Memory lane.... remember riding in a Champ in the Outer Hebrides in the late 60s and getting airborne..... The Ferret is tiny inside with a huge wheel that would not look out of place on a ship. It leans back over your lap. The missing oddity in the pack is the Fox - pretty much a Ferret with a Scimitar turret and fitted with a Jag straight 6. It was horribly top heavy.
I remember (before we ever had a joint Staff college) a tri-Service session with about 400 mid ranking officers when Dr Death (the then RAF Bracknell Commandant named by his own for his rapier wit (Not)) demanding to know what we had learned about one another. He pointed at a Lt Cmdr RN..... “Well Sir, the Army and Navy are can-do organisations.” Lt Cmdr X then promptly sat down and 2/3 of the place erupted in laughter. The other third was a mix of outraged pilots (the two wing master race) and other branches biting their knuckles trying not to join in......
Sounds about right, the idea about the armour was if a plane was down and armed and fuelled no one was going to be daft enough to approach it so put a few rounds into it
I've had 3 Ferrets - used to get snapped up in America - that was until Wako with David Coresh. When the FBI stormed his compound - they found Ferrets and Saracens as though he was building a private army. Hillary Clinton was on the arms and fruits federation ( not a joke) and she stopped import of such vehicles. This put some of my friends and colleagues out of business. I found a market in Kentucky- he owned 40 plus Ferrets.
That was a discussion about IED disposal and the intelligence value of disarmed devices and fingerprints etc., v.speed and safety of a few cannon shells.
They are indeed tax and mot exempt falling under classic. You can drive on standard license but if involved in accident - it must be mechanically sound. There are many insurers and in fact are cheaper to insure than most of today's cars. Check out milweb.net/classifieds
That sounds a grey area age and weight come into the criteria. One of the main areas is - who can mot a 14 tonne vehicle that falls out of perimeter of hgv. For example a 9 tonne 'operation bracelet' Humber Pig will be registered as a camper van. I used to be a vehicle verification officer for the Military Vehicle Trust liasing with the DVLA to check vehicles being registered privately. Good times....
Most of.the time that is the case. But there were times I got in to things like cleaning boiler tubes, chiller tubes, cooling towers. Occasionally changing out some large motor on a pump or bearings on a air handler. Some sweating copper pipe and electrical work. Most of the time light stuff like pneumatic and DDC controls and electrical. Something different every day though. I carried a tool belt until I was 63 years old. Never wanted a management or desk job. ...J.D.
Goodness...how heavy ARE you exactly, it doesn't seem that big a stool! But well done for balancing that car on your head!
As a kid in agricultural community in the 70's I used to attend tractor pull events, where farmers modified tractors to compete. I loved the v-12 Allison aircraft engines in a tractor.