willedoo

Small numbers when you think of the Soviets building 36,000 Ilyushin Il-2's, second only to the Cessna 172 in build numbers. I think the Ilyushin Il-2 numbers include the Il-10 made late in the war and post war.

It's hard to comprehend the sheer volume of lend-lease gear during the war. The Soviets received more than 1,300 Spitfires from Britain and almost 3,000 Hurricanes from Britain and Canada. The big item they needed from the US was trucks. Lack of German trucks was a big part of Hitler's downfall on the Eastern Front.

The Demographics bloke mentioned Malcolm Turnbull in the context of a centrist party but I have no idea whether he's still interested in active politics or not. The Lib/Nat coalition won't go back to the centre under the current leadership team. Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan as parlimentary leaders and Tony Abbott party president, plus Peta Credin's husband has taken on the role as temporary Victorian party president. It will leave space in the centre and a few unsatisfied Liberal moderates.

I was listening to the bloke from the Demographics Group tonight on the ABC radio and he was talking about the decline of the major parties. As he said, it's happening in a lot of other places around the world as well. The primary vote of the majors is at historic lows and a couple of opinion polls have even put the federal Labor primary vote below the 30% mark. He was of the belief One Nation would become the official opposition after the next election and that eventually a new centrist party would likely emerge. I think he and a lot of other commentators are jumping the gun on the One Nation as official opposition thing. For sure, recent poll projections show the Nationals without a seat, the Libs with about twelve, Labor with a majority of one or in minority and One Nation with fifty plus seats. But that's on current opinion polls and there's almost two years to go to an election. A lot can happen in that time. Labor could unravel, the coalition could get their act together and win voters back, and One Nation could continue to rise or they could implode and fizzle out. It's still early days. The end of the two major party system seems to be the talk of the town among commentators; I guess time will tell.

Thanks, I'm glad you cleared that one up otherwise there would be a lot of stupid people on Anzac Day. But then again, parliament house flys a really big flag and they're not the sharpest tools in the shed.

Not sure what you're referring to there Marty. I hope you don't mean people are stupid for flying the Australin Flag. Using quotes can make a post intention a bit clearer.

Yes correct Pete, that's pretty much what I'm saying.

I miss the huntsman spiders around the place and have only seen one in the last four or five years. I used to have lots of them, but it's all wolf spiders now. I think they've nearly wiped the huntsmen out.

Yes, it's a fact of life. It would be ignorant of us to think there was some high moral stance in them coming to our aid. They wouldn't be doing it because they think we're really nice people, or because they felt sorry for us. We would be the same if the shoe was on the other foot and we were the world's biggest power. We would want something in return the same as them. It's all transactional. I think it would have been much the same in WW2.

Aside from military assets, the US is heavily invested in Australia with more than 1,000 US companies operating here. 1.6 trillion in bilateral investment between the two countries, 70 billion annual bilateral trade, the US is our biggest foreign investor at about a quarter of our foreign investment, so there's plenty of interest here for them to help us defend the place. It wouldn't all be about military asets and bases.

The ANZUS alliance is non binding and doesn't mandate automatic armed intervention. What that means is if we didn't have U.S.assets here that are in their interests to defend, we'd be rooted in the event of a capable force attacking us. That means it's in our interests to allow them to have defendable interests here. The situation is that Australia is militarily weak, the U.S. is not a charity, and we need to give them something if we're asking for something.

I don't have a problem with it at the level and numbers it is now. They're our major defence ally and it would be a bit rich to tell them we don't want them on our soil but still expect them to spill blood for us in the event we are attacked. Any defence alliance is a two way street and has to be mutually beneficial with all parties paying their dues. The U.S. has bases all over the world and the amount we have here is buggar all compared to a lot of other countries. The reality is we don't have the capabilities to defend ourselves against a major adversary, hence the alliance with the U.S.. We have to pull our weight in the alliance and not expect to bludge off them.

Same thing in this district, a lot more noticeable in the last twelve months. Mostly younger people doing it.

I hadn't seen a picture of Clive for a long time; it looks like he's lost a fair bit of weight. It was Pauline's birthday yesterday and she was kind enough to let him have some of her birthday cake to fatten him up a bit.

Actually, now I think about it, he used a Fisher and Paykel smart machine. Something to do with the way he rewired it, he said was the reason for that model.

