It’s great that Bloodhound’s back on track, but as our anonymous blogger writes there are plenty more projects out there with the potential to get people excited about the dynamic, visceral nature of engineering.
Now that Bloodhound is finally up and running we once more have a dynamic engineering figurehead in the public eye. However there are other projects that, in the past decade or two, have garnered as many column inches in the general press whilst barely acknowledging our profession’s input. That’s not to say the technical aspects have been totally ignored but rather that the “human story” behind each one has been very much to the fore.
Prime examples of this are to be found within the railway preservation community via Tornado and Flying Scotsman. When first unveiled, coverage of the former tended to give timescales and personal sacrifice but, excepting a specific documentary hidden in the schedules, little of the engineering aspects that had to be overcome. True, numbers tend to be trotted out – x hours, y tons of steel, etc – but these are simply journalistic shorthand for the commitment required to fulfil the project’s goal.
The language of the engineer is one that draws on the lexicon of mathematics and physics, illuminated through plan and drawing
The Flying Scotsman came out of her protracted rebuild to national hysteria with, again, just a couple of notable documentaries by Auntie Beeb shown on secondary channels. Well, apart from numerous items about “Excitable of Winchester who has been waiting 10 hours in the rain to catch a glimpse as the train goes by”, inevitably quoting so many millions of pounds, so many years and so on.
Coverage of both missed opportunities for shots of drop hammers beating huge ingots into shape, the flash of acetylene as plates are cut or the raw sparking crackle of molten metal being poured. Missed opportunities too for showing the rising excitement as locos are built up from dead, disparate parts to become something that breathes and lives through fire and steam. The language of the engineer is one that draws on the lexicon of mathematics and physics, illuminated through plan and drawing. The deciphering of these equation heavy incantations, glimpsing the secrets of the dark arts of engineering – surely that is what hooks the next generation and brings them in?
Look around and there are plenty of similar projects on the go with the potential for sustained long term, in depth coverage. Bentley are building a batch of new “1929” 4 ½ litre cars, the DeHavilland Sea Vixen is starting to be repaired after her wheels up landing and – the inspiration for this piece – the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group is aiming to rebuild RB396 to flying condition.
For those who don’t know, the Typhoon was a late World War 2 heavy fighter which actually came to excel as a ground attack aircraft. A role that, in particular, was critical in allowing allied forces to make headway immediately after D Day. One of the self-imposed remits for the restoration team is to use as much original material in the aircraft as possible and in the latest newsletter there is a very good piece about the work currently underway on the rear fuselage. As well as using basic technical terms it covers aspects such as the annealing and dressing of aluminium. It also briefly explores the idea of aircraft having a design life and the financial consequences of preservation rather than manufacture from new. It has enough basic information to entice the novice whilst retaining enough content to interest the knowledgable and stands as a model of how the work of our profession can be portrayed to the masses.
The internet provides plenty of opportunity to get this kind of article out there but, perversely, that also means so much is out there already its difficult to get anything noticed by those beyond the already engaged. Promotion by an engineering big hitter, be it commercial organisation or institute, would surely help? The ideal would be a broadcaster picking up the baton and really running with it. Coverage of these kinds of projects should not be produced and broadcast as niche or “minority interest”. They should not be sidelined while C-list celebrities just being C-list celebrities fill prime time slots on major channels. They are far too interesting, and important for that.
My oldest is the Chairman of a large heritage engineering charity and I’ve noticed the age of the members is reducing all the time. Children seem to love steam engines. A moment’s inspiration can last a lifetime.
Robot Wars on TV and the far less publicised robot competitions such as Ant-bot competitions offer a great platform for engineering at a fraction of the cost of Bloodhound.
Your anonymous blogger seems to have overlooked the fact that the Bloodhound project has always been an open and educational project. The CAD data for the car is freely available to anyone. And the educational programme allied to the project is taking it to hundreds of schools and thousands of school children in the form of talks, presentations , a VR driving experience and the design and racing of model rocket cars to bring it all to life in a fun and understandable way.
The Typhoon appears an example of “perfection is finality” (James Stephens): it never really caught up despite its obvious utility (and some dangerous faults) . The Hawker Tempest was its successor, really late in the European War (1944) but more were used in East Asia later..
“… Upon entering service in 1944, the Tempest was used as a low-level interceptor, particularly against the V-1 flying bomb threat, and as a ground attack platform, in which it supported major events such as Operation Market Garden. Later, it successfully targeted the rail infrastructure in Germany and Luftwaffe aircraft on the ground, as well as countering such attacks by German fighters. The Tempest was effective in the low-level interception role, including against newly developed jet-propelled aircraft such as the Messerschmitt Me 262.
The further-developed Tempest II did not enter service until after the end of hostilities. It had several improvements, including being tropicalised for combat against Japan in South-East Asia as part of the Commonwealth Tiger Force.”