nice about it they could have done me as it was illegal to sit by a learner without having your licence updated and I could have been done for his driving without due care.

 Me and a mate drove to London on the hottest weekend of '76 and 10 miles outside of London smoke started to appear behind us. Austin seven engines like the one in the Reliant didn’t have a temperature gauge, and so when the rubber seal on the radiator cap leaked we had no indication, until the smoke appeared. We stopped on the hard shoulder and found no water in it so poured some in, next there was great whoosh and luckily neither of us were scolded by the torrent of steam that shot out and rose high into the air. We waited a long time before we tried again but after that it didn’t run as well as it had and we stopped three times to top up on the way back. Twice we got to services but once on the hard shoulder again and it wouldn’t start so we took it in turns pushing and trying to bump start it. Eventually it did start and we got home but after 6 months and trips to London and the Midlands in the Reliant I decided it was time to go up market. So I bought a 1967 Ford Anglia 105E from a lady who said it’s name was Betsie and I’d better look after her. I paid £70.00 and took her away. It was rusty and it smoked but it had 4 wheels, over head valves and a metal body. This was the first car we painted in the street, it seemed to take weeks pulling the fly bodies off, it was painted with Valspar oil based paints so you couldn’t rub it back after painting. We also had a few lucky escapes in it. One time we were driving down the motorway seeing how fast we could go, and trying to race a Mk II Jag when it started shaking. We slowly got back to Bristol by which time it felt like the axle or wheel was bent. My mate got out and I drove forward and he couldn’t see anything wrong so we went further and it got worst so I got out and he drove it forward and then I saw it. A bubble sticking out of the tyre  on the inner shoulder, luckily it hadn’t burst or rubbed the leaf spring or maybe I wouldn’t be writing this now. Another time we were racing around some country lanes and came across a hump back bridge and thought it might be fun to try it again a lot faster. This was my first flying lesson, and all was well until we landed and the car bottomed out. It’s a good way of getting rid of surface rust, the road was covered and there were a few new groves in the tarmac. Luckily the shocks never came through the wings but I bought another car within weeks. I bought a V4 Ford Corsair thinking I’d just rip the engine/gearbox brakes and suspension out of the V4 and put it all in the 105e. After buying the V4 I realized it would cost too much so I sold the 105e. First week of owning the V4 I had to take out the engine, it turned out the previous owner had left it on his drive with no antifreeze, obviously I didn’t know that when I bought it. I thought I’d been lucky in finding the core plug on the cross member, so I jacked one side of the engine up and knocked it back in, dropped it back down and poured the water in. There followed a big puddle but nothing was coming out of the engine! It was pouring out of the gearbox! First I thought cracked block, but I got a manual and found out there was a core plug in the back of the block behind the flywheel. Gordon, next door, gave me a hand to take the engine out whip off the clutch and flywheel off knock in the 10-20p core plug and then put it all back together. It was a lovely car, someone had put on a SU carb conversion which made it reasonable economic, 25-35mpg. This did however have one draw back the carb and conversion manifold would freeze in cold weather so I had to lag it. I had 4 foot foam wing from one of my radio controlled aeroplanes and fiberglassed that into the boot and cut down a piece of dexion shelving and got it welded on the front as an airdam/front spoiller. It worked we used to see how fast we could get around certain curves there was a hill locally that
During the hot summer I had sprayed my windows with window tint which meant you couldn't wind down your windows for 2 weeks until it hardened off. Steve S loved it and so he bought my Ford Corsair off of me and it was wrecked with weeks. First week he had it he smashed the front spoiller it a kerb, then his girl friend started scratching off the window tint. A few weeks later it was smoking and he blames me for saleing him a lemon. It was fine when he had it and it turned out he thought if you pulled the choke out it gave you more power so he drove it for 3 weeks with the choke half out which with a SU carburator would run it very rich and wash the bores

