What does everyone do?

[greg123]

3rd year Computer Engineering Student.....<p>only 2 more years... :p

[ad5mb]

Electronic Technician at a high explosive testing site.<p>Big fun. The Air Force drops bombs on my work site. 20 tons of ANFO is a routine shot. I drive heavy equipment, talk on radios, start fires, blow things up. ( Almost ) All the stuff I got in trouble for as a kid, I get paid for now.

[dacflyer]

me , i am a city slave...dance in traffic and dodge cars and steal hubcaps off of passing cars
confused yet...
heres another hint..
I drive a BIG YELLOW BUCKET TRUCK and wear a bright ORANGE VEST...see me now?<p>ok,ok,, i am a traffic signal technician..i try to keep the signals functioning..and usually do untill someone knocks them all down into the street...
AKA a TRAFFIC GOD..Pfff i wonder sometimes..
so many idiots out there that do not or cannot see a big yellow truck with whelen aircraft type strobes that are super duper bright... and the motoring publik! they aim for us in the orange vest...EEEK !

[terri]

Yeah! Another reason to ban cellphones, eating while driving, DVD players, etc, etc, etc while driving. People forget that driving is a 110 % job.<p>I swear, people should not be allowed to drive a car until they've survived one year of driving a motorcycle.<p>That oughta weed out the noncompos!<p>Sorry, that was a reflex rant.<p>Snarl! Growl! Rowf!<p>Go back to the main thread now, please.<p>(Gr!)<p>(Edited to delete expletives. Many, many expletives.)<p>[ December 09, 2004: Message edited by: terri ]</p>

[Dave Dixon]

This has been interesting, getting to know you people better! I am blessed to have been working at the same job for 19 years now. I am an Engineering Technician for a small (100 employee) Aircraft Instrument Sales and Service company. With just a high school education, and a little trade school... I have a little over 25 years of "on the job" experience in the field, earning at least as much respect as the EE's and other great, educated people I work alongside. Basically I assist the engineers with design, providing input from a "technician's" point of view. I am amazed at how some of the initial designs would be impossible for a repairman to fix. Of course, many engineers think their design will never break!!! Right.
I build all of the prototypes, straight off of the draftsman's drawings or even literally from schematics scratched out on a napkin! I do most of my own board design with Eagle, and route boards SAME DAY with a T-Tech board router. I also procure prototype parts, assist the Repair and Production departments with troubleshooting (I'm called "911 Dave"), help Purchasing find obsolete and hard to find parts, do a little machining on the end-mill etc. and basically a "jack-of-all-trades". ESD Program Manager as well. Every day brings a new challenge, even though it seems to end up with more and more paperwork. Some days my hands don't even get dirty <sigh>. All in all, I love my job!!!
I guess that about covers things.
73's de N0QOF
Dave<p>[ December 10, 2004: Message edited by: Dave Dixon ]</p>

[joey7f]

<<Basically I assist the engineers with design, providing input from a "technician's" point of view. I am amazed at how some of the initial designs would be impossible for a repairman to fix. Of course, many engineers don't think their design will never break!!! Right.>><p>We also tend to think we know everything, and that our shit doesn't stink.<p>I'll take practical experience anyday. Seriously you should see us all in the lab trying to build stuff. We suck at it <p>--Joey

[Dave Dixon]

Joey... DID I really say this?<p> <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr> many engineers don't think their design will never break!!! Right.>><hr></blockquote><p>Thanks for pointing out my mistake I meant "many engineers THINK their design will never break!!!" >>> Or was it "many engineers don't think their design will EVER break!!!"???
I'm glad you got the idea though.
Back to paperwork <sigh> (I did run down to the partsroom and gave a cute gal a shoulder/neck rub... She'd NEVER claim harassment, was too busy purring!!!!)
Happy Friday all,
Dave

[josmith]

Guess i'll have to ruin your friday mr dd. Often the victim of harassment doesn't complain and somtimes feins enjoying the attention so as not to "cause trouble". If you really love your job should keep your hands to yourself. Otherwise you could be in for a rude awakening.

