Classic British Flight Sim

VC10 wrote:I said to him that it was a living breathing creature

Having grown up in the age of steam I'd sort of taken that as a fact It hadn't occurred to me that youngsters might just see it as a machine!

When I was in my early teens my holiday job was to clean a pair of traction engines belonging to a local builder. I spent countless happy hours cleaning out the fireboxes and scrubbing and polishing. All that time they were inert steel and iron machines with no hint of life. On the days he took one out I'd be there at dawn to help lay the fire and watch the first little flame from the kindling. As the fire took hold and the first wisps of smoke drifted out you could sense her slowly waking up and the metal clicking and a breath of life stirring. Once steam pressure was up and began escaping and the oil started oozing out of joints, you could hear it breathing and stretching and raring to go. Anybody who saw it happen couldn't deny that a steam engine has a soul and a personality.

Lovely, lovely pictures of Princess Elizabeth.

Ian