Nuts and Bolt

There is a lot of talk about who is the fastest human on the planet.

Of course, Mr Bolt has the well deserved honour of retaing this position in recent years over his main disciplines of the one hundred and two hundred metres sprints.

However, in our house we feel that we can put up a valid and meaningful challenge on a pro-rata basis.

I could, in my late teens and early twenties put up a credible twelve seconds time for the one hundred metres, given, I accept a favourable wind, slightly downhill running track, a good bottle of lucozade and with the incentive of a book token prize for first place.

I did enter races at school and in my Polytechnic days and with a very real seriousness of intention to do myself justice in full kit of spikes, floaty airy shorts a la Seb Coe and vest top.

However, the claim of being able to give Usain Bolt a run for his money (that would certainly be nice in the literal sense) amongst the male contingent of our house is not strictly based on athletic methods, a training regime or with any intential pretender status.

Our efforts are very rarely witnessed apart, on occasion, from when the wife is in or the neighbours are out in their garden.

There is no prior warning of what subsequently takes place.

We can be sitting quietly minding our own business and acting our respective ages when suddenly there may be a slight disturbance in the ambient sounds in our surroundings.

Our ears prick up.

A filtering process attempts to screen out the noise of the nearby dual carriageway and its thundering traffic flow, exclude the sounds generated by active gardeners from use of their (dependant upon the season) lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, leaf blowers and branch chippers, ignore the rythmic chimes of the ice cream van and the excited exclamations of the local children.

It is a particular skill honed over the history of mankind from our prehistoric ancestors.

To illustrate this just substitute the 21st century practices with volcanic activity (traffic), frantic whittling of mammoth tusks (the neighbours), the clamour for a bit of freshly killed game (ice cream van) and the excited exclamations of the local children (ditto).

The outcome of this genetically inherited process is the isolating of a single distant but fast approaching sound.

Only at this point will we, in unison, shout out at the top of our voices "AIRCRAFT , QUICK,OUTSIDE".

You see, we are a bit geeky when it comes to plane spotting but then again I am convinced that a good proportion of the UK population, male and female alike are so inclined. It is something that hits a chord in our subconscious and always, with me, asks the question "how is it possible for man to fly in the first place". (Answers via the comments section please but restricted to six words).

There follows a rapid sprint from a sitting start towards a rough vectored guess to be able to actually see the source of the aircraft noise. Beware any furniture, furnishings, pets or family on a potential collision course.

When I lived in Lincolnshire in the 1970's (I was born in 1963) there was an altogether more leisurely stroll to spot the passing planes.

The huge Vulcan bomber announced itself from some considerable distance .I could even dilute an orange squash or extract an ice-pop from the freezer and still be in a relaxed pose at the bottom of the garden to wave at the lumbering and distinctive delta winged beast as it passed over. Even at cruising speed the noise loosened the fillings and made the heart skip a beat because your brain was temporarily unable to function in ordering normal bodily functions.

I was spoilt for choice in that part of the country what with the RAF and USAF being regular users of the airspace in training for an anticipated nuclear war.

English Electric Lightnings were easily identified from their stubby wingspan and snub nose. My absolute favourites by a long way were the Phantom jets, sleek, menacing and again terrifyingly loud.

Todays fast jets constitute much more of a challenge for aircraft sprinters.

Usually flying at high altitude and high Mach velocity it can be near impossible to even glimpse an outline of a Typhoon or the vintage Tornado's but what about that noise!

Jet engines do have raw power and aggression and we are regularly treated to a fly past being again on a bit of a popular route to and from the Lincolnshire airfields and the North York Moors or Scottish Highlands.

There is something missing though.

The jets are a bit impersonal and aloof.

They just cannot compete with the resonance and audio range that comes from a propellor engined aircraft.

I do not mean the rather weak and sometimes erratic and frankly disturbingly stuttering and faltering output of a small private plane of which there are plenty from the flying club at the local airport but the extremely rare sound of a Rolls Royce Merlin or a Pratt and Whitney.

These evocative soundtracks can only emanate from a handful of surviving world war two planes, the Lancaster Bomber, Spitfire, Hurricane and the Dakota. It is with the hope of spotting these very same machines that we break allcomers records for the aircraft sprint and we will do it every time just for the opportunity of witnessing these historic aircraft for a fleeting few moments over our back yard.

We are of course not stupid. Do you think that we would really hang around each and every day just for the remote possibility of seeing these iconic bits of heritage? What are the odds on that? No, we just log onto the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight website and make an educated guess as to whether their next round of public engagements which could be anywhere in the country could possibly involve crossing our own little bit of airspace. That way we can be sure of being in tip top condition for the aircraft sprint and to give Bolt something to think about.