The All New All New Groundspeak UK Pub Quiz

[+The Forester]

Sorry 'bout the double post there. Dunno what happened.

 

It's 1998. Must be, 'cos I sold that house in 2000 and I was overseas during the 1996 Festival.

[+on4bam]

Sorry 'bout the double post there. Dunno what happened.

 

It's 1998. Must be, 'cos I sold that house in 2000 and I was overseas during the 1996 Festival.

 

Spot on. It was september 2nd 1998.

 

Ding to you then...

[+The Forester]

Keeping the aviation theme:

 

The Supermarine Spitfire has beautifully shaped wings, which are often wrongly called "elliptical". Ellipses don't have dainty pointy bits at the end!

 

The brilliance of the Spitfire's aerodynamics is largely due to the fact that the lift diagramme of the wing, ie a line joining the end points of the lift vector along the span of the wing, is indeed (almost) elliptical, both above and below the wing.

 

Who was the aerodymicist who designed the aerodynamic shape of the Spitfire's wing?

[+Simply Paul]

Didn't Barns Wallace work on the Spitfire? Not sure if he did the wings though.

[+The Blorenges]

R J Mitchell designed the Spitfire and thus the wing as well. He didn't 'invent' the eliptical wing concept, that had been around for some time. So your question, who designed the Sptifire wings has to be RJ Mitchell.

 

Chris (MrB)

[+The Forester]

Barnes Wallis was a brilliant designer who worked on an amazing array of aircraft, right up to the Panavia Tornado, but he didn't work on the Spitfire.

 

RJ Mitchell: you didn't really think it would be that easy, did you?

You're quite right that RJ didn't discover the special properties of a wing which has an elliptical lift diagramme. That was someone whose name I can't remember who wrote a scientific paper about it some 5 years before the Wright brothers flew.

 

RJ was an engineer, not an aerodynamicist. He certainly specified the approximate shape of the overall aircraft, but he delegated design of the actual profile, in both axes, of the wing to an aerodynamicist.

 

Who was that aerodynamicist?

[+Simply Paul]

It turns out I was thinking of the P-51 Mustang, a Spitfire derivative - off to watch ITV1

[+The Blorenges]

I've just googled the answer (and that wasn't easy!). I reckon whoever gets this right will either have been part of the Supermarine design team or they wrote RJ Mitchells biography.

 

Chris (MrB)

[+rutson]

I agree with Chris...

[+chizu]

This thread really seems to have been crawling along lately, IMHO partly due to the specialist nature of some of the questions that aren't "pub quiz" level.

[+talkytoaster]

Who was that aerodynamicist?

According to my research it seems to have been a woman called "Beverley Shenstone".

 

Regards,

Martin

[+The Forester]

It's a great pity that Brits don't recognise, or even acknowledge, so many of their own brilliant scientists.

 

In the US Beverley Shenstone, who designed the iconic shape of the Spitfire wings, would have had an airport named after him.

 

Gender aside, and cheating aside, talkytoaster's electric toaster has popped a DING!

[+talkytoaster]

It's a great pity that Brits don't recognise, or even acknowledge, so many of their own brilliant scientists.

 

In the US Beverley Shenstone, who designed the iconic shape of the Spitfire wings, would have had an airport named after him.

 

Gender aside, and cheating aside, talkytoaster's electric toaster has popped a DING!

Beverley Shenstone was Canadian not American and you are quite correct was male, not female. ;-)

 

As I got a DING does that mean I need to come up with the next question?

[+Pharisee]

As I got a DING does that mean I need to come up with the next question?

 

 

Yes.....

 

Do I get a Ding for getting that one right?

[+The Forester]

In the US it is very common to name an airport after a corpse. In the UK it's very rare. The only example I can think of is Liverpool which named its airport after the guy who penned the immortal words "Imagine no possessions"!

 

Yes, you got the ding so you set he next question.

[+rutson]

Belfast George Best Airport is the only other I *think*

[+talkytoaster]

Yes, you got the ding so you set he next question.

OK, here goes:

 

Name the first All-British sattelite (both names it was know by), the date it was launched, by what launch vehicle and from where.

 

Bonus point if you can tell me where the motors for the launch vehicle were tested and what fuel they used.

 

Bonus, bonus point if you can tell me the name of the company that carried out the testing of the motors.

Edited May 6, 2009 by talkytoaster

[+keehotee]

Yes, you got the ding so you set he next question.

OK, here goes:

 

Name the first All-British sattelite (both names it was know by), the date it was launched, by what launch vehicle and from where.

 

Bonus point if you can tell me where the motors for the launch vehicle were tested and what fuel they used.

