Spitzair

Blow Fan Gleeson! That's awesome! Eff you Blow Fan Gleeson! Eff you Heli Zero!

I got myself a Motorolla Milestone with android last year because I didn't want to wait for a backordered Iphone4. Bad idea. That stupid piece of s*** never worked right from the minute I wandered out of the store with it! I put up with it for a while but kept getting more and more frustrated with it. I finally sent it in for repair, they fixed it, but never told me what they did, and, you guessed it, when I got it back it didn't work, it was like they never even did anything to it! I was choked, called Telus and after several hours of arguing I made a deal with them to get an iphone, and what a huge world of difference that made! I love the Iphone, it works, has tons of apps, and most of all has been problem free the entire time I've owned it!

Merry Christmas and Happy new year everybody! Got this in an email the other day, kinda fixed wingy but... >'Twas the night before Christmas, and out on the ramp, > Not an airplane was stirring, not even a Champ. > The aircraft were fastened to tie downs with care, > In hopes that -- come morning -- they all would be there. > > The fuel trucks were nestled, all snug in their spots, > With gusts from two-forty at 39 knots. > I slumped at the fuel desk, now finally caught up, > And settled down comfortably, resting my butt. > > When the radio lit up with noise and with chatter, > I turned up the scanner to see what was the matter. > A voice clearly heard over static and snow, > Called for clearance to land at the airport below. > > He barked his transmission so lively and quick, > I'd have sworn that the call sign he used was "St. Nick." > I ran to the panel to turn up the lights, > The better to welcome this magical flight. > > He called his position, no room for denial, > "St. Nicholas One, turnin' left onto final." > And what to my wondering eyes should appear, > But a Rutan-built sleigh, with eight Rotax Reindeer! > > With vectors to final, down the glideslope he came, > As he passed all fixes, he called them by name: > "Now Ringo! Now Tolga! Now Trini and Bacun! > On Comet! On Cupid!" What pills was he takin'? > > While controllers were sittin', and scratchin' their heads, > They phoned to my office, and I heard it with dread, > The message they left was both urgent and dour: > "When Santa pulls in, have him please call the tower." > > He landed like silk, with the sled runners sparking, > Then I heard, "Left at Charlie," and "Taxi to parking." > He slowed to a taxi, turned off of three-oh, > And stopped on the ramp with a "Ho, ho-ho-ho..." > > He stepped out of the sleigh, but before he could talk, > I ran out to meet him with my best set of chocks. > His red helmet and goggles were covered with frost, > And his beard was all blackened from Reindeer exhaust. > > His breath smelled like peppermint, gone slightly stale, > And he puffed on a pipe, but he didn't inhale. > His cheeks were all rosy and jiggled like jelly, > His boots were as black as a cropduster's belly. > > He was chubby and plump, in his suit of bright red, > And he asked me to "fill it, with hundred low-lead." > He came dashing in from the snow-covered pump, > I knew he was anxious for drainin' the sump. > > I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work, > And I filled up the sleigh, but I spilled like a jerk. > He came out of the restroom, and sighed in relief, > Then he picked up a phone for a Flight Service brief. > > And I thought as he silently scribed in his log, > These reindeer could land in an eighth-mile fog. > He completed his pre-flight, from the front to the rear, > Then he put on his headset, and I heard him yell, "Clear!" > > And laying a finger on his push-to-talk, > He called up the tower for clearance and squawk. > "Take taxiway Charlie, the southbound direction, > Turn right three-two-zero at pilot's discretion" > > He sped down the runway, the best of the best, > "Your traffic's a Grumman, inbound from the west." > Then I heard him proclaim, as he climbed thru the night, > "Merry Christmas to all! I have traffic in sight."

But always ensure that the excess grease gets cleaned out if you don't cut a hole. Had an LR come in one day for an inspection. Pilot told me a few days earlier he had a T/R chip light and had cleaned the plug and shoved it back in and no problem since. The sight glass showed full of oil. I went to drain the oil and about 5 drops came out, sight glass still showed full. Took the chip plug socket right out to see WTF, empty!!! No oil in the gearbox at all! Turns out that the grease from inside the boot had gotten squeezed into the gearbox over time and had clogged up the little hole in the bottom of the sight glass and the oil got trapped in there giving a false full indication! Pilot turned white as freshly fallen snow when I showed him!

