Not your average Sunday evening!

Firstly the very important question of the lemon meringue birthday pie - it was good, but I think I might try a different version if (okay - when) I make another one, as the lemon part could have been better in my opinion.  Everyone liked it though, which is the important thing!

This evening we had a trip out which started with a bit of physics, when we spotted a dog walking about the parcel shelf of the car in front, which lead to a conversation about car safety generally and specifically  momentum.  We then talked about how if there are no other forces acting on a moving body it will keep going forever and about how it is friction that generally slows things down, for example for something on wheels there is both 'rolling resistance' (the friction between the wheels and the ground) and 'air resistance'.  A and I could remember that this was pretty much one of Newton's laws of motion (although not which one!), we moved on to Isaac Newton generally.  I think we may soon be paying a visit to Woolsthorpe Manor, as both girls were quite interested in the idea.

The destination of our trip was East Midlands airport for a visit of a maintenance hanger, with a HE dad, D, who works there.  We got to see a couple of aeroplanes (Airbus A321), inside and out, at different stages of refurbishment and we found out rather a lot about aeroplanes in general and how they work.

An almost completely stripped out inside.

M up close and personal with an engine!

K examining the rubbery pointy bit - rubbery so that it wobbles about so that ice can't form on it.

My turn at K & M's insistence.

The outside of one of the aeroplanes we went in.

M in the pilot's seat

What an engine looks like without the cover - it's attached to the plane with just 3 bolts!!

It was a really interesting visit and on the way home we talked about how, in macro terms (as A put it), an aeroplane stays up in the air in the same way that a piece of paper stays up underneath an up-turned half full glass of water, the shape of the wing means the air has to travel faster further and therefore faster over the top, therefore lowering the pressure above the wing because of the shape, which lifts the aeroplane and the engines are 'just' to move the plane forwards.  Pretty amazing stuff!