 

Bonus, bonus point if you can tell me the name of the company that carried out the testing of the motors.

 

If this is the level of questions they're asking in pub quizzes nowadays I'm glad I'm too tight to drink in a pub

 

Anybody in here drink in the Aerospace Arms???

[+The Forester]

I dunno all eight answers, but I do remember there being a Black Knight rocket in Edinburgh's Chamber Street museum. Seem to recall that the blurb said it was originally an ICBM for lofting the Blue Streak bucket of sunshine but was adapted to launch Procyon or Prospero into low earth orbit.

 

I guess they were still using German technology then, so the fuel would have been Hydrogen Peroxide. If so, there's trick in the question because only solid fuel propulsion systems are called "motors" in rocketry. Liquid fuelled fuelled system are called "engines", not "motors".

 

Who developed it? I seem to recall that A.V. Roe, aka Avro, was into that sort of thing in those days while they also did the pre-development design work on the simply brilliant Vulcan.

 

Date? Musta been well after Sputnik and after the Septics did their pathetic ketchup thing, so post-1953. Guess 1959.

[+Guanajuato]

Belfast George Best Airport is the only other I *think*

What about Robin Hood Airport? Though does a semi-mythological amalgamation of actual characters, events and folk lore count?

What was wrong with Finningley anyway? Great fun landing on the grass strip in the snow after 'dive-bombing' lorries on the A1 in a chipmunk whilst in the air cadets far too many years ago.

 

Oh, and to add - didn't they test the motors/engines at the Needles on the Isle of Wight? I vaguely recall from the info at that site that it might have been British Guyana where they launched tests.

Edited May 6, 2009 by Guanajuato

[+Pharisee]

I seem to remember there being a rocket launch site in Australia called Woomera (or something like that). Don't know if it was ever used to launch satellites, though.

[+talkytoaster]

Belfast George Best Airport is the only other I *think*

Oh, and to add - didn't they test the motors/engines at the Needles on the Isle of Wight? I vaguely recall from the info at that site that it might have been British Guyana where they launched tests.

You are all getting warmer.....keep going ;-)

[+The Blorenges]

No idea without googling it, but I bet it was designed by Beverley Shenstone

 

Chris (MrB)

[+The Forester]

Pharisee's right about Woomera. That's where all the Brit ICBM and space launches were carried out.

 

If Guanajuato is right, as probably they are, then the Isle of Wight testing would have been by Saunders-Roe, not Avro as I incorrectly guessed.

 

Don't think British Guyana is quite right, though the surrendermonkeys have a got a launch facility next door in their bit of tropical America.

 

So, of the 8 elements of the question, we've got:

 

Q1&Q2) Satellite names

A1?) Prospero? Was that the one they had to rename from Puck because people kept mis-hearing the word Puck?

 

Q3) Launch date

A3?) 1959?

 

Q4) Rocket name

A4?) Black Knight, possibly renamed Black Somethingelse when it was retasked from lobbing buckets of sunshine at Ivan to lofting a silly wee pointless satellite into orbit. What would come after Black Knight? Black Rook? Black Bishop?

 

Q5) Launch site?

A5) Woomera, pretty sure 'cos that was the only test site the Brits had. The Montebellos were a target, not a launch point.

 

Q6) "Motor"(sic) test site

A6?) Isle of Wight?

 

Q7) Fuel

A7?) Hydrogen Peroxide? Mebbe with some advanced additive called XXXX?

 

Q8) Engine testing Company

A8?) Saunders Roe?

 

Can you tell us which ones have been ticked please?

[+talkytoaster]

Q1&Q2) Satellite names

A1?) Prospero? Was that the one they had to rename from Puck because people kept mis-hearing the word Puck?

Prospero is one of the names I was looking for, Puck was suggested but discarded. It was also known by another name. A very short one.

Q3) Launch date

A3?) 1959?

 

Q4) Rocket name

A4?) Black Knight, possibly renamed Black Somethingelse when it was retasked from lobbing buckets of sunshine at Ivan to lofting a silly wee pointless satellite into orbit. What would come after Black Knight? Black Rook? Black Bishop?

 

Q5) Launch site?

A5) Woomera, pretty sure 'cos that was the only test site the Brits had. The Montebellos were a target, not a launch point.

Woomera is CORRECT.

Q6) "Motor"(sic) test site

A6?) Isle of Wight?

CORRECT, but where?

Q7) Fuel

A7?) Hydrogen Peroxide? Mebbe with some advanced additive called XXXX?

Partialy CORRECT. More details required ;-)

Q8) Engine testing Company

A8?) Saunders Roe?

Saunders-Roe is CORRECT I would have accepted Westland too.

