Base Camp Journal: Three Days on Spike Island
It's only recently I've had time to write about our trip in the Base Camp the other week. We weren't going to do another one until March, but Robby had quite a bit of annual leave, and he was enthusiastic about showing me the Concorde being stored at an aviation museum. Apparently the Concorde made its last stop there, twenty years ago, and a hangar was built around it.
So, we arranged, at the last minute to book a pitch on the Baltic Wharf CMC site for a few days. The wharf is also known locally as 'Spike Island'. Our visit proved to be more interesting than I expected.
Fortunately the winter has been mild so far, it's been mostly dry, and the Base Camp has a half-decent heating system and insulation. If there is a thermostat, it's never worked.
Baltic Wharf CMC site is the smallest we had visited. It's basically a yard with a few trees and with roughly twenty gravel pitches. Spike Island is quite narrow, so the front gate is right on the main road, and the rear gate is on the path alongside the river. The site is also notable for its relatively good security. Though it's relatively trivial to scale the wall or hack the gate's locks, the security is good enough to prevent someone making off with a caravan. That's usually a concern on most sites we'd been on.
Around Spike Island
The riverside isn't picturesque this time of year. There are quite a few expensive apartments between the river side and the main road, but Spike Island isn't too gentrified or pretentious.
There is a pub, of sorts, next to the CMC site called The Cottage Inn - a pint and a glass of G&T costs just over £20, and the pub shuts before 22:00, which is a shame because it's such a quiet and cosy place, and the meals there are better than what's served in most chain pubs.
Because The Cottage Inn closed early, we went looking for another pub. The ones we could see were in the distance, on the other side of the river, so we ventured in that direction.
After turning a few corners, somewhere nearby the SS Great Britain, we came across a homely watering hole for the locals called 'The Orchard Inn'. It's essentially a small room, with wood floor, a few tables and chairs, dim lighting, a fireplace, wooden beams, framed pictures of the dockyards everywhere, and a bar with just the right selection of gin. It was exactly the kind of place I like spending a Saturday night.
'There's a band down here tomorrow night.', Robby observed, nodding towards a blackboard near the bar. It said 'Backdoor Blues Band', or something like that.
'How the hell are they going to fit a band in here!?', I asked. It was a gen question. They could just about fit a band and about five people in the room, I thought. There was a slightly raised area next to us, in which a couple of old guys were drinking, but the seating and tables didn't appear very moveable.
But the next evening the pub did indeed host a blues-themed open mic night, with a dozen or so musicians and quite a crowd.
Aerospace Bristol
I must say Aerospace Bristol was definitely worth making the trip for. It's a museum housed in two large hangars on a decommissioned airfield just outside the city, near a vast Airbus facility.
Entering the first building, I bought us the tickets, and the receptionist told me they can be re-used for 12 months after purchase. In the first building we saw:
Old aircraft from the early 1900s through to the 1950s. This includes fighter planes and helicopters.
A few large internal combustion engines.
Detailed models of a few satellites manufactured in Britain
Warheads, missiles and related military items
A Harrier jet
One of the more interesting exhibits was a car manufactured by Bristol Aerospace in the mid-1950 that vaguely resembles a classic Jaguar. Its cross-section revealed mechanics that were remarkably simple: A 6-cylinder engine that's physically smaller and more basic than the one in my own car, a small gearbox and a driveshaft.
Looking at the Bristol Bloodhound, which was a ~10 metre AA warhead with four smaller booster rockets, and the more advanced weaponry from the 70s and 80s, I couldn't help but think it was colossal waste that such impressive devices were deemed expendable in purely destructive applications. They appear so different to current defence technology, which is typically the product of some Agile-themed processes and disposable COTS components.
Viewing the Concorde
We entered the second hangar, a short walk from the first building, and there it was: The Concorde that Robby told me so much about, and it was much larger than I imagined. Maybe it's not as wide as a conventional passenger jet, but its fuselage extended way off into the distance. The engines, it turned out, appeared barely large enough to get the aircraft into the air, let alone get it to Mach 2.
With the anniversary event having finished the day before, and the hangar being very quiet, Robby and I were fortunate to have the Concorde to ourselves.
The first thing I noticed about the interior is how cramped it is. The area between the flight deck and the passenger compartment was dense with avionics - I hadn't the vaguest idea what purpose each of the panels served, or why switches, indicators and buttons covered every square inch. The passageway was barely wide enough for one person to walk through.
The passenger sections didn't appear very luxurious, aside from the faux leather seats, yet it was different to anything I've travelled on. I think the aircraft would have been soundproofed enough to be quiet during flight. The windows were very small portholes - apparently reduce the rate of decompression if one of them breached.
Overall, the Concorde was the most intricate and complex example of engineering I've come across. I felt a bit sad that such a graceful and beautiful aircraft isn't flying again.
'How could something that advanced be in a museum? Nothing like it has been built since. It's like we've gone backwards technologically.', Robby said, on the way out.
The SS Great Britain
Not only did we see a giant Concorde, but we managed to have a walk around the SS Great Britain that evening, and were very fortunate to have the shipyard to ourselves also.
We were compelled by curiosity to have a walk in the direction of the masts of an 18th/19th century ship that could be seen on the way to The Orchid Inn the night before, towering over the dockyard building. I wanted to know if we could get close enough to see the ship, and perhaps take a few pictures.
As we got closer, down a side street, it became evident the ship was the SS Great Britain, and it was a tourist attraction. And the only thing that was closed was the ship itself. The gate to the shipyard was unlocked. When we entered, there was nobody else around.
Initially I thought it was a sail-powered ship, c1780, because it appeared to be a giant construction of heavy wood and it had the detailing of a ship one sees in pirate movies. I later read that the hull is made of iron. I was too impressed by the ornate rear decoration to notice the giant propeller under the glass floor.
It turned out the SS Great Britain was operational between 1845 and ~1885, sailing between Bristol and New York.