03 November 2006 23:05
art is work, right? i don't consider myself an artiste by any traditional stretch of the imagination. if it ain't geometrical i can't draw it, i don't like 95% of poetry, i don't enjoy 90% of sculpture, and i abhor painting. but on the other hand i do find myself enjoying photography (which i can do while flying), i enjoy making pretty geometrical patterns on our GPS tracker, and i like filing props.filing nicks out of propellors could actually be called sculpting. one starts with a hunk of aluminum that's in one shape, and they file it down to another shape. what shape it winds up being is the tricky bit. if it's not going to fly again, i could do whatever i wanted with it (assuming the owner didn't mind). if i intend for the prop to make it airborne, then i have to adhere to what the faa says and the faa says (amongst the many many many things the faa says) that i must adhere to what the manufacturer says. this is where all the engineers at the hartzell propeller company broke out their slide rules, scratched their heads, scribbled on some napkins, and came up with a collection of fairly understandable documents which the lawyers at hartzell propellor company reworked to be not-so-undertandable, which in turn the faa okayed, and now i have to live by it. things like "blade specification tables" and "blade grinding requirements and procedures" and "type certificate data sheets". {assumes garrulous old man voice} back in my day when I was going to school we didn't have that fancy-shmancy internet stuff. we spent entire weeks in the microfiche lab looking up obscure TCDS references to "low pitch angle" and "minimum blade thickness requirements".
yeah, and we used 400 grit sandpaper to take out half inch nicks too. here's how it's done in the real world: first of all, one lives by the simple yet elegant phrase, "field repair". usage: aw, just tape that back up with duct tape. this is a field operation, they can fix it when it gets back to base. secondly, pitch the 400 grit sand paper and break out the power tools. okay, so maybe we don't actually use power tools to grind the prop blades (like a hartzell repair station would), but i do happen to use a prop file that only has 12 teeth per inch. get to humming with that little puppy and the aluminium comes slicing off in nice neat rolls. when i'm done doing a three-bladed prop the asphalt is liberally sprinkled with filings. i took the pic at a nice low angle so you could admire the teeth on my file.when you take out all the "minimum chord dimensions referenced by blade station" mumbo jumbo by realizing that you've got half an inch of leading edge to play with on a practically new prop, it's pretty fun to whack off nice long slivers of aluminum while working down through a layer of corrosion/pitting to make a nice shiny new leading edge. the trick is to sculpt it back to the same relative profile the blade had originally (as called for by the relatively straightforward phrase "maintain the contour of each blade surface"). after the fun part of taking 20 or 30 thou off the leading edge, it starts to get boring quickly when you switch to a regular file to smooth out teeth marks and finally work down to sand paper (i still can't bring myself to go all the way down to 400 grit, i think i used 220). if i really wanted to go whole hog i'da etched, alodined, taped, and painted; but i've already mentioned i don't like painting. (we're based on a dirty tarmac anyway, it never gets swept, so our props get sandblasted on a daily basis).
besides sculpting aerodynamic shapes out of aluminum, my day was pretty normal. oh, as I was walking to lunch today (Tastees) I was accosted by a sharply dressed jamaican lady who requested a minute of my time (she wound up taking four). she proceeded to regale me with the great deal I was about to recieve as she handed me a large trifold brochure for a newly renovated resort in negril. As part of their "hey come spend money here" campaign, they were giving away a limited number of special enticing deals (i was duly informed that i was seventh from the last). i wasn't really interested once i figured out it wasn't "free", but i'm too infernally polite to cut them off without a fair hearing. practice makes perfect i hear, so i'll work on it.
she had her pitch down pretty good, she worked for some ad company that this resort hired to get kingstonians to spend their money in negril. i guess maybe i should be flattered that i looked rich enough to afford the place--but on the other hand i'm white, so of course i'm rich enough to afford it [4]. but this deal wasn't even free to look at and decide later. it required an on-the-spot J$2000 deposit. whoa! red flags! meanwhile she's going through her spiel at ninety mph (she even paused to ask if she was talking too fast). my comprehension level of any complex idea is usually higher when reading than when listening, so i'd finished reading the brochure before she even finished describing point number two. i interrupted her twice, once to ask if i could give it away (since i sure as sunrise wasn't going to use it myself) and second to ask what a ballpark figure was per room. this was occasioned by her referencing "half price" numerous times without actually ever naming any numbers (typical). after two disclaimers from her and three assurances from me that i just wanted ballpark, she tossed out J$8,500 before diving headfirst into her raptured discription of point number two.
it's a little surprising she quoted in jamaican, most hotels quote US because they get more money as the jamaican keeps dropping dime by dime against the US dollar. any road, her monolouge afforded me time to think (i shouldn't have needed it, but...). I was actually feeling a pretty strong pressure to buy, and i find it interesting to analyze my reactions to the whole thing in hindsight. it was that "get it now or it's too late!" feeling. in this particular case, the fact that i really . did . not . need this particular deal (which involved discounts on repeated visits for the next year) made it a rather simple decision to finally interrupt her now that i'd given her a (fairly) fair hearing. my politely phrased (and complete bull) "i think somebody else would appreciate this more than me" was strongly countered with a rather ingenious move: "you're right, it's a perfect gift idea. all i need is for you to fill out your information here and--". i tried a different tact, finally breaking out the firm-you're-taking-up-my-lunch-break "i'm not interested, thanks". unlike some other salespeople i've encountered, she took the hint and shut down her aggressive pitch with efficient quickness, thanked me and bid me good day.
she was very good at her job (sales) from the viewpoint of her employer: generate as many sales as possible out of previously uninterested customers. (whether a salesperson should be better at that than at finding and providing the customer with what they genuinely need is another discussion altogether). i bear her no hard feelings whatsoever (especially since she shut up when i said 'enough'), and i even admire the degree of subtly and skill she demonstrated (which i completely failed to convey through this essay)--everybody's got to make a living. but that said, i do not think i could sleep at night if i were to employ myself in such a manner. the same goes for telemarketers. i know that it's just another way to make a living, but to have to forcefully barge into people's lives unasked...{shudders}.
the other side is the sale of an un-needed thing. whereas the barging in unasked is distasteful, the convincing of someone to buy something they don't need smacks of greater wrong (bluntly put: sin). until she converged on my peaceful path to a full stomach, i'd no thought of staying at an upscale resort in negril. au contraire, i've gone on record numerous times disparaging the very idea. why did i actually have to think about it then when the offer came? because my initial thoughts ran something like "ooooh goody, something for cheap!". nevermind that 'cheap' was 25% off of $8500. nevermind that even as a gift, it would still cost me a pretty two grand.
now i can no longer never mind that i have a flight in nine hours. to be continued...
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