[ExodusOrbitals1]

Really interesting piece and impreccably written!

A noteworthy statement from Orville: "He feels deeply upon the subject of accidents, saying that there are vastly too many of them and that this country has a bad record. He regards this as a matter of better pilot training; not, he thinks, until the spirit of daredeviltry dies out and pilots shun a hazard with the horror of a veteran locomotive engineer will we witness material improvement"

I also noted there were a few words that I have not seen before in modern English texts: "bumboatmen", "spoke-shave" "self-bailer", for example.

[KineticLensman]

Bumboat[0] = a small boat used to ferry supplies to ships moored away from the shore

Spoke-shave [1] = a tool used to shape and smooth woods in woodworking jobs such as making wheel cart wheel spokes

self-bailer [2] - alternative to hand-bailing

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumboat

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokeshave

[2] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=self-bailer

[stan_rogers]

You're hanging out with the wrong crowd if you haven't heard spokeshave (it's not generally hyphenated anymore). It's still a commonly-used woodworking tool - just another in the family of planes, really - as is its "roughing" kin, the drawknife. When I were a lad, my father once remarked that a spokeshave seemed to be a bit of a modern contraption for Roy Underhill to be using on a particular project; I had to remind him that wooden spokes were just a little bit out of date and that the class of tools probably had a more meaningful name once upon a time.

[neogodless]

I have also not seen "spoke-shave" in modern English texts. I'm not sure how that relates to the crowds I run with. I'm an amateur wood-worker but I prefer building to finishing so I don't do much planing. Likely my neighbor and a close friend knows what that tool is, but it never came up in conversation.

So that is to say that your comment is informative, but it could do without the "wrong crowd" comment. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you meant it in jest!

[dbcurtis]

We will forgive you if you can turn a hook on a scraper :)