 At one time I owned a Marina Estate as a second car, why I don’t know it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. I think it was cheap and with the a-series 1275 it was a cheap spare engine? The guy I bought it off was a friend and had a reputation with the ladies, I never asked him why a pair of pants and tights were shoved down behind the spare wheel cover. I tried autotesting it for a laugh but the gear linkage snapped off in second so as it was a worthless piece of s**t I cut the tunnel and joined the bits back together. It had very low gearing and was terrible on motorways so it became a gate for my cousin, he’d park it across the end of his driveway and move it when he wanted to go in and out with his car, if not he’d find one of his neighbours would block him in. Later a another friend's wife’s friend borrowed it whilst her car was being fix or something when I got it back she told me it had been towed when she parked in a church car park and she had to pay over £100 pounds to get it back. I said if she had phoned me they could have kept it. After this it was lent to a friend’s wife who lived 40 plus miles away, the day before the tax ran out I went to pick it up only to find it was only running on 3 cylinders had no clutch fluid or petrol. I was pissy but took out one plug and put engine oil in the clutch system and petrol in the tank. Wow that was a noisey and strange drive. If ever you have to use oil in the clutch system be prepared, see the gap in the traffic and hope it is still there when you move. You take your foot off the pedal and eventually you will move. This was the first time I’d tried this and I did do it once more with an A40, I was living in Yate and working in Abingdon at the time and going to St Albans after work. I got there and that week-end we changed the clutch/flywheel for a smaller lighter version fitted one of my roller realease bearings and a new clutch cylinder.

In 1979 at BAC (Airbus) I did a draughtsman’s training course after finishing a 4 year apprenticeship. After the initial 18 months I specialised in Full Scale Layout (LOFT) which entailed producing lines in 2d to create 3d panels, working out how much metal you lose in a bend and also produce contours for press tools and moulds.
 In the early eighties I started on cad, NMG (numerical master geometry) which in those days was purely alpha-numeric. We produced the outside skin lines of the aircraft wing/ fuse and sectional cuts for all stations for spars, ribs, frames, stringers and intercostals.
 We’d key in geometry co-ords and then run it as a programme and get reams of resultant slopes in 3d vectors. If we were happy with that we could then send, after adding pen-up, pen-down commands to the main frame which would produce a tape which was then converted to punch tape and feed into a plotter, later this would take the tape. These tapes could also be used for nc-ing 2d panels and drill jigs and templates.  This was the way we did all outside skin lines and datums for aircraft then we would manually fill in all the details in ink.

In 82 I moved to Westland Helicopters where I produced mouldlines, lofts etc. for various helicopters. And was introduced to Catia (it might have been Cadam at that point) where you could see what you were doing as you drew it and interrogate the system as you went.

In the mid 80's I met up with Chris Norris (now of Swift Engineering Fame) we'd meet years earlier at various hillclimb events together with his friend Simon Page (now a long time Frogeye racer). Chris and his wife had just move from Watford to Attworth in Wiltshire and had come to a Austin-Healey Club meeting. So we got chatting and after that many weekends were spent building, fabricating bits for sprites, Scimitars, etc.

When leaving Westland Helicopters (110 miles a day was getting to be a drag) the deptment head asked if I'd mind carring on working on the project at BID in Radstock so I jumped at the chance, same money half the distance. It was a fun place, bit of a tip the old Railway stock yard building, BID were so proud that in their brouchers the photos that said Radstock Office were actually their main office in Midsummer Norton with the partions moved around. We used to work on BAC and Westland Drawings and we were all booked on both projects! The heads of departments we were doing must have know as both visited us and both knew each other and visited each other as I found out when I was still working at BAC. I had gone for an interview at Westlands for a contract job with Elgood and Dye and DG the head of Westlands Full Scale Layout had interviewed me and said it was mine if I wanted it. The next day, before I'd even had chance to hand in my notice, DG was in our office with my boss TK the head of BAC Filton Full Scale Layout. What they spoke about I have no idea but it was a bit embrassing.

Next I was off to SAC in Brunswick Square, Bristol where we could watch the St.Pauls riots almost outside. I worked on Fokker F28/100 Shorts 330, Embraer/Shorts Tucano and Aeritalia ATR 42.

