neal wrote:casper wrote:you sure the missiles where at the old DMC factory? or did i get that part wrong from what i can remember from my school years when we used to watch the cars being tested nothing was made in the factory after it closed for a few yrs and the only place that made such things was shorts brothers which was based near city airport. this is just my thinking i could be wrong
The missiles factory was at Castlereagh in east Belfast. Darren may have picked him up wrong, Shorts may have bought some of the fibreglass parts when the factory closed and employed some of the DMCL staff at there castlereagh factory. Bombardier sold the Missiles factory, when they bought over Shorts brothers as they did not make missiles.
Thanks Neal,
The guy was adamant it was in the DMC Building at Dunmurry? He said when they first started making the nosecones there was no "standard" test to see if they would fail "in service", so some bright spark decided to climb onto the roof of the plant and throw them off. If they hit the floor and stayed in one piece they "passed" the test
I spoke to him again and he said they did take some plant out of Dunmurry factory to start elsewhere but this wasn't until a while later. He seems to think some of the fibre glass machinery stayed at DMC until at least 1990?
He is in his 80's now so memory may not be so sharp, but still an interesting tale.
Regards
D
