It’s me, Mark Stone, and in this episode of the Backseat Driver Podcast, I’m joined by Sophie Hayter, whose career spans both the automotive and aerospace industries, with a lifelong passion for historic machinery.

Sophie shares how her fascination with steam traction engines began through her family, particularly the influence of her grandfather and the heritage of engines associated with Eastnor Castle. We explore how that early exposure developed into a deep appreciation for the engineering and stories behind these remarkable machines.

Beyond steam engines, Sophie talks about her own Land Rover and her professional role overseeing landing gear and undercarriage maintenance in the airline industry. She explains the extraordinary engineering behind aircraft landing gear and the strict standards required to keep aircraft operating safely.

This episode connects the worlds of historic vehicles and modern aviation, celebrating the craftsmanship, engineering, and personal stories that keep mechanical heritage alive.

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I'd like to introduce to the backseat driver a young lady who has a definite interesting automotive or transport past.

So I would love to introduce Sophie Hayter to the backseat driver.

Sophie, welcome.

Hi.

Thank you.

Thank you for bringing me on.

It's really nice to talk to you.

Now, the one thing the two subjects we know that you are passionate about or maybe three, you're into steam engines.

You knew or your friends with the family.

Fred Dibner, a man who many years ago I interviewed to give you an idea.

The interviews on cassette and I cannot record it or play it out in any way since Fred was, shall we say, very forthright in his comments.

You own a Land Rover, a classic Land Rover and you now work in the aerospace industry, especially undercarriages.

How did all this come about?

Steam traction engines.

Not be funny, tend to be a bit of an old bloke pastime.

You are definitely not a standard fanatic, are you?

No, not at all.

I don't really fit that stereotype, to be honest with you.

My grandfather does.

And that's where that stems from.

It's always been, it's always been in the family one way or another, I think.

First love, 100% steam engines, cars.

Second.

Yeah, that all stems from my granddad really.

He works at Easter Castle in Lebry, Herefordshire.

He's been there longer than I've been alive 30 odd years.

The owner of the castle has a few steam engines.

When he joined there was four, I believe.

So it was a Wallace advance steamroller, advance Agricultural, a Foden steam lorry and there was Atlas, the big road locomotive.

So it's quite a good variety there and that's what I grew up with.

And I learned to drive on the Wallace, which is a little steamroller.

Now the one thing I know about steam traction engines is there's some that they're called Shman's engines and they tend to be the heavily and highly decorated ones.

What are the different categories of steam engines?

It's quite a few really.

Like you mentioned, you've got the Showmans.

They tend to be your big ticket, big money items.

So they can go anywhere from.

It depends on obviously history.

It's very similar cars.

It depends on the.

The history of them, the pedigree, the branding.

A lot of things fall into place at determine the value the Showmans can.

They can fetch up to something like 1.2 million.

Yeah.

The recent example, one that sold, I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but that one reached with fees, it was like best part of a million.

Yeah, but yeah, they're the big money items.

They tend to be quite big.

So you'd have your Borough Scenics or your Fowlers.

So those are your brand names.

So that's like your Volkswagen Mercedes.

Yeah, that kind of big overall brand name.

They tend to be quite big.

They would be hauling the fare a ride.

They'd have shown in some living van behind it and they'd be on the road traveling about.

They'll have to be big, heavy, strong engines.

So usually a compound engine.

Yeah.

Then you've got your steamrollers.

Again, tend to be council owned.

So a lot of them are ex council.

So it'd be like ex Worcester, ex Herefordshire.

Yeah.

The Wallace that we had was an ex Worcester Council.

The air.

Or there'd be other contractors, obviously, through all the roads.

They'd always have a living vow behind them as well.

Whoever was working them would have the living van behind them and that's where they would live.

They'd just travel around.

You'd have your big road locomotives as well.

So that again would sit under probably McLaren Burrell Fowler.

Big, big engines, pushing 20 tons.

Again, heavy haulage.

Just the old version of a hgv.

You'd have your steam lorries as well.

We've got one of those.

That was the one that we've got in particular was just.

It's not ours.

I've got to clarify.

That's just the one that we crew.

Yeah, they'd be used to.

The one that we have in particular just used to haul loads around London docks for back in Pulitzer, which company, I believe is still going now.

But that's a Foden.

Foden, obviously then turned into diesel HGVs, same kind of thing, just not as strong as a broadload.