 In 88 I moved back to Airbus in the Wind-tunnel Design Office where it became obvious after started the Hotal (spacecraft with air-breathing rocket) air intakes manually that we needed to use CAD and then started using Anvil. Hotal was a nightmare Future Projects held all the info on Computer in Anvil (the company CAD package) but they weren't allowed to let electronic data leave their department. So they would plot out all the sections and views we needed but at the wrong scale for us. So I would measure the drawings and put it back into Anvil in our department, scale them back to full size and then reduce them to the scale we wanted. We never found out how close we were to their model. The model worked brilliantly and we got fantastic results better than Future Projects were expecting, so we just started modelling the next part and were told the plug was pulled on the project because there was no money to carry on. One of the silly/annoying things with the project was we had to argue our case evertime we needed any info about the shape around where we were working and then someone brought in a copy of Flight International to whom they'd given a full cut away section drawing and various views, none of which we were allow to see!
 I’ve produced wireframe and surface models in NMG, Anvil and Catia V4 and when it arrived, solid Models in both Anvil and Catia. These were used for a number of things CNC, stereolithography (rapid prototyping), kinematic models and digital mock-ups.
 The stereolithography came about because of the Tomorrow's world TV prog on BBC. During the Hotal model the workshop took months making templates and then producing a wooden buck and then fibreglassed it and then burnt, cut and chiselled the wood off/out and then tested the cleaned up model. One change to shape would have meant the same process all over again. Then one night I am watching Tomorrow's World and they show this process where from a CAD model you could produce a plactic/wax model over night. Next day I and a few other people told our boss and said he had to check it out, he did and the rest as they say is history. Initially the models were not strong enough so we used them to take moulds from but materials and acturacy have improved and cost have come down.
 One of the projects I enjoyed most was when we were calibrating scale engines and needed something that would cause as little disturbance to the air and link the engine/ nacelle to the tunnels balance. It had to rotate and supply the engine with a large volume of high pressure air and have 200 pressure take offs. And be easy to dismount or change components. It was the first one I decided to do all as solid models and add 3D views on all component and assembly drawings and do an Airfix type series of assembly drawings, the workshops loved them and found it far easier to build and my customers Aero Techs liked it because they could see what we were doing instead of looking at a load of lines on top of each other. Also instead of people designing parts from a scheme all the parts came from one master model so we knew it all fitted together before any were detailed.

During this period in my own time, Chris Norris (Swift Engineering) and I produced a Cad 3d model of a C2 world Endurance Car, in autocad (which went on to win the championship 86) for Dymag’s Max Boxstrom, RML and Ecurie Ecosse. I also wrote a suspension programme for Max as it would take Chris half a day to work out one setup and the idea was to go through loads and find the best. He put in uprght pick-up positions (king pin joints) and I think the bottom link length and inboard position then for a given roll center height and virtual swing arm length would work out what happen when the body moved up and down and inch. I said if he gave me his calulations I could probably write a programme on the QL that would work it out straight away. 18 hours later I had it working and a couple of days later Chris was using it and doing loads of different setups which meant he could find the best geometry. But it was still take ages as he had to keep changing the top link length to get the best answer. So I asked what he was after and said I could loop the programme so that once he'd put in his data it would loop using a guess and reduce it by 0.5" and then when it got close to the answer he wanted it would reduce the amount to 0.1" and then by .01" until it got with a thou of what he wanted and then it came out with it's best length and inboard position. It worked a treat and so I then modified it so that if you had a top link it would work out the optimum bottom link length and position. I did a third one were you just put all your data in and it would tell you how bad your car was!
   We also worked on various Suspension packages using Anvil 1000 1.2 (2D) and other early cad packages.
Since then I have done a lot of Cad work both in the Aircraft and Racecars and some Automotive on either Anvil 1000, 4000, or Catia. Mostly I’ve specialized in 3D work everything from Ford Ka interior door panels to a supersonic toilet installation on Concorde.
   Chris and I had various adventures one of which was just after he'd sold his Reliant Scimitar to someone, they were going to pick it up at the week-end and we were using it to take a car to the scrap(junk) yard after stripping it for all it's useful bits. Got there, unloaded it off the trailler and were on our way home when going through a bend the the trailler pulled the back around and throw us off the road. We were going sideways for a while through hedges and rocking to the point we both thought we would roll but then the trailler pulled us back out. ?????

 Next time I was at Airbus was 2000-6 I was brought in to help with project rocket (Concorde toilet update) it was a 6 month job which had already over run. Someone else had decided what was going in and where it was going but we had to design fixtures to mount it to the stucture. All was going well when the Crash happened and it was grounded. We just sorted that out and 9-11 happened and we had to design a hijack proof cockpit door (project Stargate). During this time I also worked on loads of A300 and A320 bits and got got involved with geometry for all Airbus aircraft. Also I created an internal website for the Dept and worked out ways of converting point tables into points in CAD parts and converting parts from one cad system to another and ways of scaning in old manually drawn loft and making them Cad drawings so we could modify them.

