It seems that almost every day there is another new story about inexperienced drivers who have killed themselves and others on the roads, often as a result of bravado, speed or drink.

I’ve thought in the past about ways of mitigating the risk of letting young, inexperienced drivers get behind the wheel and found myself rehashing some of these ideas on a motoring forum today.

Firstly, it seems in many of these crashes, the car involved is quite powerful and possible a comparatively large model. Obviously, the larger the car, the greater the inertia at speed and the results of a crash can be quite horrifying.

The obvious solution to my mind is to limit the power-to-weight ratio of cars available to new drivers. My target would be 70bhp/ton. This is the sort of power the novice driver will have experienced in a driving school car and will also be a controllable, basic, front-wheel-drive design. These cars would take time to reach high speeds so the their mean average speed would be low and due to their light weight would carry less inertia into crashes.

This requirement would obviously have to be enforced by the DfT during road-side spot-checks. Portable Rolling-Road machines could be employed to ensure the engines are not developing more power than the driver is licenced for and if these checks were carried at the usual DfT venue of public weigh-bridges, the power-to-weight ratio can be accurately checked.

Secondly, more powerful cars should require more training. The initial 70bhp/ton limit should be enforced for 2 years after the driver passes their test. No passengers should be carried for the first year unless the driver is accompanied by another qualified driver in the front passenger seat over 25 years old with 3 years experience. A curfew could possibly be enforced late at night to prevent new drivers becoming involved in drink-drive incidents after nights out or illegal street racing.

Beyond the 2 year probationary period, the driver would have to take more tests to qualify themselves to drive more challenging classes of car, the next step could start with a front wheel drive car up to 130bhp/ton. Other test could then be taken for rear-wheel drive, 4×4 and more powerful engines.

It would also be to everyones advantage to have a qualification requirement for motorway driving, probably to be completed after the 2 year probationary period. The standard of driving currently seen on the country’s motorways is nothing short of appalling.

Endeavour successfully returned from mission STS-118 on schedule yesterday. Landing at Kennedy Space Center, Endeavour suffered no ill effects during re-entry from the ‘gouge’ it suffered to the Thermal Protection System during launch.

I’ve found a couple of good videos from the flight…

The first video is an unusual view of the launch from a camera mounted on the coaming in the flightdeck looking backwards at Rick Mastracchio (MS2) in the centre of shot and Tracy Caldwell (MS1) on the left. The shoulders of commander Scott Kelly and pilot Charlie Hobaugh can be seen in the foreground.

The video runs from T-5 to the post ET separation tank photos. It’s interesting to see the rush to get two of the mission specialist in place to photograph the external tank through the flight-deck upper windows. (The shuttle rolls over backwards after tank separation placing the tank above the orbiter)

The second video shows the landing at KSC with shots through the HUD. You can see the amount of slip the shuttle has on to compensate for the left-to-right crosswind in the HUD (The flight path vector bug being offset to the right).

As has been recently noted in the news, an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon F2 intercepted a Russian Tu-95 ‘Bear’ bomber over the North Atlantic last Friday.

The MoD used NATO reporting code ‘Bear-H’ which indicates this is a Tu-95MS cruise-missile carrier built in the late 80s or early 90s in the Ukraine. The Tu-95MS can carry a number of (probably 6+) KH-55 (NATO reporting: AS-15 ‘Kent’) cruise missiles with 200kt nuclear warheads and a 1,800 mile stand-off range.

The Typhoon F2 involved is from XI Squadron based at RAF Coningsby and, as far as I know, is just one of two to so far enter service with the RAF. In the two pictures issued by the MOD, the tail pennant on the Typhoon reads ‘08′ indicating this is the same aircraft. It is quite possible that the photographs were taken from a Tornado F3 from RAF Leuchars.

The cynic in me says that the Typhoon was scrambled mainly for the photo-opportunity and despite the Typhoon’s superior performance, the Tornados may have arrived on the scene first unless the Typhoons were moved up to Leuchars in readiness

The Tornado F3 is still the mainstay of the RAF QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) and are based at RAF Leuchars and RAF Leeming. The Typhoon F2s will gradually take over the QRA role from the Tornado over the coming years.

The Typhoon was designed during the Cold War. When the Cold War ended, many politicians and critics stated that the Typhoon was no longer relevant having been designed to counter aircraft of the Soviet airforce. The critics would, of course, have been right had Russia not decided to resume their probing flights and adopt a more aggressive stance. While the Tornado F3 is more than capable of intercepting the Tu-95s, there is a more ominous threat in the North Atlantic aerial arena.