Probably not the worst place of all but Chetwynd has to be the most "interesting" experience I've had in a while... Let me set the scene here for you fellers... It's around 2:30 AM the night after a HUGE bar fight had pretty much destroyed the local watering hole, when I wake up to "BANG BANG"... So I stumble out the door of the ol' Stagecoach hotel, then turn around and go back in thinking it may not be such a good idea to go see what goes on... In the morning all the seismic crew are standing around chatting away like a bunch of excited chickens in a chicken coop about the gunshots last night. Turns out some lady had set up a drug outlet in one of the hotel rooms, p***ed off a couple thugs from Ft. St. John then skipped town but left her car in the parking lot of the hotel. Well these guys came to get even! They saw her ride sitting in the parking lot and figured she was still there so they wandered up to her room and fired two rounds through the window into the bed. They had no idea, or didn't care, that she wasn't there no more and instead a juggy was in the room who for some reason chose the other bed to sleep on. Then they proceeded to the parking lot and busted out the windows of the Mrs's car, which by the way was parked between a whole schwack of new Polaris Explorer vans, and dumped a few gallons of gas in there. They were about to light it when someone from the hotel was out and about and scared them off. The most amazing part of the whole episode was that the dude who was in the room where they fired their shots into slept through the whole affair, then in the morning he's sitting there scratching his (insert applicable body part here) wondering why his window was busted out. The Police didn't show up till after we all left for the day! They did, from what I hear, catch the shooters later on that day, but not sure what eventually happened to them. That's my fondest memory of Chetwynd. Sorry about the long post... I'll get off the soap box now. Later!

One explanation I got, and I could be very wrong here, is that on larger multi-bladed helicopters the mast sits on an angle and the dampers slowly let the blades creep to wherever gravity takes them, so one blade or more will be in a lead position and another one or two is in a lag position and if you start 'er up slowly you have a significant out of balance condition whereas if you hold the binders on till your stove gets up to speed the inertia of the blades at rest cause 'em all to go to a full lag position on the dampers when the mast starts to turn when you let the brake go... Once she's up to proper RPM which now only takes a few seconds, the blades find their happy place and away we go! Clear as mud? Anyway, that's what I've been told so I have no idea how true it is though it does make sense to me.

Some time ago I was on a fire and we stayed in a camp on the BC Alberta border outside of Manning. It was actually quite a nice camp, well equipped, clean and with a great kitchen! One evening I wandered into the dining room a bit before everyone else and on the menu board it said "Chicken Balls" :shock: I didn't let the cook get away with that one About a year or so ago, Skullcap and I were working on a job in the Tumbler Ridge are and since there was no more room anywhere in Tumbler we stayed at a hotel in Chetwynd BC... There was this one car in the parking lot, a beat up old POS car that didn't move at all. One night, I think it was the night that the seismic crew showed up, we were all fast asleep until about 2 in the morning when all of a sudden "BANG BANG". What the??? Wierd, oh well, must be a car backfiring on the hiway. Took a peek out the door but my room was tucked in a corner way in the back so I never saw nothing. The next morning at the safety meeting the guys were all ranting about the gunshots that night. Turns out some chick who had stayed at the hotel for a while was involved in some drug dealing and the people she was dealing with weren't all that happy with her. She had checked out of the hotel some time before we got there but had left her little beater car in the parking lot. So these dudes figured she was still there and went up outside her room and fired a couple rounds through the window into the bed. Buddy who was sleeping in there had for some reason decided to sleep in the other bed and believe it or not he slept through the whole thing! The next morning he's sitting there on his bed wondering why the window was shattered and laying on the floor. But that's not all, the hitmen went down to the car that the chick had left in the parking lot, smashed out the window and filled 'er up with gas and were just about to light it when someone came along and scared them off. This car was parked between a bunch of others, what an inferno that would have been! The best part was that nobody bothered to call the Cops until the morning during our safety meeting! What a hoot that tour was!

Nova, Not sure if this will help you but we recently had a Generator on an Astar that wouldn't come on line every so often or would drop offline just like that, it turned out to be the armature shorting out inside the unit... Finally figured that one out when we just changed the generator and sent it in for rebuild after nothing else would fix it... Hope this helps somewhat...

I worked for a grumpy old stone mason for years and when I got close enough I got a Line of Credit... To pay it all back I did every odd job I could get my hands on! Good thing about the line of credit is once it's paid off you can use it again any time you like, that's how I managed to finance my Engineer's training. Hope this helps!