RAF Princess Alexandra Hospital
RAF Wroughton is a former Royal Air Force airfield near Wroughton, in Wiltshire, England, about south of Swindon. Ministry of Defence aviation activity ceased in 1972. The airfield now belongs to the Science Museum Group and is home to the National Collections Centre, which houses the group's large-object storage and library. Early history The site was acquired for an airfield in 1937 and the airfield opened on 1 April 1940. It was used for the assembly and storage of aircraft during the Second World War. The following units were here at some point: * No. 15 Maintenance Unit RAF * No. 41 Group Test Pilots Pool * No. 76 Maintenance Unit RAF * No. 88 Gliding School RAF * Maintenance Command Jet Training Flight Control of RAF Wroughton was handed over to the Royal Navy and it became the Royal Naval Aircraft Yard Wroughton in 1972. RAF Princess Alexandra Hospital RAF Hospital Wroughton was part of the station and stood near the eastern boundary of the site, about west of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Wroughton
Wroughton is a large village and civil parish in northeast Wiltshire, England. It is part of the Borough of Swindon and lies along the A4361 road, A4361 between Swindon and Avebury; the road into Swindon crosses the M4 motorway between junctions 15 and 16. The village is about south of Swindon town centre on the edge of the Marlborough Downs, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town of Marlborough, Wiltshire, Marlborough is about to the south, and the World Heritage Site at Avebury is about to the south. The parish includes North Wroughton, formerly a small settlement on the road towards Swindon but now part of the built-up area; and the hamlets of Elcombe and Overtown. History The earliest evidence of human presence in the area is from the Mesolithic period, although this is fairly limited. More significant evidence of settlement and occupation in the area is available for the Neolithic period, most notably due to the extensive ritual complex at Avebury and scatt ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lebanon Hostage Crisis
The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly US, Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were represented. At least eight hostages died in captivity; some were murdered, while others died from lack of medical attention. During the fifteen years of the Lebanese civil war an estimated 17,000 people disappeared after being abducted. The kidnappers used different names, but the testimony of former hostages indicates that almost all of them were kidnapped by a single group of about a dozen men affiliated with the Hezbollah organization. Particularly important in the organization was Imad Mughniyah.Wright, Robin, ''Sacred Rage'', 2001, p. 270 Hezbollah publicly denied involvement. The Theocracy, theocratic government of Iran played a major role in the kidnappings,Ranstorp, ''Hizb'allah in Lebanon'', (1997) p. 108 and may have instigated t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
List Of Former Royal Air Force Stations
This list of former RAF stations includes most of the stations, airfields and administrative headquarters previously used by the Royal Air Force. They are listed under any former county or country name which was appropriate for the duration of operation. During 1991, the RAF had several Military Emergency Diversion Aerodrome (MEDA) airfields: RAF Kinloss, Leeming, Valley, Waddington, Wattisham & Lyneham ended their role from 1 March 1991, leaving Brize Norton, Manston, Leuchars and St Mawgan with the role. __TOC__ British Isles Chain Home, Chain Home Low, Chain Home Extra Low, ROTOR and tropo-scatter stations Notes: Some of the Chain Home Low sites were co-located with the larger Chain Home radars. Chain Home Extra Low equipment was co-located with "Chain Home" and "Chain Home Low" as well as at separate sites, but were of a less permanent nature, usually with mobile equipment. ROTOR was the post war Radar interception system created from existing radar installatio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Defence Estates
Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is an operating arm of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in the United Kingdom, which is responsible for the built and rural estate. Its chief executive is Mike Green. History The DIO was formed in 2011 in order to bring together the management of the MoD's estate, to reduce its running costs and create commercial opportunities. It was criticised by the National Audit Office in November 2016 because the performance regime it had set for Capita, its strategic outsourcing partner, was "not fit for purpose" and was failing to incentivise sustainable spending reductions. Activities and structure DIO manages around 1.8% of the UK's landmass, including 115,000 non-residential buildings and 50,000 houses. It is divided into six operating divisions, under the Corporate HQ: *Hard Facilities Management - Responsible for minor construction projects, mechanical and electrical support to the estate. *Soft Facilities Management - Responsible for pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
The Grand Tour (TV Series)
''The Grand Tour'' is a British motoring television series, created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and Andy Wilman, for Amazon Prime Video, and premiered on 18 November 2016. The programme was devised in the wake of the departure of Clarkson, Hammond, May, and Wilman from the BBC television series ''Top Gear (2002 TV series), Top Gear'' with an initial order of 36 episodes that were released over three years. The show initially followed a format similar to ''Top Gear'', including car reviews and timed laps, motoring challenges and races, studio segments, and celebrity Guest appearance, guests, with the team using a studio within a large tent during this time; in its first series, the tent was located at different locations across the globe before taking a fixed site within the Cotswolds. Segments and road trip specials have been filmed in various locations worldwide, including across Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Asia. After the conclusion of the third ser ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Solar Panel