Contract Companies - Where to start I suppose my last contract is as good a place as any I'd always refused to work for any Hebron and Medlock owned company eversince they stift me years ago and cost me a small fortune. But GED Sitec (H&M owned) controlled the contracts for the deptment I used to work for so I had no choice. Before I started it was all going wrong. I work through another company so 2-3 weeks before the contract started they were asking for details from GED Sitec and it was only after I started and was naging them, that I finally got the info. Then I think three weeks after I started and still hadn't got paid. They blamed me and the other company for not doing things their way. By now I was working on site at Airbus although they hadn't thought ahead enough to sort out PC logins etc so I was given my Sitec bosse's (a sackable offence if you work for Airbus). After speaking to a number of people this was a common thing sometimes for the whole contract. After I'd sorted out my login, as I know a lot of the guys at Airbus I told them what had happened and they agreed it would be safer from Airbus' point of view that they issued all "new starts" with there own PC accounts, then they would at least know who was doing what and where, instead of expecting people to start and use someone elses accounts and not know who was where. Next they where trying to sort out my Security (bit late) and so I was not allowed on site. On filling out the security form Sitec deleted my comments on Security Issues but made me travel to their offices to add my parents details! In the meantime I'd been asked about the Insurance GED Sitec said was needed as my normal PI Insurance didn't cover it. GED said it was all ok and not to worry. So I start back to work and yet again they didn't pay me, this time they agreed it was their fault but they only had one person doing the wages. It was sugguested if I worked for them directly these problems might go away.

Elgood and Dye - When I was down at Westland Helicopters there was a strike so we were sent back home. E&D said they couldn't use us (there were 3 of us there) so if we'd like to take paid holiday and we could work it off when we started back. We said "No" we didn't want to be in debt to them and they could lay us off. They then piped up and said that Westlands had paid a retainer to keep us on and how much did we want and BG said a figure and we all agreed, and didn't mention it was more than we'd been earning a few weeks before at BAC. The reason for going to E&D was you weren't allowed to move from one commpany to another if they both had contracts with BAC, and E&D didn't. Although a few weeks after we were there they got a BAC contract and a 4th person from our old office couldn't join us there.

BID - (pre H&M) When I left Westlands due to the amount of travelling I was doing, my boss there DG said would I still do there work if it was in a office nearer home. I said "yes" and he asked BID at Radstock if they'd take me on if they sent work there for me and they jumped at the chance. BID was a fun place to work for even if the management was a bit unorthodox.
During the time I was there we were told H&M had bought us and that we could tell anyone as we would be both bidding on jobs so we had a better chance of getting them.

SAC -  the first week with SAC was amazing they paid me over £1000. I told them not to, that my old boss at BID did the the wages and hadn't made such a mistake. But they insisted that I'd paid too much tax and paid me the money. The next Monday the wages girl came straight in and said could I give them a check as they had over paid me. Another good place to work until they became obsessed with image and started buying up other companies. We ended up with more management and less worker and then they told us we had to work harder to carry them and then they took on a new boss who would bring in more work. He didn't. He did however bring in more staff to help him save money.

GED - (pre H&M) I did a couple of contracts for GED both in the Aircraft and Automotive Industries. The first contract I did for them was at Airbus as a Systems draughtsman I didn't really want the job but I went in and they saw I could do the job and that was it. I was told this was a rush job and had to be out in 8 weeks. I finished it in 4 and it sat on JC's (my boss's) desk till the day I left. Once I'd finished the rush job I found there was no other work me and that I was one of many contractors with nothing to do. It turned out if a member of Airbus staff had a certian number of contractors working for them they got extra money. When he went on holiday I went to his boss and asked for some work and he could find any so he loaned me to ground support which had loads of work, which was quite interesting. Unfortunatly as soon as my boss got back he said he needed me but still had no actual work for me. One day I had a water leak on the car radiator and asked if I could leave early to miss the taffic and take the next day off (all unpaid) to get it fixed. He sent me to his boss who was not happy as I could not be replaced for just one day. The same day a guy I was working with told the boss he was going to play golf the next day and nothing was said. So the next week I said I'd like to take the Friday afternoon (2hrs) off and I was told this could not continue asking for a time off again and would like to rethink my request I said "No I will be taking Friday afternoon off". Friday morning just before leaving GED phoned me and asked how things were going and if anyone there had spoken to to me? I said "about being sacked" and they said "yes you know then" and I said "No not till then but none of the bosses would speak to me so I guessed"
One contract did cause me problems later. I did and 2 month contract at Airbus and at the end I left, they never told the contract was actually GKN's.

