
He started his career working on biplanes between the World Wars and when he retired he was working on Vulcans and Lightnings. What a time to be an aviation engineer.
He saw service in the BEF and was evacuated north of Dunkirk after it fell and then got posted to Singapore and saw that fall in 1942. I used to joke with him that he was either very unlucky or an AXIS spy.
( , Wed 29 Nov 2017, 11:15, Reply)

He was one of the very few people picked to be allowed to work on the only flying Lancaster.
I once saw him weld a steel plate onto an aluminium motorbike exhaust can with a crappy home ARC welder. The repair lasted longer than the bike. If you know welding you know how hard that is.
( , Wed 29 Nov 2017, 14:36, Reply)

What was the purpose?
* not a welder, just ancillary knowledge of terms due to bikes and whatnot.
( , Wed 29 Nov 2017, 19:24, Reply)

on his 125 and it would have failed an MOT. He was going to buy another one and my dad said "No need for that, hang on a minute", went to the shed, got his welder and a bit of steel plate. Hammered the plate into a curve then welded it onto the exhaust can to seal the hole. Saved him £80 if I recall right. It was about 30 years ago.
Apparently due to the different melting points of the two metals it is easy to make the aluminium get too hot and pull away from the weld.
( , Wed 29 Nov 2017, 22:07, Reply)