Technology is frustrating sometimes. With facebook messenger, if you are halfway through typing a message to someone and a message comes in from someone else, from that point on the text you are typing automatically goes to the other conversation. It's easy to send it to the wrong person if you're not careful.

I think Gina would like to donate them all a one way ticket to Siberia.

I'd been wondering about that one. I thought it might have belonged to another thread.

If you had that flow all the time Marty you could set up a hydro system. A few years ago I saw a homebuilt one on youtube that a bloke had made from a Hitachi washing machine.

The Federal Labor party is asking for donations to help them fight One Nation: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-25/labor-asking-for-donations-to-help-fight-one-nation/106712618

It's the same size wheel as the An-225. They might want it back if they're going to fix the 225.

This post has nothing to do with helmets, but it involves part of my Antonov collection so it's sort of related. Today I solved a mystery regarding this wheel I've had in one of my sheds for a few years now. Someone originally told me it was an An-22 nose wheel, but all the photographs I've looked at online didn't match. This afternoon I asked Google AI what size the An-22 nose wheel is and it gave a larger size (1450 x 580) than the wheel I have (1270 x 510). I then clicked on the reference Google AI used and it led me to a pdf with just about all the information anyone would want about aircraft tyres. It turns out it's an An-124 main gear wheel, so after all this time I've finally identified it for sure. It seems unusual that a main gear wheel on the An-124 would be smaller than a nose wheel from an An-22, but not when you consider the An-124 has ten main gear wheels each side. With the 510 width it will stand up on it's own without falling over. I've got a fair bit of An-12 gear and some An-2 stuff, so now I can add a bit of An-124 gear to the list. Here's the tyre pdf for anyone interested: https://www.jupitor.co.jp/pdf/michelin_aircraft.pdf It's one example where Google AI was more productive than the old non AI search engine. The standard search engine would most likely only find the tyre size if it was mentioned in a phrase or sentence, but AI was able to pinpoint the data in a data sheet.

ome, in those days I reckon they wouldn't have had to wait until late afternoon to come up with a story like that. One of my earliest memories of the RSL is going to a dawn service with my dad when I was about seven years old. They were as full as a Cribb Island bus by eight thirty in the morning, and playing up like second hand lawnmowers. I just sat there quite bemused by it all. I think a fair bit of rum was involved. They were singing and cooeeing and one digger was playing the drums using butter knives on those old tin chairs they used to have back in those days.

This might be a bit off topic for this thread but it does involve tiers of government, so I've put it here to save starting a thread for one post. I'm wondering whether the state government has been getting some feedback via their member's electorates regarding recent land valuations and their potential effect on council rates. About a month back I received my new valuation from the state government, an increase of $80,000 above the last valuation. At least it was better than the one before which led to a 30% increase in council rates. Yesterday I received what was titled a 'maintenance valuation' wiith the new valuation taking it back to what it was previously, eg: less the recent $80,000 increase. There was no explanation why they had changed the valuation and in thirty eight years of owning the property, it's the first time I've ever had a valuation decrease. I've also never heard of anyone else in the district ever getting a decrease. My best guess is the state government is very aware of the cost of living stress in the community, and taking into account recent voting intention shifts around the country, they are keen to maintain their vote base and stay in the job. Meanwhile, the local council has had councilors doing community meetings to inform the public that they're broke and have a one billion budget shortfall over ten years and will have to cut spending by 100 million per year for ten years. They're saying the shortfall is caused by the way administrations have handled depreciation over the years. What they are not mentioning is that they've been breaking their necks over the last few years to become another Gold Coast and have been overspending on projects that make the place look flash but have no real practical use. Rate revenue earns them 350 million per year of which 180 million goes to paying council staff. They have 1,800 employees; 800 get their hands dirty, 1,000 sit behind desks. It's likely we'll be getting rate rises so it's possible the state government has looked at the state of council finances and decided to wind back the valuations to avoid a double whammy on ratepayers. I wish the state government's local government department would put the cleaners through the local councils. They've given them too much autonomy in this state over the years and they're out of control. What's happened is that winding back valuations has blown council's excuse for a rate increase. They will have to increase rates considering they're broke, so that's probably the purpose of fessing up to the financial situation at public meetings, as they will have to hit us with a considerable rate increase without a corresponding valuation increase to blame it on as they normally do. The rates are calculated on the property valuation but the council has the discretion to alter the cents in the dollar rate if they choose to.

Then there's Mario in The Wog Boy - "They say I know f*ck nothing. But I know f*ck all!"