Scudrunners

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=4197.msg11258#msg11258 date=1473859028]
[quote]many accompished fighter pilots, myself included, don't go anywhere near an airplane with a wrench[/quote]

I'm so glad to hear that nothing ever goes wrong
with a fighter!

This is quite a change from the old days at CEPE,
when you had to have a clue.

I had no idea the ancient F-18's in Canada today
were so reliable!

I'm really happy to hear that in addition to not
having any stick & rudder skill, that pilots don't
need to have any understanding of their systems.

Broken quill shafts on T-33's are clearly a distant
memory.

[img][/img]

See, in the modern Canadian military, all the
hardware is brand new, so silly things like repairs
are never required.
[/quote]


Where, anywhere in my post did I say fighters don't break?

Where, anywhere did I say we don't need system knowledge?

Nowhere...  thanks for making stuff up about what I wrote though, I expected better from someone I have met in person and talked about flying with face to face.

I know, not knowing which locktite was for what had no impact on my ability to intercept a Russian bomber.  Not only would I not have gone near the airplane with a wrench, I could very well have gotten in a significant amount of trouble for doing so.

At the point where I own my small aircaft that will change dramatically I will indeed have to learn a lot.  But for up to now, I haven't had any need to and take I it as personal insult that you feel that "pilots who don't have dirt under their nails are shit."  If you wish to insult me that is fine, I can deal with it. I know where my own abilities stand.

I can't believe I have to say this, but ...

Systems knowledge doesn't always come
from powerpoint and thick, poorly-written
manuals.

A hangar rat - with dirt under his fingernails -
always knows more about his airplane than
some white-shirt prima donna.

I have a great picture of an F-104 project
pilot with my Y chromosome and an [i]AVM [/i]
wrenching on a -104.  I obviously need to
scan it in and post it here.

A good friend of mine is a retired three star
and former Deputy Commander of NORAD.
Used to run a little outfit called Fighter
Command.  He carried around a quill shaft
and a 9/16th's socket and extension.

I'm sure everyone will think that's irrelevant.

Cool.  Here's a more relevant example.

A few years back, a 172 from the Brampton
Flying Club landed at my home airport for
fuel.  Two PPL's doing their long CPL x/c
together which IMHO is a cheat, but ...

When they went to start their 172, it went,
"Ziiing!".  Prop would not turn.  They got
out, phoned their AMO in Toronto, who
told them to tie it down, get hotel rooms,
and they would fly an AME up the next
day to fix it.

Meanwhile I walk down to my hangar and
get a rattle can of electrical contact cleaner
off the shelf.  I walk back to the ramp, and
using the red straw, sprayed and cleaned off
the Bendix drive which was sticking and not
allowing the little gear on the starter shaft
to spin out and engage the flywheel.  Didn't
even have to pop a cowl or an inspection plate -
you can get an eyeball on it on the left side
of the spinner.

I told them Brampton PPL's to try it again,
and what do you know, it started perfectly.

Saved everyone a pile of money and time.

Because I had a fucking clue.

Now, you would think that would be the
happy ending to the story.

Wrong.  I posted this to Avcan and I got
shit on from a great height by a bunch of
assholes that said they were going to report
me to Enforcement for doing illegal maintenance.

That was just so stupid on so many levels.
Feel free to tell those morons at TC anything
you want.

I said so, and of course that thread, like
thousands of others on Avcan, was deleted.

Anyways, I'm just a stupid fucking airshow
pilot that doesn't know anything.  Feel free
to shit on me from a great height like the
chubby idiots at TC with bigger tits than
the boobs thread (albeit somewhat hairier).

As if I could give a fuck.

Now, to circle back. 

Where in the stupid fucking Cessna POH
does it describe cleaning the bendix drive
with contact cleaner? 

Nowhere.

PS  Please don't oil the fucking thing.  That
just attracts more dirt and makes it worse.

You won't see that written down anywhere
in the Cessna POH, either.

Remember, I'm just a stupid fucking airshow
pilot who's family has been flying for 100 years
now, so what would I know about gaining crucial
maintenance and system knowledge from spending
time as a hangar rat?

For the rest of the people out there that think
that all knowledge is contained in powerpoint
slides, well, enjoy your white shirt and manicured
fingernails.

Rockie thinks I'm a fucking moron compared to him,
and I'm cool with that.  I have to wonder if he
spends much time with a logic analyzer, looking at
new PCB's:

[img width=500 height=167][/img]

Talk to me about the ringing.  I'm just a stupid
fucking airshow pilot and engineer.

PS  Talk to Harry Ford about the importance
of locktite sometime.

The absence of a drop just about killed him.


PPS Tell me what [i]isn't [/i]in Lyc SI 1425A.  You
probably don't give a fuck about it, but if you
ever fly anything with a Lycoming, the problem
it addresses can ruin your whole day.


