Tag Archives: Aerospace Engineering

The best laid schemes…

As Robert Burns once said “The best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew.”

My plans for a weekend of building have not matured in the way I had hoped. Saturday was a day-long game of wait and see with the auto-mechanic working on the chariots transmission. A couple of weeks ago we had a transaxle replaced along with seals and boots because a tear in one of the old boots allowed debris in damaging several parts. Amongst the replaced parts was a seal on the back side of the transmission. Apparently all of the after market parts that were supposed to fit, didn’t.

Saturday I took it back in to have the leak checked out; this is when all of the details reviled themselves. Now here I am ready to walk back to the shop at moments notice having waisted the day away by not getting too involved with anything.

On the good side I managed to get caught up on my magazine reading including my first issue of Warbirds which finally arrived so I have been scouring it from cover-to-cover with the occasional break to peruse one of my other magazines. One of the advantages of being a member of several organizations is the constant supply of new reading materials throughout the month.

Sunday was a little better in that I managed to get into the shop. I didn’t work on the airplane at all, but I did clean up the shop. Over the last couple of weeks I had picked up a few things at Harbor Freight Tools and at Orchard Supply that needed to find new homes in shop and one thing that needed to be assembled.

HFT had a three piece brass mini-plain set, round and flat spoke shaves, and a flat plain that I have been looking for so I bought them, Sunday I found homes for them in the shop. OSH had a cool looking drill press add-on called the Universal Drill Press Work Center by Craftsman. I put it together today though I have not installed it on the drill press.

Universal Drill Press Work CenterThe reviews on the Craftsman website are not kind at all, and I can certainly see where the complaints are coming from, especially for a piece of equipment billed as “professional”. But here’s the thing, I paid less than half the retail price and I’m not expecting much. The main reason I got it was because it has a fence that will keep holes lined up from the edge and it significantly increases the size of the drill press table, the two man things I need.

I don’t know how well it is going to work out but I am willing to give it a shot.

This week is end/beginning of the month so it is a busy time around these parts. February has been a very slow month for the airplane. After a solid 27.5 hours in January the measly 5 hours of February seem a bit pitiful. As they say, life happens. Better luck next month.

Until next time, blue skies and tail winds.
~FlyBoyJon

too much going on…

Wow, it has been way too long since I last posted. My sincere apologies to you. School has been keeping me very busy. I started out with five classes and ended up dropping one, as it turns out that was a really good move.

The hitch in my giddy-up? My choices in scheduling. The original plan was to spread things out over the week, one or two classes a day four days a week, this turned out to be a bad idea. I was hoping to leave plenty of time for work, ya… right. With everything spread out, I am always scrambling for something and there is always something due.

Next term I will be trying a new schedule format, all of my classes on one or two days back to back. I would make for one or two crazy days a week, but less transit time and more focus time. Thats the idea anyway.,

While I am on the subject of school, some interesting developments have been brewing. First off, I have been elected as President of the SJCC Philosophy Club. I have gotten a few quizzical looks from people when they find out my major is Aeronautical/Aerospace Engineering and I am hanging around with the philosophy and theology majors. It is rather amusing actually.

Along with my Philosophy Club activities I have been given some interesting opportunities. One in particular will get at least my foot in the door at San Jose State University a full year and a half earlier than expected. There is a really interesting program in the new Global Studies department that is participating with the Soliya project and I have been invited to be one of the students involved. This would mean registering as a SJSU student, which by the was is awesome.

Why is this awesome? Well for one, I have been wanting to join Alpha Eta Roe, an aviation professional fraternal organization and it would make life much easier if I was a student at a chartered school, SJSU. Another reason is that I am planning on transferring to SJSU once I finish my General AA at San Jose City College to pursue my BS and MS in engineering. It just sort of tidies things up a bit.

Another education thing going on is that I am hoping to wrap up that ongoing drama filled AS in Aviation Operations at Mountain State University that I started in 2006. If I can just squeeze one class in per term there while taking one class per term at SJSU and three or four classes at SJCC I can get that one done too. Thats a lot of schooling going on.

This is why it has been a little while since my last post. On an aviation note, I did pick up some new plains at my newly-opened Harbor Freight Tools. It made my tool-geek heart skip a beat when I saw that they were finally opening a store closer than 30 miles away. This one is less than a mile! WOOT!

😉

Things are leveling off in my schedule as I get back into the academic swing, so I expect to be back in the shop this weekend. With even a small bit of luck I will have something to post about on Monday, so stay tuned for next weeks exciting episode.

Until then, blue skies and tailwinds.
~FlyBoyJon