And then you've got your agriculturals.

So your agriculturals are your typical standard looking.

When you think of a traction engine, that's what pops up.

Sometimes they have canopies, sometimes they don't.

Um, they.

They could be used for a number of things, really.

One that we work on was fairly static.

So it would just.

It used to power a flour mill in Ireland and that's where it spent a lot of its life.

So it's gears.

Even though this engine is 111this year, its gears are basically brand new because they weren't really used in its working life.

It spends its time out of gear.

Belt attached to your flywheel, powering the flower well.

So its gears are basically brand new.

It's never been nothing's ever been done on it.

It's only ever had its tubes changed.

That's it.

Which is quite rare for an engine of that age.

Or you'd have it pulling a thrashing box.

Powering thrashing box.

They were quite multi use ones.

Agriculture is kind of a road locus of where my heart sits mainly.

Yeah, they've all got their own uses, they've all got their own boy balls and some people prefer the bigger stuff, some people prefer the smaller stuff but I tend to sit with the agriculturals and the road locos personally I do fancy showman's butts completely out of my tax pocket.

I know.

Speaking to Fred the afternoon I interviewed him when he was talking about how much the Shmans cost because if memory serves Fred have 2 shmans then he had his living van on the back and they were also designed besides pulling the living quarters.

They would then have a load attached to the back of that, wouldn't it?

No matter how much weight you appear to attach to one of these you never stop it, do you?

No.

And they don't seem to notice either.

So like we had with the word loca that we used to look after.

Atlas currently lives now up at Aberdeen with a chap called Mike Dreeland who's got.

He's got about 30, 30 engines.

He's a mega huge collection.

He's part of the oil industry but yeah, that's byerby but yeah, same with Atlas.

He was big like I say he.

They're all.

To me they're all gendered one way or another but you get to know them as you work with them.

Yeah, Atlas was bordering 20 tons.

He didn't matter what you put behind, just didn't notice it wasn't spaced at all.

Whereas with the little agricultural we work with you stick a living van on the back and it changes it entirely.

You know what they're built for.

And like you said with the Showmans it ended up being like a road train with the amount of stuff they're pulling.

It's very impressive, very impressive to see it.

And when we go to shows and things there are some people who make it their mission to be able to pull as as much as they possibly can behind it and it does put on quite a show and they get really good feedback from the public.

Yeah, all these, the big ones, the Showmans, they all have fantastic names or they are not.

You mentioned one of them's names and everybody knows it.

Are they all reasonably unique?

I know there were only a certain number of manufacturers but were they all custom built.

Yeah, for the most part especially with again referring back to Atlas.

Atlas was a Norman E Box engine.

So Norman E. Box was a company back in the day where they had a whole load of heavy haulage engines.

So there's quite a few that are famous of his collection.

So there's Atlas, Titan, Ajax, King of the Road, there's quite a few that bore part of it and they all differed slightly And Atlas was built.

Was certainly unique for me anyway because he was built to have had all the gubbins.

I say gubbins because I'm.

I'm not that technical as I'm honest.

Like all the gubbins on the front, all the hardware to have a crane attached and never did.

Yeah.

Whereas say like a sister engine to Atlas did have a crane and you know you can chop and change things.

I think that's the beauty of them that they all do slightly differ in some way or another because they are, I suppose it's the same now.

You look at any brand new car and something's always going to differ between the two whether it's the interior, color, engine, size of alloys, cut of alloys, something's always going to differ slightly.

They all follow the same blueprint as such.

But yeah, it depends what they want him for specifically what's your involvement?

What do you do?

Or as it is I've seen where I've seen them at various shows the people involved seem to do absolutely everything.

There isn't one that shovels coal, there isn't one that steers or anything.

Everybody seems to do everything or is capable of doing everything.

What do you do?

Yeah, stuck in with anything really.

I'm quite capable.

The only thing I couldn't do I'm not competent in is the repair work really.

I wouldn't feel competent in going off and repairing something.

I would quite too.

I've just never been around that bit.

But yeah, from anything from ashing out in the morning, obviously all your polishing, you're lighting up, you're oiling up.

Yeah.

You're first running.

So any part of the driving it, steering it, it's all good.

It does differ slightly depending on what engine you're on because all the.

So all the controls can be on different sides.

So they're not all left handed, not all right handed that differ.