 

Keep going.....almost there

[+Simply Paul]

This was featured on the BBC's Coast programme. The test site was a natural arc of land around the corner and a few hundred metres ESE of the Needles on the Isle of Wight. It used to be where three big guns used to keep Mr Hitler only kidding were kept, but it was a good spot to test the rockets as the wind would carry the toxic fumes out to sea. The satellite, still in orbit and working, was only called Prospero on the programme.

[+keehotee]

Q1&Q2) Satellite names

A1?) Prospero? Was that the one they had to rename from Puck because people kept mis-hearing the word Puck?

Prospero is one of the names I was looking for, Puck was suggested but discarded. It was also known by another name. A very short one.

 

 

But Prospero wasn't launched until the early 70's ??

The first entirely British satellite was almost a decade earlier...... even though it was launched by the Americans

 

Name the first All-British sattelite

[+Simply Paul]

My 'Big Book of Space' tells me it was October 1971, it was also known as X3 and the launch vehicle was a Black Arrow, an example of which can still be seen at the Science Museum.

[+mtn-man]

I think to keep this more fun, you should not ask so many questions so it would be easier to move to the next person.

[Chudley Cannons]

Come on guys.. pub quiz level please. Not rocket science.

[+talkytoaster]

My 'Big Book of Space' tells me it was October 1971, it was also known as X3 and the launch vehicle was a Black Arrow, an example of which can still be seen at the Science Museum.

DING!, DING!, DING!

 

The exact date was the 28th of October 1971 at 04:09 GMT, launched using a Black Arrow rocket from launch pad 5B at Woomera Australia.

 

The fuel used was a mix of HTP (a high concentrate of Hydrogen Peroxide [98%] and Parafin/Kerosense). However the rocket used engines powered by this in only two of it's stages the third was powered by a solid rocket motor instead.

 

The Science Museum in London has the last Black Arrow rocket. The first stage engines were tested by Saunders-Roe (later part of Westland) and were tested at the Highdown facility at the Needles on the Isle of Wight.

 

This was the first All-British satellite, as not only was the satellite British made but so was the rocket.

 

The amusing fact was that Prospero (aka X-3) was actually launched after the Black Arrow project was cancelled. It seems that someone forgot to tell the staff at Woomera until after Prospero was successfully launched and placed in low orbit. The result of this was that an MP was so enraged that it had been launched after the project was cancelled that he demanded that all the staff were sacked; in the end about half of them were indeed sacked; which isn't amusing, just a sign of an MP throwing his weight around.

 

Over to you Simply Paul...

Edited May 7, 2009 by talkytoaster

[+Simply Paul]

To be fair to The Forester I think he'd got enough for the Ding, so I'll pass the honours on to him. To echo mtn-man, it'd be good not to have to turn to a 480 page book for the answers! When he launched the original Pub Quiz The Golem was pretty clear on the rules; no online searches (unless the setter oks them for thier question alone) and the sort of question you might hear at a... you know the rest

[+talkytoaster]

To be fair to The Forester I think he'd got enough for the Ding, so I'll pass the honours on to him. To echo mtn-man, it'd be good not to have to turn to a 480 page book for the answers! When he launched the original Pub Quiz The Golem was pretty clear on the rules; no online searches (unless the setter oks them for thier question alone) and the sort of question you might hear at a... you know the rest

Consider me suitably chastised, I won't do it again.

 

In mitigation I'd like to mention that this was my first time in this particular forum thread, I don't go to pubs as a rule; have never taken part in a pub quiz, ever, but tend to watch various quiz and history/science shows on TV such as Eggheads, Weakest Link, Mastermind, Discovery Channel, Time Team and read lots of history and technical books, I may have got a little carried away.

 

Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

 

Regards,

Martin

[Chudley Cannons]

 

Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

 

Regards,

Martin

Too smart for your own good.

[+Lost in Space]

... but tend to watch various quiz and history/science shows on TV such as Eggheads, Weakest Link, Mastermind, Discovery Channel, Time Team and read lots of history and technical books...

 

Heck, you don't have time to go down to the pub............

[+talkytoaster]

... but tend to watch various quiz and history/science shows on TV such as Eggheads, Weakest Link, Mastermind, Discovery Channel, Time Team and read lots of history and technical books...

 

Heck, you don't have time to go down to the pub............

No I don't, I also work 45-60 hours a week and try and geocache in my limited spare time too. Not sure how I fit in all in to be honest.

 

Regards,

Martin

[+Simply Paul]

Consider me suitably chastised, I won't do it again.

I wasn't specifically thinking of you Martin; I thought the question you got right to pose yours was pretty tricky too! It was more of a general, gentle reminder to future setters.

