Tachikoma Days

Not alot going on with me. Into the 2nd week at school. Passed my 1st exam with 86%. 1 down 5 more to go. Got bored n arranged my capsule toys n took a pic. Its about time my blog had more pics.

Dedicated

Didn't really mention but been put on a training course from work. Should last around 6 weeks. And if I pass the final test at the end I should get a pay rise and much better job opportunities. As where I am at now I'm earning pretty much the most I ever can. Hence I've gotta make the transition from aircraft mechanic to aircraft certifyer. Not easy being back in the class room. Getting freaked out by all the crazy wiring diagrams and troubleshooting programs used on the plane. Guess its normal that I'm not sleeping very well lately. Even the slightest thing wakes me up. Stressed out you could say.

At least there wa some amusement to be had. Went to return my temporary pass at the training school security gate, to swap back my work pass. The guard on duty picked up 1 of the passes in front of him and handed it to me, "Is this yours?" he genuinely asked?

I looked at it. The pass had a picture of a Filipino on it... not just that but a Filipino female air hostess... "ummm, no" I replied. So he tried again. He looked thru the passes he had in front of him and picked up the next one, again asking if it was me. Closer this time, it was a man, but a very dark skinned Arab chap with the local head dress and robes on. Rather than stand there all day and have him go through every single pass on the table i learnt into the guard hut and picked mine out. Not really out of the ordinary, everyone here seems to have the same level of dedication to their jobs. Bare minimum is the expected norm... and ad to say it is rubbing off on some of the European guys i work with.. sigh.

Keeper?

For a couple of weeks now my RPS13 Silvia has actually been running reasonably well. But on the drive in to work today it started belching out smoke thru the exhaust. And the idling of the car was all lumpy, fluctuating between 800rpm and 1200rpm. When i parked up in the school parking lot and inspected the smoke. It wasn't blue enough to be too much oil and had no smell of fuel so couldn't be either problem. Late for class so dashed off.


When I got back there was a pool of liquid below the car. Turns out it was power steering fluid. Looks like the problem was dripping fluid landed on the hot engine, creating plumes of smoke which were then sucked into the turbo's intake. Causing the engine to choke and of cause all the smoke out the back was from the fluid landing on the hot engine...

The leak was cos the numpty who previously owned the car used crappy garden hosing. Not just that but the hose was cut poorly as all the braiding in the hose was frayed n hanging out. Doesn't help that he didn't run an air filter at all. The turbos intake was just exposed, not even any piping to get air from the front of the engine. He claimed he didn't want an air flow restriction and like the sound like that...F00! Don't understand how people out here think.

Tightened up the hose clamp n all was fine. No smoke and power and idle were nice n smooth. So nice i managed to drift it round the roundabout straight outside the school. Put a big grin on my face for sure.

So, I'm back to it again... does it stay or does it go?

Rotary pow-wow

Had a friend pop round last night to collect his Walbro fuel pump which he lent me. He needed it back as since he had done the turbo conversion to his naturally aspirated RX7-FC hes been getting under fueling and needed a stronger fuel pump.

Anyhow invited him in for a beer and we pretty much started chatting rotaries as soon as our butts hit the sofa. Was fun. Been a long time, several months in fact since I was able to chat cars to anyone. Yet alone rotary cars. Shame but all the European mechs i work with are bike nutz and the Asian guys don't even have cars... or bikes...

Either way chatting went on to over 2hours! Went thru this years rotary entries into the Tokyo auto salon, to the scoot 4 rotor project, the Tsukuba time trails, various car shows we've been to. Was just great fun.

Big thanks to wifey, who was happy to leave me chatting for that long. She knows how much I miss having a car buddy around.

More money than sense

Great news! Was just told by a colleague that we are finally being sent on an aircraft type specific training course. MMMmmmm big bucks here I come! But as is usual from this place. They failed to personally inform me and several others of this. We only learnt of it cos of the above mentioned guy. And they never mentioned to him or us or anyone, where the course is being held, who is teaching it, what time it starts, how long it is for, how many days a week it is, etc. Nothing... except it is on Monday.

1 rather weird thing they are doing thou is sending around 20 or so of the Asian mechanics on the course with us. Wouldn't have minded but none of these guys have a basic European license. Which means the type course they do will be useless unless they actually spend a bunch of money and years of their life to obtain an European license. And don't forget those guys they are putting on it are people like Mr Bweezie from yesterday... The guy can hardly speak any English for gods sake how is he going to do the course!?! Same goes for a good deal of them. Also find it funny when we asked about if the course is going ahead last month the boss said he wasn't sure about putting us thru a course cos it was very expensive. That was for just 5 people at the time too. Now its like 30 people!!! Then the other problem. 90% of the European mechanics have left. The remaining 10% are going on the course and roughly 50% of the Asian mechanics are going on the course too... Who the hell is gonna fix any of the planes in the next month or 2???