MID - This was run by one half the original owners of BID and he was still fun to work for.

GKN - I worked for GKN at Airbus in the Wind Tunnel Design Office but had nothing but problems with my pay I ended up walking out until I did get paid. It turned out the guy who hired me AM, had it in for me as he believed I'd walked out on a contract for them. I said I'd never worked for GKN and he said I had walked out of a 3 month contract after only 2 month at Airbus for them. I said I had a 2 month contract with GED and said no that was our contract and you walked out early and left the boss AC, wondering were I was. I said AC knew I was only there for 2 month and I got AC to contact him and say he knew I was only there for 2 month and that I hadn't just walked out oneday without warning. AM insisted they only issued a minimum of 3 month contract so I must have left early, he stopped me working on their contracts for 3 years.

Morsons - After not being able to work for 3 years a friend said Morson's had contracts in Airbus and was I interest. "Yes" I said and it was sorted. They had a couple of us working in In Service Support, the money wasn't what I was used to but it was work. After a few weeks chatting to people about rates it turned out we were paid less than any other companies and that Airbus had an agreement that there was a maximum amount the contract companies would take and if this was correct they were keeping too much. We went to Morson's and said we thought we were being taking advantage of. Their reply was they thought they were correct in the amount they were paying us and couldn't understand why Airbus kept paying so much. They agreed to pay us the correct rate and back dated it to the start of our contracts which in my mates case was 18 months of extra money he was over the moon.

Whilst working on this contract GKN-Wynnwith took over the contract which worried me given my history with GKN but all was fine and I've worked for them on 3 or 4 time since with no problems.

Omega - On a recent contract I was using a CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) checking bearings for F1 cars and Aero Engine Bearings it was very interesting but nearly killed me on about the 5 week I started feeling as if I was slightly drunk and my lips started tingling and feeling puffy. At first I didn't think that much of it but it got worse so I went to the medical room and was told to get something to eat and drink and go for a walk outside. I did and felt ok within 1/2 an hour. I went back to the CMM room which was in the middle of the workshop with a positive air supply from somewhere (no one seemed to know and had an airfilter that had a red light on) Anyway I carried on checking bits and was doing a run and had maybe 4-5 more to do and I started feeling strange again so decided I'd finish the last 5 of that batch and take the rest of the day off. I finished the last one but realised I was unco-ordinated and manage to grab my bag and coat and shuffle my way out. I saw my manager but couldn't manage to tell him I was going to the medical room although he knew something was wrong and sent me there anyway. Within 30-45 I was able to talk and think again. So it was decided I would go home and try again tomorrow in the mean time they would put a CO and CO2 meter in the room to see if there was a build up of those. I was the only one in there all day others might pop in for 5 minutes at a time up no one else was there all the time.
So the next day I turned up and for the first hour maybe hour and a half all was fine then suddenly I was in big trouble and just managed to get out while I could. They said the CO and CO2 readings were fine but they couldn't check for anything else (surprising as they use all sorts of chemicals in the hardening and carburising processes) so that was it. One manager said it might be one of the machinist as she wore too much perfume as he and others had commented it was hard to breath around her! I wish. I was told to hang around until I felt better and then either go to my Doctor or Emergency room.
An hour later I felt ok and drove to my Doctors who saw me within an hour. She said it was probably an extreme allergic reaction and that I'd probably reached my limit to something there and that each time as it's coming on faster and it could get worse. She sugguested that if I went but I would need 2 Epi-pens and someone monitoring me and not to go to that room again.
I got in touch with the contract firm who said I should go back and give it another try! I didn't I never heard anything from the Bearing Company to say if they found any cause, or was I ok!

Of late I have been writing Kindle ebooks. I now have 6 books currently out there and many have may it to 1 in the States and here in the UK for their catagory and a few times I've made it into the top selling books not just Kindle ebooks. I'm sure Mrs Brown (my English Teacher) will be turning in her grave.

More to Come

 

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