Mmmmm....plastic airplane

Okay, so this really cool guy that Boeing and Spirit trust got to take some cool pictures of the Boeing 787, one of the first commercial airplanes to use huge quantities of composite material. So this outsider got to take pictures, but I’m not allowed. That’s why I took the pictures from his website and am sharing them with you so I can show you what I’ve been doing this summer. I’m not taking credit, it belongs to Jon Ostrower. You can visit his site at http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/ and read some of his other posts.

Spirit doesn’t make the whole plane, only about the first 41 feet of it. It’s essentially a giant plastic shell with stuff on the inside. Don’t let that scare you though, a lot of time has been put into the design of this thing. I’ve been working on the structural repair manual (read: how the flight mechanics fix broken airplane parts) where I basically check calculations and rerun any analysis that needs to be corrected. I’ve worked on parts like the cockpit window frames, composite skin repairs and the forward pressure bulkhead. This first picture shows line units 4 through 7, of which LU 4 is the closest to completion and is being sent out soon. LU 4 is the one closest to the camera. I worked on a package that included determining repair tolerances for the window frames of the cockpit. It was my first project. Not bad for a new hire.

Next is a piece of the aircraft that is close to me. It’s the forward pressure bulkhead, the green dome behind the radar antennae. It is part of what holds pressure in the cabin. Usually, this part is just a flat plate, but it’s domed in the 787. It can catch a 4 lb bird traveling at 350 knots. The video of the bird strike test is pretty cool. The bulkhead catches the bird just like a catcher would catch a baseball. I put in a lot of hours making sure the repair tolerances for this part were good.

The next picture is of the passenger deck. You can’t really see it, but the passenger entry doors are wide enough to fit two people side by side in them. If you’ve ever been on a plane, you know how impressive that is since most planes have you squeeze through a small door. You can see into the cockpit a little bit, but if you want to see more cockpit pictures, go here: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2008/06/fours-front-office.html . Spirit doesn’t put the seats or other aesthetics in, Boeing will do that.

This picture is of the cargo area. You can see another part that I worked on, the cargo shear web. It’s mostly covered, but the drill on the bottom right is sitting on it. It’s a piece of composite that sits below the cargo floor. That’s the project I put 45 hours in on last week. I had to determine what kind of bonded repairs (read: how to fix composite material by applying more composite material) needed to be done for various types of damage.

This last one is just because. It’s of the flight recorder, the thing that tells them what happened when the airplane crashed. Hopefully we won’t be using these. You can also see how much random wiring is all over the place. A lot gets stuffed into these airplanes.

Well, that just a little bit of what I’ve been working on here at Spirit. I’ve been having fun doing it, despite the long hours. I could go into more detail, but then I wouldn’t have any conversation starter. Also, I probably shouldn’t talk in too much detail, or else Boeing might send people to get rid of me.

HDTVs and Thunderstorms

Wow, so this has been quite an evening. After coming home from a nine hour workday, I decide I need to go to the almighty Walmart to get some food and other random items. Mike decides to go looking for a joystick for his recently acquired (legally) copy of X-plane. While he was looking for it, I found the HDTVs like I always do. I'm kind of looking for one, and if I saw one for a good deal, I'd consider getting it. Well, Walmart was selling a bunch of display models, and I was focused on the Philips 42" LCD 1080p tv that was selling for $750 or something like that. After thinking it over for a few minutes, I decide to hold off and we proceed to finish our Walmart run.

After ordering pizza and watching some Battlestar Galactica and Futurama, I decided I wanted to go back to Walmart and think about that tv again. A new tv would look good in our apartment, so Mike and I headed back to Walmart. Unfortunately, it had started raining pretty good, but that didn't stop us. As we drove down the four lane turned three lane road (1.5 lanes per direction because water doesn't drain in Kansas), we noticed some cars turning around and some standing water ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROAD. It wasn't moving, just standing water. We hold up a minute, watch some trucks go through it, and I'm really considering trudging through the water just because I do things like that. Well, we finally see a Toyota Camery slowly work its way through the approximately 8 inch deep water, and I think "If they have the balls to do it, I do to." So we take to the water crossing, making our way through the water, hoping that we won't have to push the car out of the water. My car starts to sputter. I realized water was getting into the intake. So I pushed my car a little harder, and we finally made it out. High fives were given to honor our victory over nature. Then at the traffic light, I realized my brakes weren't working as well as they should. Oops, got a little too wet, but oh well. Hooray for doing slightly stupid things. I'm still glad I didn't have to make the walk of shame, pushing my car out of the water.

At Walmart once again, I checked under the hood just to make sure I didn't destroy anything. No major damage, so we proceeded back to electronics. After several minutes of staring at tvs, I decided I didn't want to risk buying a show model, no matter how cheap it was. So getting an HDTV will have to wait a while longer. I may not have a new tv, but we had a great time almost killing my car. As much abuse as it has been through, I'm glad it's still running as well as it does, especially considering it's a 16 year old car.