[Dave Dixon]

Boy, That's a whole 'nother thread! Not to worry.
She's an old, old friend, and no one around as a witnesss!
Totally harmless! But I appreciate the concern/advice! Really.
That subject comes up a lot at work now-a-days. The women, for the most part, admit to being worse than the men. Thanks,
Dave

[jollyrgr]

Someone (actually a few people) have pulled my string. NOW I have to ask questions of a few people.....<p>dacflyer.
How many of the traffic signals have switched over from incandescent light bulbs to LED array systems or even LED lightbulbs? This would seem like a most logical thing to do, from my stand point, for at least the red and green lights. To you I guess it would lower your work load in changing bulbs which is probably not a good thing.<p>Dave Dixon
I'm a pilot of small aircraft and have some questions about the "new" glass cockpits. I don't fly IFR except when following roads (pilot humor) so I don't fear getting lost in clouds. As someone that has been working on electronics since I was a kid I know things fail and do so at the worst time. The mechanics at the airport I used to work at joke about vacuum pumps and call them "time bombs" waiting to fail when you fly into a cloud deck. Well, now to my questions. Even small Cessna aircraft are starting to go with glass cockpits. In something like a Gulf Stream, Citation, or larger you can run redundant systems. In a Cessna 182 this is not so likely. How reliable are these glass systems? The flying magazines think this is the next best thing since the Wright brothers. But my electronics background and with all the work I do on cars proves to me that the old "steam guages" are more reliable. I've had a DG tumble on me once (on short final, no big deal), another time I had a turn coordinator fail while in severe clear (again, no biggie). <p>But car electronics seem to cause all sorts of problems. I've seen electronic failures I can point to as a design problem in cars on numerous systems. For instance, the windshield wiper controler is basically the same on many of the GM trucks. My windshield wiper controller was replaced under a recall in my 1995 Suburban. The recall does not extend to other years. But I have had to fix the exact same problem on both of my brothers' cars (newer and older) as well as my mom's car. While not as dangerous as flying, having your windshield wipers stop in a downpour is a problem. <p>Since I have never flown a glass cockpit I want to know if these systems are reliable from the stand point of someone that fixes them. Are most of the fixes software upgrades or slow but noticable failures? Or are the failures sudden and unexpected? Are the failures something you see that you can point out as a design flaw? Are the systems redundant enough that they can fall into LIMP MODE to get you out of the clouds?<p>I'm looking forward to seeing a glass cockpit in a rental someday, just to see how they look. But I don't want to put my life in the trust of a SINGLE FAILURE device that would wipe out all of my instrumentation.

[High4Volts]

I'm an industrial mechanic. Was in injection/blow molding for about 8 years and left that to go into the printing industry. I now work on web presses, sheet fed multi-color presses, book bindry equip. It's a small company in Brainerd, MN. I grew up with a curiosity of what makes things tick. Well half the time when i figured it out it no longer ticked! lol I took A.C. Electrical and hydraulics in a tech college. <p>My wife and I own a 160 acre farm in central MN. We raise registered Black Angus cattle, chickens, a few rabbits for fun and have a small heard of cats for mouse patrol. <p>[ December 11, 2004: Message edited by: High4Volts ]</p>

[Mike6158]