That differs quite a bit and I've never really understood why they do from experience they do tend to be left handed.

Yeah but that doesn't mean.

I'd say it's probably like a 60, 40 split between the two.

Yeah, they all do differ slightly.

Steering especially I think people.

You do tend to have two people in engine.

So you'd have your fireman and your steersman.

So it's a little bit like the steam train in many ways then.

Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely if you're driving.

So the person driving will be the person who's firing as well.

A person who's steering just focuses on the steering.

That's it.

Yeah.

The steering is actually a lot more difficult than people give it credit for.

I think it differs so vastly between engines because of the way nine times out of ten there'll be chain steering as well.

Yes, there's a huge difference in the slack between engines.

So for example, like the one that we're looking after at the minute is a Gibbons and Robinson agricultural engineer.

It's a one of one.

Yeah, it's the only one left.

There was only seven ever made.

It's the only one.

It's lovely.

Yeah.

Old.

But the stack in that there's not a lot of slack in the chain.

So it's half a turn and in your.

Going where you need to go.

Yeah.

Whereas a steamroller that's my uncle's is 30 turns from lock to lock.

So that's a lot slot.

It's getting used to that per.

Per engine firing wise.

Obviously you got muscle memory when it comes to knowing how far to open your regulator to get it going.

But yeah, I'd say steering.

I feel like I've gone off on a tangent.

It's one of those that you see them at shows and I can't remember the name of it but there's a famous film where there's a traction engine in it and it's like you said, you see them put the lock on and sometimes they're spinning this wheel round for what appears to be not a lot of adjustment at the actual front road wheels.

Yeah, there's not a lot.

There's again I think it just boils down to that.

Mainly the slack I'd say.

But yeah, it's difficult.

It's a lot of manual labor.

Your whole experience of steering, firing, everything.

It's a non stop kind of job I do.

We love it, all of us, that's why we do it.

But you do get home and it's.

I've never had a better sleep than when you come home after a rally especially.

It's hot all day.

You're on this great big hot lump of metal.

Yeah.

Manual mortgage all day.

It doesn't stop when you start them

up at the beginning of a day at a show or an event.

I conclude you don't let them.

You won't let the fire go out, will you?

You'll keep them stoked up all day, won't you?

All day, yeah.

It's very.

It's really important as well.

Especially you have to keep going back to it and you have to fill holes.

So obviously it sits on top of fire bars, so there's a grate there underneath that is your ash pan.

If you leave your fire, especially if you're on the road, it's especially important if you're on the road, if you're pulling the load, to keep your fire from having any holes in it.

So that's basically.

Don't let yourself be able to see the ash pattern through those firebirds because what that does, it lets cold air in what could then touch your tubes.

And it can cause your tubes to leak.

That's where your water is.

So your fire is so important.

Obviously it's important.

So we don't let it go down.

We can't leave it for too long.

When we're at a rally, we tend to go around, look at the stools and stuff, but you can't leave it for longer than an hour at best.

Now, the one thing I remember Fred Dibner telling me was, because I think he was having one of his dung, were the tubes in the boilers.

And these are seriously expensive, aren't they?

If they need replacing.

Yeah, they can be.

They can be.

I'd say your most exploit, your most expensive bit of the engine is the boiler and the barrel.

Yeah, tubes.

It used to be you had to get them done every 10 years or so, but now it's as and when they need doing.

Your boiler and the barrel, that's your big muggy item.

That's if you know your engine went in your car.

Yeah.

Without that, not worth anything.

It's just it worth it.

Like, it's almost like a scrap buddy.

If that's gone, it's damned.

It's not worth a lot.

But they.

Yeah.

Back in the day, things were just made better.

Builds are out.

So, like, I'll bring it back around to Ransom's Agricultural that we're looking after as well.

We are.

Like I said, that one's 111 this year still.

What.

It's original boiler and barrel.

Now, what's your connection with the Fred Dibner traction engines?

Because you occasionally have something to do with them, don't you?

We do.

We See his sons, so Jack and Roger at the show.

So they're usually with Betsy the Roller.

We're quite friendly with each other.

See each other around a lot.

They're a great laugh.

They usually hang out and do some heavy haulage stuff, towing stuff around, putting a show on.

Fred, I've been told that I met him as a baby, but obviously I'm 26.

I don't really remember that.

I know my granddad was very fond of him and Fred was quite irregular at the castle at Easter Castle.

