YAMA (yet another major award)

Jeanette and I went to one of the downtown schools for National Engineering Week. My employer provided us with a small token of their appreciation for our participation. Here Jeanette is showing her new windbreaker. I have one similar.



An mow for the award.

It Flew the Coop

In the beginning there was an old airplane that sat in the desert for many years because it was used and was considered not to be worthy of service without expensive maintenance. There was another plane that was also parked in the desert with the first and was not worth using because most of the aircraft was not useful, except for the center wing.



The center wing was taken out of the airplane with a buzz saw and shipped to the place where I work. We worked on the old center wing and repaired things that looked to be of concern. Then came the big job of putting the old refurbished center wing into the old airplane that sat in the desert for many years. We did more work than this. We installed new radios, and cleaned up any damage that was done to the plane and added a new coat of paint. The airplane was then delivered to the government of Poland. There are 4 other airplanes that are having the same thing done to them.



And away it goes into the wild world.



Goodbye 1262.

Mono Poly

Fist I ran out of cash and then had a debt to pay. Jeanette took all my assets in payment and I bowed out of the game.



It appears that Eric has a monopoly on winning.

He keeps forgetting the rule: Let the mama win!

Smoking

It has been raining for 2 days. I volunteered to cook the meet for the High Priest Group social tonight. We went out yesterday afternoon and purchased the chickens.

I rolled the smoker up on the sidewalk and started a fire in the firebox. It took more than usual to get an actual fire going.

The ground outside is saturated and any walking except on the sidewalk works up a bunch of mud.



I put some of the trimmings from the ornamental pear tree on the top of the firebox to warm it and dry it while the fire inside improved and heated the cooking chamber up above 200 degrees.



The chickens are starting to look good. I will let you know after tonight how they were.

Another "Airmane"

There was a big to do about one of the planes that was part of my responsibility. I wrote a large portion of the 3000 page report for the internal racks and consoles and new air handling system.

I may be in the photograph somewhere, but I am not sure where.



Here is the article that appeared in the company news on the web.

UIL Major Award for Eric

Eric participated in the solo competition for UIL. He says that this is a big deal, so congratulate Eric on having the ability to perform on an excellent level in choir.

The Award

The Report

I arrived at the Waco Central Library a little before we needed to be there. I met Lance Martin, the L-3 Communications PR man. He introduced me to the moderator (I forgot his name). He is sitting on the left side of the table. I am sitting next to him, then Scott Jenkins, next is Tracy Duvall, and on the other end is Rick Hingtgen. Eric and Jeanette were there as support and took these pictures.



The event began with the library manager discussing the book a bit and providing an introduction.



The MC had some canned questions that he asked.

What inspired you to choose engineering as a profession... etcetera.

It seems that my answers were at odds with others on the panel in some areas. They all seemed to have a yearning to be engineers from a fairly early age in their lives. They told of people that were of great influence to them and why they chose aerospace.

I had to indicate that I was not really wanting to be an aerospace engineer, but I wanted to work on fast cars. I was slow in starting school and instead went on a proselyting mission for my church and spent 2 years in Argentina. As an end to that effort I was assigned the task of writing out my lifetime goals. Getting a degree was one of those goals. I chose Civil Engineering for some reason unknown to me. When I looked for a job I had two choices, one in Orange County California, and the other in Greenville, Texas. I chose Texas because I would probably be able to live on what they offered.



After the panel discussions were over then people were free to come and see some of the gee-whiz items that we brought. I had a fuse pin from the Trent1000 test engine program, where a Rolls-Royce engine was put on a 747 in place of one of the four regular engines. The fuse pin is designed to fail between the needed strength in service and the strength that the wing possesses. You don't want a failed engine to tear up the wing.

I also brought a poster of the Magellan Probe that went to map the surface of Venus. I did not do work on Magellan, but I was familiar with it and I worked on another spacecraft the used some similar structure. I designed the composite structural tubes that were the space frame of that satellite. I discussed with a couple people the complexities of the shear pin and the composite structural tube and fitting.



The Magellan Probe had to figure out where it was in space by using onboard computers and star-trackers. Maps of the heavens were stored on the craft and the logic in its programming had to be able to determine how it was oriented on its own. Small rocket motors on the space frame were used to orient the spacecraft either pointing at the surface of Venus or at Earth. The same antenna, the big one, was used to map the surface using SAR (synthetic aperture RADAR) and communicate with the control station on Earth. The spacecraft would alternately position itself for the appropriate task by the login on-board.



There were a few people that came and expressed their pleasure with us for having expended our time to come be on the panel.



Jeanette said that I was the smartest. Thank you honey, I love you.

Rocket Boys

I am going to be one of the panel described in the article captured below. Jeanette and I read the book and we are familiar with the movie October Sky. Maybe a report tomorrow.