PPPS  Tell me in 25 words what you need to
know, to fly a 421 without killing both of the
GTSIO-420 engines at USD$100k a pop.  Or,
start an L39.  Hint: none of this knowledge
is contained in any manual.


Spot the fucking pattern yet?

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=4197.msg11186#msg11186 date=1473569181]
A pilot that doesn't have black under his fingernails
and chunks missing from his hands and forearms is
good for shit.
[/quote]


I guess I'm not good for shit  ;D



[img width=375 height=500]https://s22.postimg.org/kray9dqb5/14364 ... 6413_n.jpg[/img]


Colonel, have you ever considered writing all of your bits of advice into a book?  I know your thoughts on thick manuals and all, but it would be  a nice head start on having to learn everything through trial and error.  I found owning an airplane to be a far steeper learning curve than learning to fly one, there's no handy course to take that spells out ownership step by step.  When you post about this sort of thing you often say something like "Most pilots don't give a shit about this but..." that's probably true, but some of us do care and are interested in learning more.  I taught myself how to change my oil and I do all of the work that I'm able to on my airplane.  I'm constantly reading about that sort of thing and picking up what I can from forum posts and articles I come across online, but I've never seen a concise guide to ownership (at least not a good one).  You could write two volumes, one on flying and one on wrenching. They could be called "How not to kill yourself in an airplane" and "How to keep your airplane from trying to kill you"


My mechanic (I use an AMO that primarily works on their small charter/flight training fleet) says that one of his pet projects is teaching their pilots how to troubleshoot and understand systems better so that they can come into the shop with something more intelligent to say than "It makes a funny noise, but only some of the time.".  I think that spending some time under the cowl is good for any pilot.  I assisted on my annual this year, that was an excellent learning experience.  I sure learned a lot from being around there while my airplane was in pieces.


[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=4197.msg11198#msg11198 date=1473615843]


[img width=500 height=297][/img]

[/quote]


Did you get rid of the RC-51?


[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=4197.msg11273#msg11273 date=1473906235]
A hangar rat - with dirt under his fingernails -
always knows more about his airplane than
some white-shirt prima donna.
[/quote]


I'm more of a tie-down rat.  I ain't no hangar havin' Rockerfeller!  ;D


[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=4197.msg11273#msg11273 date=1473906235]
I told them Brampton PPL's to try it again,
and what do you know, it started perfectly.

Saved everyone a pile of money and time.

Because I had a fucking clue.
[/quote]


I probably would have hand propped it because I don't have a fucking clue.   

[quote]Did you get rid of the RC51?[/quote]

Never!  They can pry the RC51 from my cold,
dead hands (and very well may).  However I
find the tiny 600 to be better for lanesplitting -
it's like riding a bicycle in comparison.

[quote]I probably would have hand propped it [/quote]

That is a viable option.  Like kissing a porcupine,
if done carefully it can succeed.  Apart from the
safety consideration, one needs to prime perfectly
and as we can see on the ramp, that is a lost art.

It was just so easy for me to clean the Bendix.

These kids were so far away from the hand-prop
world, it was best for them to stay there.

PS  I am glad you are helping with the annual on
your airplane.  You will learn a lot, and that is a
good thing.

Similarly I encourage young engineers to spend
time in the lab, and get their hands on the scopes
and logic analyzers and actually see what's
happening.

Here's a great test:  Have one thread drop a GPIO
configured as an output which externally strapped
to another GPIO, configured as an input/interrupt
(eg level-sensitive active low).  At the very beginning
of your interrupt handler, hit a third GPIO.

Connect a logic analyzer to the two lines, run it
several million times with varying load, export
a CSV and plot a distribution of your interrupt
latency.

Now, I'm just a dumb fucking airshow pilot, but
you can learn an awful lot from the outliers on
that curve.  Ask any TC Inspector or four bars
with piano hands to explain their significance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier

Since we are talking real time code and not locktite - I am reminded of a wonderful bug I uncovered years ago in a real time system's simplistic critical section protection, a simple lock(), unlock() of interrupts formed the P()/V() semaphore pair. Works fine as long as you flush the pipeline with 5 NOP instructions as part of the lock() code. Well the nifty optimizer moved several of the NOPs around to improve things. Turns out we had a very tiny (one instruction) window to do damage. What do you know, every month we'd get a weird crash in a system I had coded. Well I got shit over and when I finally figured out what had happened and then did a complete scan of all the object code in the entire 20 MLOC system I found no less than 100 other instances of the same problem. ... but nobody wanted to fix it because the fix would slow down their critical sections and they insisted that it was my problem and I needed to fix it in my code... I learned an awful lot that day as a young engineer. Scared the hell out of me.


Also ran into a guy who thought that hash tables did not need overflow logic because the probability of a collision was very low since his table was very big... he went to code air traffic control systems ...


ok back to locktite and grubby hands.

I'll leave this right here...