Sigh... bottom line who cares... I'm getting my course out of them FOC. They can do what ever the hell they want, I've gotten what i wanted out of the deal. So what else matters?

Bweezie

As you might know we have several Asian mechanics with us. All are nice guys but pretty useless at their jobs. So we decided to put one of them in a compartment which an air pipe goes thru, located in the tail of the plane. And instructed him to check for any air leaks when we pressurised the pipe. Along with that guy were several more of us all along the run of the pipe. Doing the same as him. Once everyone was ready the switch was flicked and the pipe filled with pressurised air. After 5 minutes had passed we all gathered to report our findings. We then questioned that guy as to his findings. To which his reply was "Brizzy!" he said cheerfully.
"Brizzy???!?!!!!" we all exclaimed.
"Yes sir, Brizzy, bwizzy, bweezie!!!" he said getting more and more excited.
"What the hell is bwizzy or whatever the hell it is?" one of us, "P" questioned.
"Yes yes!!!! Bwizzieeee! Brizzy!" he said proudly.
"can you show us what you mean " "P" asked.
"Yes, yes!!!" he said, positively bursting with excitement, and grabbed "P"s arm and started to blow on it.
"urrrghhhh, you queer or something?" "P" said... "so you mean breezy? as in allot of air is escaping?"
"Yes yes!!!!"
"Well its not called bwizzy... its called fucked! Change the pipe...f00!"

Thinking back to when they said these guys would be joining us, they assured us they all were fluent English speakers... Oh how they lied... But then that shouldn't really be a surprise to us...

Brick Walls

Whilst driving along the passenger terminal, all the planes parked nicely in a line along side. "J" n me spotted one of our planes with a very strange looking set of stairs attached to the rear most door. As we drove closer it was actually those inflatable escape slides that planes have. Some fool didn't disarm the door before the opened it. Was pretty amusing as there were about 10 of the local engineers all standing around looking up at the slide, fingers pointing away. Not wanting to get roped into all the fuss "J" and me drove on.

But true to life. About 1 hour later we get a call from the local engineers saying they have removed the slide and need us to fit a new one. So we head down, tools and new slide in the back of the truck. Lug the slide up into the plane and proceeded to fit it. But before we can get anywhere the guys from our quality dept appear to carry out quality control on our work... At every step he butts in asking to check this and check that. Wouldn't have minded but everything he was checking was on a sealed unit. And the other stuff he was checking was the door. There is nothing wrong with the door! Half way thru fitting the slide he asks where the maintenance manual reference print out is. To which the inspector in charge "V", said" nope, no manual print out. No point anyway. All the manuals you supplied us are around a year out of date anyway, so no point using them"

"Yes I know, but you need the manual, you cant do the job without the manual" the quality guy replied.
"But all your manuals are out of date and as such are all invalid." "V" said.
"But you need the manual, you cant do the job without the manual" the quality guy replied again.
"There is no point having the manual here, its out of date, invalid, useless." "V" said unbelievably.
"Yah, but you need the manual, you cant do the job without the manual"...

Anyway this went on till "V" thought sod it and sent someone back to the hanger to get the out of date manuals. So everyone sat about twiddling our thumbs. While the guys from the airline pestered us how long we would be and passengers were being pissed off at being delayed. Not our fault... When the manuals arrived we slung it in the corner and carried on working. All of us had done this before several times and were well versed with it all.

When it came to filling up the inflating bottle with nitrogen the quality guy said " pump it up to the green band and leave it unlocked so if its not full enough when I inspect it it will be easier for you to top up."
We do as he said. He inspects it and gets back to us "Yah, it is good. Middle of the green band, very good. But you forgot to lock the bottle up!" he exclaimed, proud that he had spotted a mistake...
"But you told us to leave it unlocked" "V" responded.
"Oh yah, so i did!"

All the while during the installation in between him poking his nose in every other second and holding up our progress, people from the airline would keep rushing us, telling us the passengers were getting pissed off with being delayed etc. When we were finally done the quality guy moved off. The moment he did 1 of the guys with us "Mo" threw his arms up and yelled" ARRRgggghhh, it only takes 30minutes to do this bloody job!!!! And its taken us best part of an hour!"

