national photographic
Figured I’d actually make an entry in my own journal for once, instead of living my “journal life” vicariously through commenting on others’ activities. :o)
For those of you who don’t know, I’m down in Waxhaw, NC (a little town south of Charlotte) working with JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Services), helping the director of R&D, Terry Heffield, design a crashworthy passenger seat for a new type of aircraft. It’s slow work most of the time with Terry being so busy, but every once in a while I’ll have a flash of insight (which I can only attribute to a higher Source) and come up with a halfway decent idea for a new part of the seat. I’ll post the latest iteration of the seat up here eventually, I suppose (in Mattspeak = in three weeks :o) Just kidding)
In the meantime, I got happy with the hangar’s digital camera. Enjoy:
This is my office. Well, not really mine. It’s where I am most of the time, though. Terry let me have the desk over to the left. It has a schematic of another seat design above it, and I sit in the green chair. Terry’s desk is the one with the computer and the blue chair. The office is on the second floor, right underneath the sloping roof of the hangar, so it would get pretty warm except for the AC in the wall and the fan going all the time. We listen to a Christian station on the radio, too. There’s a computer on the other side of the partition, which is the one I use. It belongs to a man who helps Terry out but only comes in to work on Mondays (he’s retired or something, apparently). So I pretty much have free reign on the computer. I’ll be teaching myself SolidWorks (an engineering modeling program) pretty soon here. There are bunches of sketches on my desk, and a large bookshelf filled with engineering references to the left.
Here is the front half of the hangar. The next picture shows the back half, since it was too big to get in one shot. I’m looking out kind of a door-sized opening facing the door of the office. At night the King Air (the largest and most expensive plane JAARS owns) sits in the open area in the middle there. The plane on the right is a Cessna 310, a plane donated to JAARS that they’re touching up and repairing so they can resell it for around $45K.
The other half of the hangar. The bins on the wall hold little parts, like nuts and bolts. The floatplane hanging from the ceiling was one of JAARS’ first aircraft. It’s a museum piece now, I guess. Evidently it has quite an illustrious history, which I’ll have to inquire about sometime. The plane in the back is a Helio Courier that they’re overhauling. It’s quite
disassembled.
The break room. Not a bad place to relax. There’s a TV and VCR (neither of which work very well), microwave, fridge, etc… Lots of very nice airplane magazines on the wall, too. This is where we have devotion in the morning. There’s a customer waiting area through a door to the left for people who are chartering flights.
The snack area. This is along a wall of the hangar. 35 cents for a pepsi and 30 cents for a munchie ain’t bad. I make frequent use of both these machines, since for some reason (metabolism?) I just can’t go 3-4 hour without eating something.
This Cessna 206 is essentially in better-than-new condition. Completely rebuilt and overhauled by JAARS, it’s absolutely beautiful to behold. Immaculate paint, perfect interior, upgraded instrumentation, etc… JP (another college-age volunteer) and I drool over it whenever we get the chance. They’re still breaking in the engine before they pack it up and ship it overseas (I’m not sure where).
Another shot of the pretty airplane. I closed the door to emphasize the sleek lines :o)
Here’s another view of the 206. They wheeled it out of the hangar to do some engine and avionics tests.
The biggest plane in the JAARS fleet–the Beech King Air. Uses turboprops instead of piston engines. It’s a big plane–I can barely touch the tip of the tailplane standing on my tiptoes. The whistle and whine when it starts up is something else :o)
Here’s the cabin . Notice the JAARS safety brochures in the backs of the seats.
The instrument cluster/cockpit. Isn’t that beautiful? And to think that to operate this aircraft right you have to be well-versed on the operation of every one of those. :o) I can just see myself at the controls…
A Piper Aztec. They mainly use this one to transport people, since the cargo space is so limited.
Here is the tarmac, or apron. There are usually more airplanes than this parked out there. Must have been a slow day. That’s another 206, with a Helio Courier parked behind it. The runway is behind them.
Speaking of the runway, here’s a better shot of it. More hangars, too.
This is the Helio Courier, the airplanes that JAARS’ reputation is based on more than any other. They operate about 20 of these at any one time. Designed back in the late 60’s by a team of MIT grads, it has bizarre short takeoff and landing capabilities. The long landing gear allow for a larger propeller, and the huge wing has many slats and flaps which increase its area by about a third for low-speed operations. It can take off and land within a few hundred feet. This airplane is registered to Peru for South American operations.
“Ol’ No.1” in the hangar. It went looking for cows yesterday. Apparently a cowboy/farmer down in SC “misplaced” his cows, and the aircraft spent most of the day before yesterday scouring the countryside for them. Don’t ask, I don’t know any more than that… :o)
Here’s the existing design for a crew (pilot and copilot) seat. You can see the s-shaped tubes in the front which deform on impact, and the area in the back which crushes. There’s a trapezoidal linkage on the bottom for adjusting the seat height. This seat protected a dummy in 30G crash tests from excessive loads on his spinal column. It’s a crew seat so it’s a lot more adjustable than the passenger seats.