The Russians have fielded the Tu-160 ‘Blackjack’ for North Atlantic operations. Like the Tu-95, the Tu-160 carries KH-55 cruise missiles. Superficially resembling a B1 Lancer but far bigger, the Blackjack is the largest and fastest bomber in the Russian inventory. With it’s wings swept at altitude, it can travel at up to Mach 2.05 and has an operational range of up to 7,600 miles.

With it’s ’supercruise’ (supersonic flight w/o afterburn) capability, the Typhoon would be the ideal candidate for intercepting a Blackjack making a fast run on the United Kingdom.

After a successful mission to the International Space Station, Shuttle Endeavour has undocked and is preparing to return to Earth on Tuesday.

STS-118 was due to continue for a further day on orbit but was cut short due to Hurricane Dean which is currently threatening Jamaica and could pose a threat to normal operations at NASA MCC Houston (Texas) on Wednesday. The storm reaching Houston would necessitate a temporary command centre being set up elsewhere which controllers are keen to avoid.

Therefore Endeavour will be aiming to land at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 16:32 ZULU on Tuesday with the weather alternate site being Edwards AFB near Los Angeles, California. The White Sands Space Harbour in New Mexico is not under consideration as a landing site for this mission.

During the on-orbit inspection of the Orbiter Thermal Protection System, a ‘gouge’ was found at the junction of a couple of tiles. This gouge was apparently caused during launch by a piece of foam from the external tank which broke free and struck the underside of the orbiter. The Mission Management Team do not feel that this gouge goes right through the Thermal Protection System and they believe that the underlying aluminium structure of the airframe will not be adversely affected by the heating of re-entry through the atmosphere.

I was asked by someone with regards to this, why the crew did not make an EVA to “replace the tile”.

Firstly, there is no means of replacing entire tiles on orbit. The tiles themselves are actually unique, each with slight differences in shape which would be impossible to replicate properly without ground facilities. The crew are instead provided with a compound based ‘patch kit’ with which they would fill any damaged areas to improve thermal and aerodynamic performance during re-entry.

However, using such a patch kit would be far from easy. To reach the underside of the space shuttle, an astronaut would be required to don their EVA suit and then attach themselves to a long extension bar fitted to the end of the robotic Canadarm. The robotic arm would them move the astronaut around to the underside of the shuttle and ‘present’ them to the working area.

This method of personally inspecting the underside of the shuttle has been tried previously on-orbit during STS-114 (Discovery). During that EVA, only a ‘gap filler’ was removed, no actual repair was made to the TPS. The motions that would be involved in a repair were simulated with the astronaut in situ and it was found that the combined length of the extension bar and the Canadarm was rather flexible and the astronaut found himself ‘bouncing around’ making work somewhat difficult.

So, NASA has had to make what they term a ‘judgement call’ and decide whether any risk due to the gouge is greater than the risk of having an astronaut bouncing around on an arm in close proximity to the TPS. Further, any such repair attempt may directly cause more damage to the TPS or problems with the way the compound is laid may actually hinder thermal protection during re-entry.

It should, of course, be noted that most shuttle flights prior to the loss of Columbia have involved some damage to the TPS with no major adverse effects on re-entry. The damage caused to Columbia during it’s final launch was significantly greater than that seen here on Endeavour and occurred on the reinforced carbon-carbon leading edge of the wing where heating is greatest.

This is a short video we helped produce for a good buddy of ours, the budding Hollywood director known as Josh Trank. Now before we get called nerds or homos or Trekkies or whatever slanderings your angry, pea-sized brain can muster, take note of this: This is not a Star Wars fan film, nor is it yet another lazy, trite parody of George Lucas’ bloated and timeless masterpieces. Instead, watch it as a nutty little typical drunk frat boy college party fight video that just happens to have dorky-ass lightsabers in it.

This is not the Star Wars fan film you are looking for…

It does make me wonder what this country is coming to when you hear that parents are considering paying £130 to have their kid’s school blazers ’stab-proofed’.

Apparently, some parents have approached a bodyarmour company called ‘Bladerunner’ to modify the blazers by giving them a kevlar lining.

The Bladerunner website offers ‘hoodies’ and shirts lined with Kevlar but they do not offer a ‘rated’ level of protection. Indeed, in a video found on Youtube, the demonstration only shows a slashing action where a stabbing/jabbing action would undoubtedly penetrate. So, in effect, the school blazers designed this way would only offer light slashing protection.

Note: Video is from an Italian news item.