He loved Atlas.

There's a whole.

There's a whole TV show film with him, with Atlas doing some work to it.

Yeah, Jack and Roger, they're a great bunch.

They're really lovely.

It's always nice to see them.

We only really see them at rally season, to be honest, because they live so far away from me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're great to hang around with.

Now, something else you have in common with Fred, which was the reason I initially met him.

You're very fond of Land Rovers, aren't you?

Especially classic ones.

I do love a classic Land Rover.

I'm an absolute sucker for a Land Rover.

Anything.

Jlr, really, for all their sins.

Don't ask me to say nice things about the new ones, because I won't.

But you own one, don't you?

Yes.

Yeah.

So it's fairly early.

Yeah, I think it was originally blue.

Since been painted red.

Old recovery vehicle.

I actually got it from when I was working at the garage.

We had a customer there.

Yeah.

Who happened to sold Land Rover.

He owns a Zoom.

His name's Alan.

Really loved.

He owns the zoo in Khu Martin.

So Coomarten Wildlife and Dinosaur park.

And he had the sold Land Rover.

And I went to see him, I think it was last year, just to catch up, see how he was, how his car was, because we did a Lancet Delta for him.

Yeah.

Happened to ask if you serve this land drive.

And he said, yeah, absolutely, I do.

And you mentioned that his miniature airway at zoo wasn't running.

Yeah.

I spoke to my fiance, Ben, who.

He's very.

The same as me, but he's an engineer and he used to work at a company that built miniature railways for parks and big houses and things.

Oh, yeah.

And Toby said, how would you feel if.

If you could potentially repair his miniature railway and we could see if we could swap that for the Land Rover.

Yeah.

And he Was like, yeah, sure, yeah, it's fine.

So we offered that to him and he's.

Yeah, absolutely.

But obviously worked with him before I knew how much he loved a deal.

Yeah.

I know how running a zoo, you kind of strapped for cash and it's a.

It's a passion project, really.

So, yeah, that's how we ended up being the custodians of it.

Does it run?

Absolutely not, no.

It's on the list of jobs to do, 100%, I think.

But we acquired it going into the end of autumn, early winter.

We put it in the shed where the steam engines live.

Yeah.

And it's just been sat there for a bit.

It's been sat in a field for years anyway, so at least it's got a roof over its head and it's relatively warmer than it was before.

But it is definitely.

It's on a list to do.

We're just trying to work out what's been done to it.

Like with anything old.

We know it was an old farmer's vehicle because we can find the old MOT slips in it.

We did have to register it again because obviously it'd been off the system for so long.

Yeah.

We had to jump to all these hoops to get re registered and get a new reg and.

But yeah, it's got an engine in, though.

I don't know what engine it is.

I think it's an old robot engine.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it doesn't fit in the engine bay, so that's going to have to go now.

That's what you spoke about driving steam traction engines.

I've driven quite a lot of old Landers.

I was fortunate enough once to drive one of the very first ones out of the Land Rover Museum, the collection.

And you definitely steer them in a straight line.

They don't go in a straight line of their own Accord, but they are.

They're a challenging thing to drive, are old Land Rovers, aren't they?

Yes.

Yeah, definitely.

I think it's a lot.

I think we do take something as simple as power steering nowadays for granted.

All the modern suspension we've got currently, like the daily cars, like I've got Mercedes and we've got Jaguar.

Yeah.

So obviously all the mod cons are in there, but when you go back to something like that and there is something quite special about it, just going back to that bare minimum.

Yeah.

It's just car.

It doesn't have to be a stereo, a satnav, it doesn't have to be all that.

It's just the very basic Grunt.

Primitive almost.

It's.

And that's quite Love Limit.

There's no bells and whistles that are built to do a job and they do that job well.

The other thing is, you'd struggle hearing a stereo or a radio in an early Land Rover, wouldn't you?

When you're underway, you definitely know you're underway in an old Land Rover.

But is yours.

Does yours have the selectable ratios?

The very early ones, it was four wheel drive and that was it, boys and girls.

The later ones got the famous levers with the yellow and red knobs on the top.

Does yours have that?

But we're missing a lot on the inside.

We're missing the gear stick, we're missing all the knobs from the inside.

So I couldn't tell you what it had and hasn't got.

It hasn't even got its seat in.

It's got a steering wheel, it's got some dials.