A detail of the bottom.
Making the passenger seats. They’re a lot simpler than the crew seats and fold up much more compact. They attach to the racks running the length of the cabin. To fold up, the legs swing up under and the top folds down, making a pretty compact package.
A very large vacuforming machine used to make replacement and upgrade fiberglass and polymer parts (like fillets and fairings for blending the wing and the wing brace, etc…)
My supervisor, Terry Heffield. A great man with a lot of creative spirit. He used to be a missionary pilot but basically decided it was a “glorified taxi service” (his words). He’s the head of R&D at JAARS now. Quite a hands-on man, he loves to make stuff. I’ve heard quite a few stories.
Here’s JP. He’s even taller than me (about 6’6) and rather larger, too. He drives a ’75 Ford Gran Torino with 62K on it–a stylin’ car :o) He’s from somewhere in southeastern Wisconsin and just finished his first year at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Great guy.
Wes, another volunteer. Looks high school-age, but I’m not sure. He’s a cut-up, a jokester, and fun to be around. He’s sewing a cargo net together. The reason the picture is so cropped is that I had my finger in front of the lens.
Hope y’all find that little expose edifying in some small way. More to come…
can you reply really quick like if you’re still online?
*sigh* oh well.
to the park with me.
I reckon I can. I was with Elyse :o)
aww… i just barely missed you.
silly, impatient me.
:o)
oh well…. dear, you need to find another way to message me. perhaps we should get yahoo? or something… i don’t know. i miss talking to you.
with elyse?
I was replying really quick-like with Elyse, so I reckoned I could with you, but we both left, you for the park and me for dinner at home… :o)
The network here at JAARS isn’t letting me through. I need a password and a login ID in order to be able to use a messenger program, evidently… *sigh* I’ll see what I can do.
did i miss you yet again? it seems that i check my email at the wrong times…
hm.
hey, what about a chat room?
:o) or maybe normal email…
Chat rooms are a no-go unless you have an IM program, and anyway it’s the same priciple as IMing, pretty much. I tried the login ID and password of the guy whose computer I’m using–to no avail. *sigh* Why must communicating with my love be so difficult? :o(
aw…
i’m sorry, love.
does that mean that they don’t have javascript?
i don’t remember… otherwise… i don’t know.
anyway. okay, love. i could, maybe, call for a few minutes tonight? when will you be home?
I’ll be home in just a few minutes. The alarm here in the hangar arms in 12 minutes, so I have to be out of the building by then. I’m going to run, but I’ll call you after I return, around 11:30 or so :o)
So, Yeah…
I was gonna make a comment about the actual lj post in general, but then I saw all of your posts, and well… I just won’t bother ;)
(nice/interesting pics though)
I’m glad you liked the pics. I’ll have another installment pretty soon (i.e. when I find something else to photograph :o)
I enjoyed our little intellectual tete-a-tete. We’ll have to continue that in person (quick rebuttals are the spice of life :o)
exactly (because the quicker they are, the more they are either entirely based on wit, or easily found fault in, therefore allowing for even more rebutting) ;)
Some point in time when you and Erin manage *not* to be so terribly gooey-eyed, maybe the three of us can meet up and be all intellectual-like (so, like, maybe this summer?). A girl can dream can she not?
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. If you can find me a place to sleep, I’m all for meeting up in DC and getting all theoretical about stuff. How’s next weekend look?
well, next weekend shall work quite handily seeing as how that is the weekend that Erin is coming down (and you can probably stay on the couch in my basement apt, I’ll ask tonight).
One condition: you and Erin are allowed to be gooey eyed a widdle bit, though not *too* much, k?
Oh, yeah, do we all maybe want to read the same book so that we can discuss it? Something not blatantly religious/political, because those discussions shall come up anyways. Got any suggestions?
~moi
Well, don’t inconvenience anyone in trying to find me a place to sleep. I don’t want to invade anyone’s living room.
As far as the gooey-eyed-ness goes, we’ll try, but you have to understand that we’ll have not seen each other in more than three weeks, so you might have to give us a little room on occasion :o)
An intellectual book to discuss… Hmm. I haven’t been reading much lately, and I assume you’re averse to discussing Mere Christianity. I’ll think about it. Do you have anything in mind?
not in particular, though I’m at the moment quite unaware of popular culture/books in america, so I’m guessing you two have a much better idea than I. Have any books that you’ve been dying to read but never quite had the motivation?
No, their living room is upstairs, there’s a separate one in the basement :) Plenty of room, so no worries. And of course I shall give you and Erin some room, I’m just letting you know that if its too much, I might personally become disgusted and disown you two hormonal youngsters (not likely, but hey, the threat sounds nice) ;)
I’ve been wanting to read Cold Mountain for a long time, but you’ve likely read that one.
