Flying Scotsman

Blimey - your dream new build is a Thompson pacific and now you say you are restoring a 1980s Volvo - you don't half have some weird choices of aesthetics. You'll be telling us next your all-time favourite warbird at air shows is the AEW Fairey Gannet ...

Tom (with apologies...)

 

Probably only destructive testing can tell! The originals were forged with say a 50-year life in mind and lasted longer.
However having seen a brittle fracture of a solid U-beam of 150x75 I am not amazed anymore!
Kind regards
Jos Koopmans

 

I quite like the Gannet actually. Better looking than a Thompson Pacific that's for sure.

 

Love 80s car - the Volvo has an advantage of being practical and very fun to drive. Like a big go kart!

The point I'm making is that it depends somewhat on the components - I found on my Volvo that the bodyshell was actually in excellent condition. The gearbox less so - the needle ends were severely worn meaning it made horrendous noises between 2nd and 3rd and was also low on power. I've rectified that by fitting a low mileage one of a later type (940 gearbox into a 740) which fits. Problem solved.

My favourite warbird is the English Electric Lightning, just as an aside. I do rather like the Gannet too...

 

Volvo fun to drive? As much fun as a sit on lawnmower but each to his own.

 

Be interesting to know where the buck stops, which may boil down to what the contracts say. The 80072 2014 accounts contemplate legal action against the party which did the boiler work but it is possible the latter were also innocent of any culpability in the quality of materials.

 

They have a bad rep: undeservedly so in my opinion. There were Volvos which are awful but the Turbo Wagons are good fun and frankly the 740/940/850 line are starting to become real classics. Mine's a 5 speed auto with overdrive and a turbo so there's a decent level of fun there.

I've owned a 205 GTI previously and my dad and I share an Esprit and Golf V5 currently so I'm not exactly a lover of the more modern cars, shall we say! I had a loan of a Vauxhall Corsa, 15 plate - excellent A-B car but no fun to drive. No feel, underpowered engine.

Anyway back to Scotsman...

 

Worth a book on it?

 

Not on this occasion!

 

A man of discerning aviation taste so just for you -

 

Thank you for that. Beautiful aircraft.

 

You're welcome. The fact that it's a 92 Sqd example is entirely coincidental of course.

 

The Volvo 850 T5R is both a future classic and also quite fun IMO

 

This is a pleasant and interesting break from liveries, blinkers and single chimneys.

 

Don't like modern cars personally, anything after the early 80s does nothing for me. Like 60s and 70s ones.

Anyway, onto Scotsman, just seen it passing over Stockport viaduct in the direction of Crewe about half an hour ago.

 

My Dad had a twin-carb 120 series. Passed my test in that.

 

I like looking at them but wouldn't want anything without aircon and power steering as an everyday car

 

Talbot Solara was my favourite, we had a B regarding one, just kept going!

 

Wimp!

 

Age itself is not critical and metal does not simply age. I'm not a metallurgist but my understanding of fatigue is that it is a combination of number of stress changes and the range of stress change. As the magnitude of the stress change increases the number of cycles to fatigue failure will decrease. This relationship of stress change magnitude and cycles to failure can be plotted as a line. If the characteristics of the components operation is above this line then it will eventually fail in fatigue; if it operates below this line it will not fail in fatigue and has an infinite fatigue life. A well-designed component with a fatigue reserve factor greater than 1 will not fail. This is not the same as a factor of safety and a component with a high factor of safety can still fail in fatigue if it is subject to significant stress variation.
A properly designed and tight bolted joint will not fail in fatigue but the same joint, if not tightened, probably will, even if the loading is the same.