Then this hostess pokes her head round the corner and asks gingerly," Oh so, um, your done then? Couldn't drag it out a little longer could ya? We have almost hit our max working hours. Don't really fancy doing this flight"

Incompetent f00s

A while back the decision was made to cut costs by getting rid of the more expensive European trained mechanics and replace them with cheaper Asian mechanics. In the short term a great saving as instantly costs are slashed. But its now several months into it all and here is an example of the slightly long term results.

I was given the task of carrying out servicing on #2 engine. I got on with my tasks but with no great urgency. Why break your back when there is no appreciation? So I plodded on, listening to my MP3 player as I worked, n chilled out as I worked. Then if "J" needed a hand I helped out, if he wanted to go for a fag, I thought y not, if he got a bit peckish we headed out to lunch. Again no great urgency just plodding on. Also went to the office to wrap up some admin work regarding my contract. Which took a lil longer than expected, more on this later. So anyway, my day was spent working at a leisurely pace. I would say I was away from my engine as much as I was at my engine. Roll on close to the end of shift and, my certifyer came to me and asked me if I had completed all the tasks on my engine. As usual , yeah, was the answer. All work carried out and paper work completed and signed up, ready for his clearing. So imagine my shock when he told me i was the only engineer to finish all my tasks. And all of the 4 engines had the same work load!!! And those other mechanics had been pretty much chained to their engines all day... what on earth were they all doing??!!??

Anyway, back to the incident at the office. I handed back my insurance forms and did a quick run thru with the secretary to make sure I had it all filled in right and that I had signed everywhere that needed to be signed. Once it was all OK-ed I left. Only to be called up by the secretary who tells me I hadn't signed the front page. So much for getting her to check it in my presence. She then tells me she needs a copy of my CV. I tell her but surely you have that from my job application?Which she insists she doesn't, so i should get one to her ASAP. Also she needs a copy of my certs. I ask her what certs, she says she doesn't know what certs, she just needs my certs... any certs. How much more vague can you be... maybe I'll pass her my swimming certs. So when i head back and sign the missing bit on the insurance form, as she refiles the form, she exclaims, "OH! I don't need your CV I have a copy here... " And where did she find my CV... in my personal file... (rolls eyes) of all the places eh?.

These are just some of the people I have to work with on a daily basis...

Peace

F1 day. Pretty much a skeleton crew at work. Just about all the managerial types and pain in the arse types have gone to watch the race. Its amazing how much nicer the working environment is with these people out of the picture. Just took a nice easy pace of work, no real rush on things. Just nice not to have people watching over your shoulder and watching every move you make. If only everyday was like this.

The result of the race was declared few moments ago. And the result further enforces my description of the sport. Basically 60 laps of follow the leader. As the drivers pretty much finished the race in the positions they started off in. I really don't get the"excitement" people get from watching it. No more overtaking these days, and less and less driver skill being called for. Rather watch moto GP, not a follower of the sport but at least overtaking, skill and excitement come by the barrel load.

Tight old git

Formula 1 race weekend here. Pretty much everyone from work is taking the day off to watch it. All except me. For a start I'm not really a F1 fan. So paying US$180 per person for average seats, double it cos i gotta bring the other half too. So US$360. Just to sit there plugs in ears and ear defenders on for a whole day watching a bunch of cars whizz past seems a little too much.

Those who are going have really slated me saying you go for the atmosphere and the feel of it all and when would you have the opportunity to attend a F1 race in a foreign country. All valid points but again my 1st day of shift is on race day! So all i can attend is the boring prat ice day and qualifying. Missing the race day. The whole point of a F1 experience. Surely i could take leave was everyone's answer. But i already am losing US$360 for just tickets, add on over inflated food and drink prices, plus the lost income for a day off work. And its gonna be US$500 just to sit in the desert sun and watch a bunch of loud cars play follow the leader for hours on end. Plus entertainment is pretty poo, few tents for food, 1 with beer. Some stuff for the kids. Not much.

I just don't see the point paying shed loads to attend a race i have no interest in. If I wanted to enjoy the experience, I would rather pay it out for a night out with friends or a track day. Or even add it towards paying to attend a D1 race in Japan. Much more worth it.

How not to get mugged

Looks like its a bad time to be my mate 1 gets knocked off his bike & now 1 has been mugged, but in all fairness it was his own stupid fault.

He was in Manama, main city bit of Bahrain at 10:30 at night looking for a shop to cut keys but couldn't find any. So he thought (as ya do) maybe I'll try those back streets they might have some smaller local shops that might cut keys. So like a total idiot he starts combing a bunch of dark alleys at 10:30 at night... Then a bunch or 3 Indians jump out from behind a dumpster and ask for his wallet.