But, yeah, there's a lot missing to it.

I'm gonna do my absolute best to try.

Like, the bodywork is absolutely shot, but I'm gonna try my best to keep it as original.

Look, I'm not redoing it to make it look new by any means.

I just want it to be as.

As reliable as a Land Rover can be.

Yeah, as safe as it can be.

But I want to keep it looking like it's just rolled out of a barn.

Yeah, that's one of the things.

You turn up somewhere, you go to a country show and all the latest brand new 4x4s are there.

And if there's an old Land Rover parked up, that's the one that attracts all the attention.

I mean, there is just something about old Land Rovers with a canvas tilt, no doubt, holes in it, and somebody stitched a piece of material on to try and keep the weather out of it.

But there is just something phenomenal about the early.

After the war, they put British industry back on the map, didn't they?

Yeah, definitely.

And I think it's one of those things as well, that it's character.

I think anyone, anyone can go and take something, make it look brand new, make it look lovely and spruce it up to that point.

But you can't, you can't give something that history and that character in that story.

So I think people are always going to be drawn to that.

It's like the steam engines, for example, like the Ransoms, the one that's 111, that one has never had its paint redone.

Yeah.

Whereas you look at the majority and that lovely, lovely painted.

And I'm not dissing that at all.

I think they look beautiful.

It's that over and beyond, over the top British thing that we used to do.

Everything's pretty, but there's no reason for it.

But they're pretty and I love that.

But with this engine, it's never been redone, so originally it was blue, but it's completely black, covered in oil.

Yeah.

The brass is dented, but it always attracts more attention than the ones that have been redone.

Yeah.

Ironically enough, a garage that I'm involved with, the sponsors, one of the sponsors of the podcasts, the Specialized Automotive Services, three years ago finished restoring a Series 1 Land Rover, an early one.

It looks like it's just rolled out of a workshop.

It's absolutely immaculate.

It was photographed and I was asked, would you drive it to where it's going to be photographed?

It's about five miles away.

I said, yeah, no problem.

The owner came with me as a passenger because he didn't know how to double the clutch.

And for as far as I know, he still doesn't know how to double the clutch, even though I showed him on quite a few occasions.

We drove it up a gravel track.

He was horrified at the prospect.

We parked it in a field.

It was summertime, so the weather was nice and dry.

The field was dry.

He was even more apoplectic about that.

And from what I can gather, this thing rolls out of a garage once a year now to be MOT'd and then put away.

And I'll be quite honest, it's a lovely old thing and I can't see the slightest point anymore in it.

No, I think at that point it's just a glorified ornament, isn't it?

I think these things, they're.

It's a shame and it's.

If that's what someone wants to do, but really, you want to love them, you want to enjoy them.

That's what they're built for.

At the end of the day, I think life's too short to have this kind of garage queen type.

And I get it.

There's a time and place for things like that and I get it.

But it's not necessarily something that I would do.

I would want something to use it and to love it.

Yeah.

And it's.

I do find it sad when something gets completely done up and it's.

Yeah, it's.

It.

I just don't see the point of them being shelved.

I.

Like I said, yeah, there's a time and A place to do it.

And if that's what you want to do, fine.

But I do think it's a great shame.

Yeah.

If something is done up that much that you are now scared to take out and do what is built for.

Yeah.

The other thing is as well, once it's up and running, it will become known as.

Well, you will.

You yourself and the Land Rover will be inexorably linked.

As soon as they see it, somebody will say, oh, so is here.

Yes.

Yeah, definitely.

It'll become a form of trademark, won't it?

Yeah, And I can't wait for that, really.

The plan is with ours as soon as it's.

As soon as it's done, because we've got that and we've got a living van to do as well.

So obviously we've got the steam engines we want.

We've got a living van that we use, but we just bought our own, so we've got that.

But it is completely.

It needs redoing.

Luckily, my grandfather's carpet to join us, so, yeah, I'll be roping him on for an awful lot of free labor there.

So we've got the linen van and the plan is, when the Land Rover is done, to stick an A frame on the front, have that towing behind the living van.

So when we get shows, we can drop everything off at the show and go home in the lunger.

It's a.

It's a 107 pickup as well.

So back has all our coal in it, all our tools in it, and it just means we've got the whole shebang and that.

Like I said, I don't want.

I don't want something that we're going to be too precious about.

It's not what it's there for.