How about The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald? I read that when I was in middle school, I think, and got completely lost in the symbolism and obscurity of the book. I’d like to read it again. You game?
Sure thing (now to find a copy) :)
I might just go buy one, it’d be nice to be able to write in it… we just need to make sure Erin will do this, too.
well…. i suppose i could go along with all of this, even if i haven’t been consulted in the least.
the great gasby or cold mountain?
and why those?
and even if you don’t want to discuss it *now*, you should still read mere christianity. i would really, really like to know what you think of his logic.
:o) anyway… work time, i suppose.
I would love to read it, but I don’t own a copy, and I don’t know where the library is… so I was just going to wait until school :) But the reason that GG or Cold Mt (we “decided on GG) was b/c Matt suggested them… if you have any better ideas *please* speak up? I haven’t read either of the above ones, but we need something that is supposed to be a “classic” so that it will actually provide for good ole intellectual discussion (kinda like what school is supposed to be like, but then you have the dumb people just talking for the credit, arg).
i actually have no idea what the GG is about.
i suddenly went blank on books we could read. what about one we’ve all already read and we could just look over? what’s that book with big brother in it? i’d actually like to read that again… i hated it when i read it…1988. yeah.
i don’t know. i just want something that’s slightly difficult and not conventional. a story with more to it…
:o) enough of my being all vague.
are you getting our comments?
yeah, I agree with you… do you mean 1984? I’ll ask my Matt, he’s pretty much on the up and up on western literature ;)
yeah…
i meant 1984 :o)
i also forgot to tell you something earlier… you should know not to assume that i know anything about what’s “hot” right now… when have i ever? it doesn’t matter that i’ve been in the country this whole past year. i know nothing, remember?
:o) today in a meeting it came up that i don’t know who courtney love is. they couldn’t believe it. i know of curt cobain… but, well… :o) anyway. as i told them, that’s why i’m not a “trendspotter” (the teens they talk to about what’s hot and hip)
:o)
“i’m just a bus driver, what do i know?”
Re: yeah…
you are so cute :)
(there’s a reason your icon is clouds)
(hehehe)
lol
cute? :o) um…. thanks?
yeah, me and clouds, we go hand in hand.
:o)
Re: lol
or, um, gas molecule and gas molecule?
*ahem*
Here I am. I just talked to you on the phone, I guess :o) So we’re all go for The Great Gatsby (not “Gasby,” dear :o) If you all would rather read 1984, I’d be up for that too. That book altered my perception of the world quite a bit. Elyse, which would you rather read? Erin?
as i’ve never read it (gg) before… it would depend on when we wanted to discuss it. discussion next weekend would mean we’d have to do something we’ve already read (well… maybe. i guess i could read the book in a week?)
i dont know. whatever ya’ll want. :o)
and i don’t think elyse got your (or my) message. only you and i would, love. i wasn’t commenting to her, and neither were you.
Sorry about the tardiness of this, but Erin brought it to my attention that you probably haven’t read our latest comments, in which there’s a question for you. So, if you would, peruse the latest few comments and respond, if you so desire. Thanks :o)
latest few comments in your journal?
ok…
wow, isn’t this a new record or something, 33 comments?
ok, anyhoo, either is fine, and yes, dear, I’m pretty sure you can read one of these books in a week, but which one are we going for (I’d like to buy it sooner rather than later). I haven’t heard back from my Matt on any book ideas, so I’ve heard that 1984 is really cool (I haven’t read it) while I’ve just heard that GG is one of those books, ya know ;) Either way, both are fine, just let me know :) Tah Tah!
~E
PS so now its 34, right?
you have 34 on your “environmental discussion” post
Let’s read Gatsby. We’ll save the dystopian fantasies for later on in the summer. Now to find a copy of my own… :o)
Re: you have 34 on your “environmental discussion” post
aww… but I *love* dystopian fantasies… :)
Anyhoo, yeah, ok, GG it is then, I’ll go buy it during lunch ;) I really would like to read ’84 at some point in time (maybe we could do this again later this summer?)
maybe on our way home?
:o) thanks for letting me know about the book, you guys….
okay, i’ll go and borrow the book from the library. i need something else to read anyway. i am not buying it though. no need to waste another tree…. ;)
Re: maybe on our way home?
it’s only a few branches…
We’ll read 1984 later, don’t worry. I’m already reading Mere Christianity, and you can ask Erin about my skill as far as multitasking goes… :o)
This from the girl who was so gung-ho about stopping the oil pipelines in Alaska? Tsk tsk… :o)
(sarcasm anyone?)
Seriously though, its a book, sheesh, and I’m not really all that gung-ho, I just wish that there was at least an attempt by our govt to look into alternative fuels, thats all.
um, right, boys and multitasking. Nope, not quite ;)