His answer was a very instinctive NO! Despite the fact he had only US$20 in it. The leader of the group again insisted he hand over the wallet and flashed a big kitchen knife. My mate then simply punched him hard as he could across the face, then upper cut the guy. Who dropped to the ground, blood streaming from his mouth. The other 2 guys with him just bolted. Followed by my mate who thought it'd be best to leave b4 the guy came to.

Ironically as he legged it out the alley and passed by a bunch of coffee shops he counted 8 policemen all seated in different shops doing sweet FA.

When i chatted to him today and he reaccounted the story he did admit that of all the things u don't do he did. wandering round back streets in a foreign country late at night, not handing the money over when threatened with a knife etc. Hes bloody lucky not to have a knife stuck in him.

Still serves the bugger right. Hope a busted jaw will move him away from a life of crime.

Crack the whip

Just realised today that who I thought was my shift leader was in fact just a stand in! My real shift leader seems a bit of company man. Let me give you a few examples. We had nothing to fix this afternoon. Absolutely nothing at all. So everyone is sitting about doing bugger all. I ask if I can pop down to the bank a few doors down. But of cause this is out of work, strictly speaking. He says OK and as I walk toward the gate, "J" decides to join me as there is nothing else better to do. The shift leader catches us walking together and demands to know why he is going with me to the bank... He would rather "J" stay at work and do nothing than join me on a short walk to the bank...

Another incident was when I went into the technical library to look up some part numbers. It was very packed in there and every terminal was occupied with people either looking up how to carry out maintenance procedures or finding part numbers. After a few minutes the shift leader walks in and glares at all of us and quips, "so that's why no one is working out on the plane, you are all hiding in here!"

Then this other time "J" and I were asked to aid another engineer "M" with a job. After about 1 hr of starting work "J" and I had to go get some parts from the materials office. While waiting for the part to be handed to us I get a phone call. I pick up and this voice asks " Are you in the canteen? Why aren't you helping "M"? I thought I told you to help him, why is he working on his own?" Great... naturally assume if we aren't to be seen we are slacking off in the canteen. And a little later on during the same task "J" goes off for a smoke as "M" is engaged in a job which only needs 1 person to do and till its done we cant progress the job. So while "J" smokes a fag I got for a bottle of water from the restroom fridge. Which is literally a 1 min walk away. When i come back out to the hanger I see the shift leader question "M" why we were not working...

There are plenty more examples but i think I'll spare you. Either way its reached the point its really starting to annoy me. Its like if you aren't see not be working you are slacking. Even if you work hard skip your breaks to get the job done and then take a long break he will start having a go. ARRRGGHHHH so annoying.

But on the plus side the company has paid me for a full month despite the fact i was on holiday for a good 3/4 of it :p They didn't even touch my leave! There are perks for working in such a disorganised place:)

On the way back from work last night a mate of mine got knocked off his fireblade by a car at a junction. He was pretty lucky in a sense as he was only doing 30 when he got knocked off, as well as he is 1 of the only bikers at work who wears his leather jacket into work. On the not so good side his work trousers disintergrated and thou he didnt break anything his legs were bloodied up and as he came off the bike landed on his left shoulder.

Now the part that really pi**ed me off. As he lay there bloodied and spread out on the road, bike on its side. No one bothered to help him! BTW it was the tail end of rush hour so was still pretty busy. And instead of helping, everyone started beeping him to get up and go bleed somewhere else and stop blocking the road! Everyone just kept beeping and horning till he picked himself up and they didnt stop till he had moved his bike too!!!

Not a single person gave a dam about the fact he had just been knocked down by a car that had sped off or the fact he was bleeding all over his legs. They just wanted him to get out the way so they could get home!!!

I really cant believe so many people can behave like this. Saw my mate this morning. Hes not too bad considering. Legs all banadged up, his shoulder has really swelled up and he cant raise his arm. Got a week off work, which isnt too good as we work as contractors, so if we r not at work we dont get paid :( Plus he now needs a full set of fairings.

Typical days driving

After my final night on shift its now my 1st day off. YAY! So decided to go to the wet market for some shopping with wifey. And after that a trip to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for coffee and breakfast. On the way there we passed by a car parked on the main road with its boot opened. As we passed we could see that in the boot was a car bumper squeezed in! Then as we passed infront of the car we saw a good deal of the front of the car was missing...

The as we pulled into the car park of Coffee Bean we saw the following...

No blood or gore in the car so I guess the driver made it out OK. But it did look uncomfortable with the cabin now half the usual size. Either way its just something we see on a daily basis driving around out here. Still cant comprehend how people can drive SO badly, SO regularly...