It's there to be this counterfoil little workhorse that is in keeping with the rest of the setup.

Yeah.

Now, restoring classic cars brings us to another part of your history, because for a period of time, you worked for a company that.

We shall change the name for legal reasons.

It's what you might call the diminutive gear.

So you were like part of that and part of tv.

How did you go on with that?

Because it doesn't strike me as.

It's something you would.

The TV bit doesn't strike me as something you'd be all that bothered about, given chatting to you.

No, that was.

I've had a very old career history that's possibly the oldest.

Before that I was selling designer radiators, so I didn't exactly have a Huge automotive background.

Yeah, obviously the rest of us.

Every Sunday you'd be watching Top Gear.

Yes.

It's like a staple.

So being in that situation was an absolute dream for me.

People would kill to be in that job and it was good.

It was where I wanted to be.

I was there for two years.

The TV side of it, that was.

I was doing the job in spite of that.

Yeah.

If that makes sense.

It wasn't the.

The bit that drew me to it.

Yeah.

It was probably the only bit that I didn't really want to be involved in, but I would do it if it meant I could have the job.

Yeah.

Like I said, I was never really that bothered.

I'm not exactly well remembered.

And Paul, though, I'm probably only really known as that woman in the office or the receptionist.

I've always hated people calling me the reception.

I was doing a lot more than that, but whatever.

But yeah, yeah, I was never doing it for that.

It was never that side.

If anything, just over complicated things made my job a lot more difficult.

I was in it for the cars, the people.

It was great experience.

It got me into the aerospace job, like you mentioned, that I'm in now.

It was interesting.

Came across so many interesting people, so many interesting cars, and it stoked up that passion even more.

Like, I've always been into cars one way or another and into anything engineering based.

But, yeah, the things I was coming across and the people I met and the customers, for the first time in my life, the customers were one of the best parts of it.

Yeah.

Being face to face with customers, that's the bit that people don't want to be involved with.

A lot of them I've still in contact with now and they've always been really lovely and I built up such good relationships with them.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it's a very odd time in my life, but it is a good time in my life.

I don't regret it at all.

Yeah.

And now you're involved in the aerospace industry, mainly undercarriages.

How did that come out?

All planes need undercarriages to take off and more especially for landing.

How did that come about and what exactly do you do with undercarriages

at the minute?

I manage airlines, obviously.

All these airlines have contracts to get their landing gear overhaul, so I work at a specific site, does maintenance, repair and overhaul.

So the mro.

Yeah.

So I basically manage the customers from the minute they've signed a contract, it gets handed over to me.

I then work out their planning, liaise with our planning department, make sure that the workshop are actually adhering to the contract and what they need keep them up to date with what's going on.

It's an odd thing, like my partner when I first met him, he worked in aerospace.

He worked SKF Bearings, but that's since gone.

He was in Stonehouse.

Yeah.

He then he left.

He went to HMS Engineering, which is next door to the garage.

Yeah.

Which is owned by Hadrian.

He used to be a judge on Scrap Heap Challenge.

He's also the garage's landlord, hence the connection there.

Yeah.

You seem to be drawn to the world of television, don't you, somehow?

Yeah.

We've always been like.

We've been with Hadrian, who's HMS Engineering.

Yeah.

A landlord.

He, like I said, he was on Scrap Heap Challenge.

He's done quite a few things actually, but he's been a family friend for a long time because he has a steam engine.

Yeah.

Everything really for me in my life always goes back to that steam thing.

That's where everything stems from.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's how we know him.

But yeah, when Ben left hms, he went back to Aerospace.

Yeah.

Which then led me to go into aerospace just because I fancy change.

Things were changing at the garage.

Yeah.

I have the unfortunate gift of foresight and I didn't really like the way things were going.

Yeah.

I didn't see it turning out well and I just.

It's not something that I personally aligned with anymore.

Yeah.

And Aerospace just felt like I could change.

I went for an interview just on a whim, not expecting to get the job at all.

And I ended up being offered a better job than the one I'd gone for, which was great.

And I took it and I left and I'm still in contact with some of the guys from the cog.

I know that things have changed since then and a lot of things have moved about, but yeah, I'm still in contact with some of the people from the garage.

Yeah.

And everything's on good terms.

There's no bridges burnt there for me.

Now, the one thing about aircraft undercarriage, especially passenger airlines, I've been on enough of the things.