A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct current (DC) electricity, which can be used to power various devices or be stored in battery (electricity), batteries. Solar panels are also known as solar cell panels, solar electric panels, or PV modules. Solar panels are usually arranged in groups called arrays or systems. A photovoltaic system consists of one or more solar panels, an solar inverter, inverter that converts DC electricity to alternating current (AC) electricity, and sometimes other components such as charge controller, controllers, Measuring instrument, meters, and solar tracker, trackers. Most panels are in solar farms or Rooftop solar power, rooftop solar panels which grid-connected photovoltaic system, supply the electricity grid. Some advantages of solar panels are ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Solar Farm
A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building-mounted and other decentralized solar power because they supply power at the utility level, rather than to a local user or users. Utility-scale solar is sometimes used to describe this type of project. This approach differs from concentrated solar power, the other major large-scale solar generation technology, which uses heat to drive a variety of conventional generator systems. Both approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages, but to date, for a variety of reasons, photovoltaic technology has seen much wider use. , about 97% of utility-scale solar power capacity was PV. In some countries, the nameplate capacity of photovoltaic power stations is rated in megawatt-peak (MWp), which refers to the solar array's theoretical maxim ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Science Museum, London
The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are requested to make a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee. It is one of the five museums in the Science Museum Group. Founding and history The museum was founded in 1857 under Bennet Woodcroft from the collection of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition as part of the South Kensington Museum, together with what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum. It included a collection of machinery which became the ''Museum of Patents'' in 1858, and the ''Patent Office Museum'' in 1863. This collection contained many of the most famous exhibits of what is now th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Harold Whittingham
Air Marshal Sir Harold Edward Whittingham (3 October 1887 – 16 July 1983) was a British physician notable for a distinguished medical career in the Royal Air Force and contributions to aviation medicine. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he was the first pathologist and Assistant Director of Research at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow. Much of his work concerned pathology, disease, aerospace medicine, medical records, medical education, first aid, malaria, tropical medicine, physiology and occupational health. Early life Whittingham was the second son of Engineer-Rear Admiral William Whittingham and Elizabeth Annie, and like his siblings he chose to study medicine. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, the Greenock Academy and the University of Glasgow. As an undergraduate he excelled at winning medals of distinction in Zoology, Surgery, Pathology and the Gairdner medal in the practice of medicine. His first post in 1910 was as patholo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
RAF Princess Alexandra Hospital Memorial
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allies of World War I, Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has played History of the Royal Air Force, a significant role in Military history of the United Kingdom, British military history. In particular, during the Second World War, the RAF established Air supremacy, air superiority over Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, and led the Allied strategic bombing effort. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities nee ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Jackie Mann
Jackie Mann, (11 June 1914 – 12 November 1995) was a Royal Air Force fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, who in later life was kidnapped by Islamists in Lebanon in May 1989 and held hostage for more than two years. RAF career Born in Northampton on 11 June 1914, Mann joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in Reading in 1938. As a sergeant pilot (Service No. 127025), he was posted in July 1940 to No. 64 Squadron RAF, flying Spitfires. He was shot down by Royal Navy anti-aircraft fire on 16 August in a friendly fire incident. He was then posted to No. 92 Squadron in late August, and was wounded in action on 14 September. He was subsequently posted to No. 91 Squadron, but on 4 April 1941 was again shot down and wounded, being badly burned. His opponent was either ''Oberst'' Adolf Galland or ''Leut.'' Robert Menge of JG 26. He underwent plastic surgery at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, where he was a founder member of the Guinea Pig Club. He was also award ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Terry Waite
Sir Terence Hardy Waite (born 31 May 1939) is a British human rights activist and author. Waite was the Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs for the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages, including the journalist John McCarthy. He was himself kidnapped and held captive from 1987 to 1991. After his release he wrote ''Taken on Trust'' (1994), a memoir about his experiences, and became involved in humanitarian causes and charitable work. Early life and career The son of a village policeman in Styal, Cheshire, Waite was educated at Stockton Heath County Secondary School where he became head boy. Although his parents were only nominally religious, he showed a commitment to Christianity from an early age and later became a Quaker and an Anglican. Waite joined the Grenadier Guards at Caterham Barracks, but an allergy to a dye in the uniform obl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |