PING!
A light lit up in my head. The pin was OUT when the brakes were OFF. If it froze OUT, might the brakes stay OFF? Even in summer, a Lightning patrolling for an hour at forty or fifty thousand feet would arrive back at the airfield cold-soaked, freezing and possibly wet from cloud or rain. I picked up the Maxaret sitting on my desk and set off for the laboratory - where the cold-test kit lived - and which, in the months I had been at Dunlop, I had yet to visit. Down Swallow Lane and through the small door in that vast featureless wall - and found I had entered a different world: a world of a distant past.
Stunned,
I stopped and stood taking in an astonishing sight (and feel). The vast earth-floored space was filled with
BIG machines driven by belts - BIG belts - from shafts high above,
turning machines spinning wheel-rims of all sizes. The whole place was shaking
with a low-frequency vibration, and had the feel of a previous century. This
was one of the earliest surviving parts of the Dunlop empire, and, as far as I
know, is still there, having had several new owners and a management buy-out. Surely it doesn't still have that archaic works?
The
Laboratory was on the far side of that building, and after a good deal of
discussion involving sighing on their part ("but we did this years
ago") and insistence on mine, my 'failed' Rim Maxaret was set up in the
test rig with an agreed program of wetting and freezing. On my return the following day a small group
of us gathered to see the result, and Bingo! The indicator pin froze OUT and
the brakes failed. Whoops! Talk about egg on faces. The Assistant Chief
Designer was summoned and shown the result. Unlike that earlier experience
where I had been silently accused of showing everyone up, I was thanked for
spotting the problem and we established a warm working relationship that was to
produce more useful results later on. Another case of fresh eyes seeing things
in a new light.
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