General trundling or taxiing to the Runway and taking off and everything else will not strike me as particularly strenuous.

But how much grief does an undercarriage take when it lands?

Because I've had some very heavy landings, especially in bad weather.

What are the things you're looking for and how does the undercarriage survive these incredibly hard landings?

Well, that actually, especially because we only work on our site on Single aisle aircraft.

So we're working with the A320 family and Boeing 737.

So you're small, you know, if you're going off to Spain, you're going off to France, you're probably on, on an aircraft that we have made the London gear for and we've maintained the London gear for.

Yeah, they can take an awful lot of strain, a lot more than you'd expect them to.

And I think our site especially because we're the nro so we don't deal with it.

The new stuff that's at the OEM across the road, they make it from new.

We bring it in once it hits its, its life limit.

So we've got, with landing gear, it's very similar to the service schedule on cart.

So you've got either.

It's either 10 years or 20,000 cycles.

So your cycles are your takeoffs or your landings.

Once it's hit that, it has to come into us for an overhaul and typically they'd only make it to three overhauls before they're scrapped.

So 30 years old and they will get scrapped off.

There was a case, I think it was a JetBlue.

I think it's somewhere in America where the nose landing gear, there's a certain pin in it that helps you steer.

Yeah, there's something wrong with that pin anyway.

And the landing gear got stuck.

So the wheels were 90 degrees turned, so they were no longer straight.

They were completely the opposite direction where they couldn't turn.

Put them back.

Yeah, the aircraft hit the ground.

Obviously your back of landing gears first, so you lane landing gears first.

They kept the nose off for as long as they could until inevitably they had to put it down.

It hit the ground, took all of the tire and the wheel off and it was just scraping along on that main fitting when it came back into us for a.

To look at it.

And the shock absorber itself as part of the.

Part of the nose, it wasn't scrap, it was absolutely fine.

It took so much strain.

Yeah, I mean to be fair, I think we do get things like heavy landings coming to us, but they're not actually that common.

They obviously do go to.

There are the.

Our site, it's not just our site that deals with stuff like that.

They're all across the world.

But yeah, we only get hard landings in.

You can have a hard landing, but they only come into us when it's called a severe hard landing, when it's branded as a severe hard landing from Airbus or maybe it's gone in for an investigation.

But it has to be an awfully big bang for that to come back into us to investigate.

I know I've landed sometimes and with a bang that you think you wait for the undercarriage to come up into the cabin.

But that is, to be fair, I'm with you.

I think.

I don't mind flying, but I don't like landing.

So that's the one where I'm gripping my seat, I'm sweating, I'm really nervous about it, and I wish someone would just knock me out.

Since being there, it has made me feel better, especially knowing the 99% of the aircraft that we're on, the landing gear would have been made by us.

And seeing the process it goes through and seeing how rigorous it is, seeing the drain they can take, it's made me feel a lot better.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it's certainly interesting.

It's nice because obviously where we are, you're surrounded by the landing gear.

You can see the entire process where you are.

It's not like we're in an office away from it all.

Yeah, you're right there amongst it.

I know.

My father was a pilot in the raf and he once said to me, he said, any landing you walk away from is a good landing.

I said, this doesn't inspire me with confidence because I'm not a good flyer.

I think one thing that does make me feel better, that I have to remind myself about when I'm on a plane, is that pilot doesn't want to die as much as I do.

And that's the one thing that really does make me feel better about the entire thing.

I know somebody once said about various things, he said, you always prefer to sit at the front.

I said, yes.

I said, there's two reasons.

I said, B, it means you can get off quicker.

I said, B, I've never seen a jet reversing to a mountain.

I said.

I said, I position where, if needs be, I can get off the quickest.

Wow.

But I have seen them.

They do tend to go nose down.

Yes.

Is what I'd say.

Sophie Hayter, it's been a pleasure chatting to you.

Thanks very much for joining me on the backseat driver.

All the best with your Land Rover 107.

I hope you get it back on the road handy, and one day, I hope I see you driving around in it.

Until then, Sophie Hater, thank you very much for joining me on the back seat.

Driver.

Thank you very much.

It's been really nice.

But if you ever want to come to a show or anything, have a drive of a steam engine.

If you want to just give me a message and make it happen.

Great.

Cheers, Sophie, Take care.

Thanks very much.

Thank you very much.

Bye.