Time to review my 2016 predictions list from 12 months ago
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Ray's 2016 Predictions
1/ ISIS will be resoundingly defeated on all fronts after the world finally get's serious and takes out these dicks once and for all.
Yeah right......that happened NOT, although these arseholes have taken quiet a beating in the past 12 months.
2/ The Essendon Bombers will return to greatness, (without chemical assistance), and win the 2016 Grand Final.
What the f@#k was I thinking!!!. Looks like I am the one who had "chemical assistance" with this prediction.
3/ Following the overwhelming success of the introduction of the high performance Ford Mustang into the Australian market, General Motors will be forced to counter this, and announce that the Camaro will be bought to Australia wearing Holden badges, thus maintaining Holden dominance in the High Performance and Motor Sports arenas.
What the f@#k was I thinking again!!! (although, apparently two Camaros have been sighted in the HSV facility at Clayton. Maybe they will be the next HSV platform.....please, please, please!!!).
4/ Qantas will finally acknowledge that the A380 has failed to live up to economic or operational expectations and withdraw the type from service. They will be traded to Boeing, (who will immediately scrap them to prevent their re-entry into the market), and be replaced by a fleet of technologically-superior, ultra long-range, and super fuel-efficient Next Gen Boeing 777s . Following on from this Airbus will announce the premature closing of the A380 production line due to complete lack of orders for the type. Boeing will say "We told you so" . Qantas will donate one A380 to the Qantas Founders Museum in Longreach, Queensland. Boeing will halt production of the 747-8 shortly after the A380, thus ending the era of the four-engine wide-body "jumbo jet".
Apparently Airbus will be announcing the fate of the A380 in the near future. And Qantas have announced the 787-9 and will indeed be flying the world's longest route when the type enters service (PER-LHR)
5/ Indisputable and concrete evidence of alien life will finally be discovered. This will fundamentally change the way humanity views our place in the universe, and how we treat our home planet.
Didn't happen, although I thought it did when the Pokémon Go craze hit .
6/ LATs/VLATs will have proven themselves indispensable in dealing with Australia's bushfire threat, and large fleets of these remarkable aircraft will be deployed every fire season from now on.
Has absolutely happened!!!! They are now a routine part of the Australian landscape, and are here proving themselves, and doing some fine work all around the country, as I always knew they would.
7/ Malcolm will be returned to Government in a land slide Federal Election victory. Bill will disappear into political obscurity.
Yes....but hardly a "landslide" victory for big Mal, and Bill hasn't disappeared . I couldn't have predicted the return of Pauline though.
8/ A Next Generation replacement for Concorde will be announced.....this Hypersonic Transport Aircraft (HTA) will be the first commercial joint venture between Boeing and Airbus, (other project partners will include Embraer, Bombardier, Ilyushin, Tupolev and Mitsubishi). Launch customers will include: United, American Airlines, Delta, British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Japan Airlines, Aeroflot , and Cathay Pacific.
Well......sorta!!!. Richard Branson has announced a joint venture with a new American company known as Boom to develop and bring into service a "next gen" SST. She is planned to enter service in 2023, some 20 years after the retirement of Concorde. She will be smaller than Concorde with just 45-50 seats.
9/ The Earth will have a very close encounter with an up-to-now undetected asteroid. This "extinction event-sized" asteroid will come closer to the Earth than even the moon during it's high-speed fly past. This will be the closest "near miss'" of it's kind in human history and will have the world scrambling to come up with a legitimate and viable global "asteroid defence plan" to cater for similar future events.
Didn't happen, although apparently 7 new "planet killer" size asteroids have been discovered in the last 12 months.
10/ Capt Eric will take first place in the Airliner and Civil Aircraft category's at Model Expo 2016 .
Surprisingly, this didn't happen, although he did well in other categories as usual.
11/ A/CAM, LSP, and AMI will merge creating Australia's first ever modelling "Super Site". This new modelling mega-site will be jointly owned and managed by Ray Woodford, Kev Futter, and Dave Harvey.
....lets face it, the era of the Model Site is nearly over as Face Book pages take over . In all seriousness though, it should be noted that Dave Harvey from AMI did offer assistance and advice when A/CAM suffered it's two major tech outages this year. I am grateful to Dave for his input, and I thank him for his gesture of good will and cooperation.
12/ Paul finds his dream job in Melbourne (test driving the above-mentioned Holden Camaro SS at Lang Lang perhaps??), and will make it to Model Expo 2016.
Didn't happen, but he is now gainfully employed in the highlands of PNG.
OK.....so I will work on my 2017 predictions list tonight and see how we go.
TOR