Jolly Roger- I saw a fairly recent Flying Magazine article about a new C182 with a glass cockpit. I thought that same thing as you. How reliable can that be? That said, there should be good data on the hardware and hardware failures available. Corporate and commercial jets have been using them for years. <p>It's been awhile since I piloted an aircraft. I miss it. There isn't anyplace to rent around here and buying just isn't an option with 2 kids approaching college age. <p>Back when I was taking instrument lessons (in a Warrior) I shot my first approach to perfection (under a hood in CAVU conditions). Well... almost perfection. I was so impressed with myself you wouldn't believe it. Here I am, Johnny Rookie pilot, riding down the glideslope like a 10,000 hour vetran. Riding the rails home so to speak... Then the controller broke my bliss with Warrior 85 Sierra say intentions. As I sat there thinking "Say intentions? What kind of dumbass question is that? Say intentions indeed. I'm on localizer and glideslope, what the heck does he think the God of the pilots is going to do? Before I could answer my instructor keys up and says, 85 Sierra cancelling IFR, request to land, full stop. Then he tapped on the altimeter. We were a good 800' agl, well inside the middle marker. The glidslope failure flag never dropped but my "locked on the rails" indication was false. My crosscheck had been nil. We had been on localizer and flying straight and level. What was a beautiful, textbook approach to minimums had turned into a power off slip so we could land on the usable part of the runway without overshooting and it was a very long runway Not long after that I moved to Colorado and my instrument training turned into a couple of mountain flying training flights and some time in a Piper Super Cub (the real kind of airplane with stick in your right hand, the throttle in your left, and the nosewheel dragging behind you ). Never did finish my instrument training. I've got about 30 hours of it including a few in IMC and only 180 or so total time. My instructor believed in getting actual instrument time. He was a good instructor.<p>Say intentions indeed! LMAO...<p>[ December 11, 2004: Message edited by: NE5U ]</p>

[ModRob]

I'm what's called a Yardmaster for a railroad yard, where I get to direct the actions of road and yard trains. Just about everyday is full of puzzles and always full of hassles--many of which there is no reason to have...but ah, that's big business for you (oh if you only knew what we see on a daily basis, and wonder how we still profit). So to ease my frustrations after work, I tend to piddle on "fixing" or "inventing" projects. Like someone else said, sometimes I end up with them in worse shape. And I have many projects around the house in various stages. Every-so-often, I get around to finishing one! <p>I also have been a recording and touring musician for most of my years, and have a small "studio" in my home where I've been working on an album project for..hmmmmm...let's see now...I guess going on three years! I think I need to classify that as one of those ongoing projects as well. A lot of it is Gospel, with other positive songs thrown in too, along with some more-obscure Elvis stuff that I've always liked. Of course these are all what I call "dated" songs, in that they have a sound from the fifties, sixties,and a little seventies era. I do all my own instruments, and pretty proud of my drum kit that I converted from a practice pad kit with built-in triggers that allow me to really "play" instead of programming. (I think the programming thing has went too far these days--kind of like calling a rapper a "singer"--I don't agree.)<p>I really have enjoyed this forum ever since I discovered the magazine a couple of years ago. I love electronics, and just wished I knew more about it. It seems really hard to try and learn it properly at my age; I get too frustrated these days when years ago I had tons of patience. But by tinkering with all these projects, I learn a little bit more. And you folks have helped me a bunch. It feeds me...

[MicroRem]

NE5U, being another private pilot... I soloed on a J3 befor moving on the the "Big Iron" (C150 and C172), I have the same concerns about glass cckpits. I'm sure they must be redundant and robust, but the though of "losing it all" does give one a bit of apprehension" Lose the "whole panel" in the J3 and you wouldn't be missing much.<p>regards<p>Tom

[Dave Dixon]

Hi All,
I'm no expert in the glass cockpit field. We stick to the more basic instruments that you are used to. We do some discrete instruments with various types of LCD's, but not the whole avionics packages. I'm with you guys. I like separate packages - just in case one thing goes down, it doesn't take everything else along with it. Of course I still have a separtate tuner, VC-Are, equilizer, amp, DVD,etc. at home for my audio/visual stuff.
I don't have any stats on glass cockpit failure mechanisms. We do service a lot of two inch altimeters, airspeeds, and horizons that are the good old mechanical/ air driven backups for the aircraft with the fancy panels installed!
Well, I have a full bench of "things to do". I better get some of them done!
Dave