The glory of warfare engineering
I don't think many people in the civilian world truly appreciate the complexity and engineering marvels that vehicles of warfare are.
Take the Vietnam HUEY for example. (The helicopter used by the USA during the war) We own two (badly damaged after a war and years of disrepair) that we are putting on the paintball field.
So today I was putting wood floors in the worse off of the two Hueys (i did a damn good job too). Basically we were "idiot proofing" the Hueys so that people can play IN them and not be injured.
So I was putting flooring in. It went quite swimmingly, except for the parts where I had to put a screw in a section of frame that just happened to be armor plated. That bit took a little while.
So the floor is in. Tomorrow Pa and I put a dashboard of sorts in. Which is where the purpose of this entry originates. To speak frankly, there was a shitload of wires in that thing. All in the front, the roof, the back, woven into the frame of the floor. The thing was insane. So out of curiosity, I followed the wires to where they went. When they went to their homes so to speak, there was usually a label.
Things like:
-Cypher Light
-Secondary Emergency Door Release
-Altimeter panel
Things like that. I realized how much work was put into making this hunk of historic metal come to life, and how much went on "under the hood".
I was completely in awe from the ammount of electronic wiring that was still in the chopper (alot had been removed prior to our acquiring it).
I got to thinking:
This machine was used about 30 years ago. Imagine how complicated these things are now. ALOT more complicated.
I then realized the absolute genius required to design such a marvel.
Floors done today.
Dashboard tomorrow
Roof after that
Rotor shaft after that
Opening day is in January, a Black Hawk Down scenario (as in the event in Somalia which was made into a movie).
Take the Vietnam HUEY for example. (The helicopter used by the USA during the war) We own two (badly damaged after a war and years of disrepair) that we are putting on the paintball field.
So today I was putting wood floors in the worse off of the two Hueys (i did a damn good job too). Basically we were "idiot proofing" the Hueys so that people can play IN them and not be injured.
So I was putting flooring in. It went quite swimmingly, except for the parts where I had to put a screw in a section of frame that just happened to be armor plated. That bit took a little while.
So the floor is in. Tomorrow Pa and I put a dashboard of sorts in. Which is where the purpose of this entry originates. To speak frankly, there was a shitload of wires in that thing. All in the front, the roof, the back, woven into the frame of the floor. The thing was insane. So out of curiosity, I followed the wires to where they went. When they went to their homes so to speak, there was usually a label.
Things like:
-Cypher Light
-Secondary Emergency Door Release
-Altimeter panel
Things like that. I realized how much work was put into making this hunk of historic metal come to life, and how much went on "under the hood".
I was completely in awe from the ammount of electronic wiring that was still in the chopper (alot had been removed prior to our acquiring it).
I got to thinking:
This machine was used about 30 years ago. Imagine how complicated these things are now. ALOT more complicated.
I then realized the absolute genius required to design such a marvel.
Floors done today.
Dashboard tomorrow
Roof after that
Rotor shaft after that
Opening day is in January, a Black Hawk Down scenario (as in the event in Somalia which was made into a movie).