I know you got soul: machines with that certain something (21 page)

Think of any conflict since 1947 and it’s a fairly safe bet that at least one of the sides has been using AK47s.The warlords in Mogadishu, the Vietcong in Vietnam, the Republican Guard in Iraq.This half-timbered gun has been a 50-year thorn in Uncle Sam’s side.

It was suggested that the Empire State Building could be used as a mooring tower. But after the
Hindenburg
mysteriously exploded when coming in to land in America passengers were understandably wary.

The
Graf Zeppelin
was the mother of all airships, 787 feet long and 115 feet high. Imagine Canary Wharf, on its side, floating over your head.

The
Flying Scotsman
is exquisite to behold, partly because he’s so nicely balanced and partly because he seems to shout,‘I AM VERY POWERFUL.’

The
Flying Scotsman
set a record by doing 392.7 miles from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. Non-stop. In a whisker over eight hours.The press went mad. The public fainted.The
Flying Scotsman
had started to make a name for itself.

The B-52 was conceived with only one purpose in mind. To drop atom bombs on men, women and children. So by rights we should look at it with the same hatred that we look at the swastika.

While training for an air display, the pilot of this B-52 exceeded the bomber’s limits. A split second later the whole crew was dead.

It’s a ship, first and foremost. But it’s also a nuclear power station. And it’s an airport. And it’s an instrument of war.And above all this, it’s a city with shops, cinemas, hairdressers, banks, hospitals, its own television station, its own daily newspaper and 5,000 inhabitants.Think about that.Would they put a nuclear reactor in the middle of a city?

Here’s what I knew was going to happen.We’d land, fail to stop, fall off the front and then the huge ship would run over our plane, turning it over and over until it, me and everyone else on board was minced by one of the three nuclear-powered, five-bladed propellers, each of which is 21 feet in diameter.

A good modern warship can thunder along at 28 or 29 knots. But a Nimitz Class carrier will hammer along at 33. It is, according to one admiral, the racing car of the seas.

The best thing about the Hoover Dam is the way it looks.With it’s art deco intake towers and that preposterous slope, which seems to accentuate the height when you stand on the top, it’s every bit as beautiful as the canyon in which it sits.And that, believe me, is saying something.

It’s as European and as perfect as a girl in a little black dress, at a pavement café, sipping an espresso coffee.You have an Alfa 166.You have style.