[+The Forester]

Pimply Saul is gonna have a heck of a shock if he ever tries to participate in a pub quiz in Shetland. Those people are incredibly well-read and their standard of pub quiz questions far exceeds University Challenge level.

 

The multipart "rocket science" Q's would have been a breeze for them, but I've already been upbraided for using the 'phone a friend' option so I didn't use that cheat.

 

Is it my go?

[+chizu]

Pimply Saul is gonna have a heck of a shock if he ever tries to participate in a pub quiz in Shetland. Those people are incredibly well-read and their standard of pub quiz questions far exceeds University Challenge level.

 

The multipart "rocket science" Q's would have been a breeze for them, but I've already been upbraided for using the 'phone a friend' option so I didn't use that cheat.

 

Is it my go?

 

I suggest then that another thread is started for all those people here who live in Shetland. For the rest of us ignorant people we'll stay here. And yes, it's your go!

[+The Forester]

My go?

 

OK. He had a mother, but no father, and only two grandparents.

 

Who/what is/was he?

[+rutson]

Dolly?

[+Simply Paul]

Invention?

[+Guanajuato]

Going for the Sunday School answer...

 

Is it Jesus? Though he had (has) a father, it wasn't (isn't) in the usual sense. And definitely only two grandparents.

[+The Forester]

Not Dolly. She was a she, not a he, and this is very specifically and exclusively a male thing.

 

Not an invention. Definitely a natural phenomenon.

 

Absolutely not an institutionalised myth that has been passed down the millennia from one religion to another to another to another such as the Zoroastrian thing of a "virgin birth" and the myth of god-head being born in a byre being regurgitated, rebranded and re-sold as a 'new' age myth every two or three millennia.

 

This most emphatically does not involve myth or a virgin birth (or ovines). This is real.

 

Time for a hint? A bagpiper would probably make a note of the answer when treating the inside of the sac of his bagpipes in a traditional way.

[+chizu]

Random guess time - Big Ben? Nigel Benn? Uncle Ben's rice?

[+naffita]

My go?

 

OK. He had a mother, but no father, and only two grandparents.

 

Who/what is/was he?

 

It's a drone bee.

[+The Forester]

That's a ding for Naffita.

 

A honeybee queen mates with several drones in a single flight and stores that lifetime supply of sperm in her spermatheca. The workers construct honeycomb cells of about five millimeters wide for young worker eggs to be laid in and for their transformation into young adult workers. The queen measures the cell and if it's of the standard size she fertilises a single egg with a single sperm and deposits the egg at the base of the cell. The workers also construct a few percent of the cells to a size about 20% larger than the standard worker cell. When the queen finds a clean and freshly polished larger cell she lays an unfertilised egg which then becomes a drone.

 

Very much like Westminster MPs, drones are lazy lunks who are too stupid to be able to feed themselves. They have to be fed vast amounts of precious resources by the workers. Also like MPs, they make a characteristic monotonous and loud droning noise in the hive and only venture out if there's a prospect of some bonking to be done.

[+chizu]

That's a ding for Naffita.

 

A honeybee queen mates with several drones in a single flight and stores that lifetime supply of sperm in her spermatheca. The workers construct honeycomb cells of about five millimeters wide for young worker eggs to be laid in and for their transformation into young adult workers. The queen measures the cell and if it's of the standard size she fertilises a single egg with a single sperm and deposits the egg at the base of the cell. The workers also construct a few percent of the cells to a size about 20% larger than the standard worker cell. When the queen finds a clean and freshly polished larger cell she lays an unfertilised egg which then becomes a drone.

 

But that drone still rpvides the sperm, even if it's stored, so the bee will have a father i.e. the donor drone?

[+The Forester]

No. A drone has only a mother, not a father. To have had a father his mother would have needed to fertilise the egg. She doesn't fertilise a drone egg. That's what makes it a drone egg.

 

The fact that she still has sperm aboard after laying the drone egg is irrelevant.

 

A drone has a reduced number of chromosomes, though I can't remember how many. Just like some Tory MPs, a drone comes from a rather shallow gene pool.

[+chizu]

No. A drone has only a mother, not a father. To have had a father his mother would have needed to fertilise the egg. She doesn't fertilise a drone egg. That's what makes it a drone egg.

 

The fact that she still has sperm aboard after laying the drone egg is irrelevant.

 

A drone has a reduced number of chromosomes, though I can't remember how many. Just like some Tory MPs, a drone comes from a rather shallow gene pool.

 

Ah that makes sense. Presumably the drones are therefore haploid rather than diploid, that is each has only one copy of each chromosome rather than two?