Working with Jellyfish

Had a job to replace a heat exchanger on one of the aircraft. We had removed the old exchanger and were in the mists of giving the new heat exchanger the preinstall inspection. During the inspection we had found that the bolt holes through which the exchanger is bolted to the aircraft's airframe seemed too small to accept the bolts which the old exchanger used.

We highlighted he findings to the management. Whose answer was simple. Enlarge the hole with a drill till you could fit the bolt through it. My colleague (P) who had several years aircraft metal work experience disagreed with the manager saying that a component design drawing was needed before he would be willing to drill the larger hole. Explaining that the hole might be designed that way and if enlarged, the material that now exists around the hole might be too weak to carry the weight of the heavy exchanger. Since the thickness of metal that forms the hole is now thinner due to being drilled out. And in not checking the design drawing in essence you could be irreversibly damaging a multi thousand dollar heat exchanger.

By now 3 members of the management had gathered round as the 1st manager did not agree with our way of thinking. And as we were totally unwilling to give in to their "orders" to drill the hole "Mr Ugly" decided to call the big boss who runs the whole operation "The Nazi" and get him to change our minds. As he explained on the fone to "Mr Nazi" the problem, (P) said out loud again "you cant do it, you need a design drawing 1st"

To which you could hear "Mr Nazi" on the fone yell " Who said that!!!"

And then proceed to get (P) on the fone and try pressure him into just drilling the hole and do the job. And as (P) and the rest of us refused, till either a drawing or a heat exchanger with the correct diameter holes on it was provided, "Mr Nazi" got all the managers present to pressure us into giving in.

But (P) summed it up to all of them. " We aren't doing it, you could fire us for all we cared. "

Now for the amusing twist. As it got late and the managers slowly started to leave. Unknown to each other, as they exited one by one and passed (P) they spoke to him. All pretty much saying the same thing.

"You have got a good point. Really don't think its a good idea to just drill the holes without checking properly"

Now why couldn't they just voice their opinions when it mattered? Instead of just being a bunch of "yes men"

Childish, petty, liars

Yesterday we worked hard and got the plane done around 8 hours before it was due. And as there was nothing else to do our shift leader told us we could all have an early day off. A bunch of the guys asked him if we would be paid if we got sent home. He said that he had the nod from a couple of the higher ups that it was OK. So merrily we trotted off home.

Today when we got in we were told that the company bean counter. Who my old shift leader knew as "Mr Ugly" as he had a face to match his personality decided that we should not get paid because we went home. So he complained to the head boss of the place. Who being a penny pinching, short sighted, unperson able type decided that Mr Ugly had a very good point. Despite being approved by a few other managers, the big boss is over ruling everything and we are only getting half a days pay.

What a great way to motivate your already jaded and "can't be arsed with it" work force who has just taken a pay cut a month ago. So next time he needs us to pick up the pace, go the extra mile or do him a favour, I think all readers can guess the outcome. So much for being rewarded for working hard eh? And if we ever get the nod to finish early next time I think we'll all just prefer to stay at work and scratch our arses till its time to go.

A lil courtesy doesnt hurt

Yet more fun at work :) Got in to work at 7am and was told by the boss that a few of us had to head down to the arrival terminal and wait for a plane which would be landing at 7:15 am so we could collect some urgently needed aircraft spares.

We got in the van and headed toward the terminal. Me driving of course, being 1 of only 3 guys on shift who has an airside( the part of the airport restricted to the public) driving permit.

When we arrived at the gate, where the plane was supposed to park up at, it was empty. But then again we were 10 mins early. So while waiting I looked around to see where I could park up. All the marked parking spaces were taken up by baggage loading vehicles. So i pulled up along side the loading vehicles, making sure I would not be in the way.

Sure enough 10mins later the plane arrived and we all got out of the van to get the spares off the plane. The moment we got 10 paces from the vehicle a very gruff local supervisor, of the baggage loaders I assume, yelled at me to move my vehicle into a marked parking bay. At which point 1 of the certifying engineers (V) with me yelled out,"Don't you know who he is?" as he pointed to me. The local guy needless to say looked a little confused.

"Oh my GOD! You have NO idea who he is do you?" (V) said referring to me, "Someone please help him out out as to who this guy is... Mate, if you valued your job I would have thought you would know who this is! And certainly wouldn't have spoken to him like that!"

By now the local guy was looking rather worried at the prospect that he had in fact yelled at some VIP and might lose his job. Of course we played it out a lil while longer before giving in and stopping the prank. He didn't really see the funny side of it all.

Just a short lesson to a rude man really (and a bit of fun) Out here nobody local obeys traffic laws and certainly not laws regarding parking. So why should he have a go at us when his guys are parked illegally all over the place? And a please at the end wouldnt hurt either.