qldit

Good Morning All, and thankyou Jason for the welcome, I am a retired engineering person, have a background originally in Radio and TV type systems but entered into electro-mechanical scene in all areas.

Have substantial experience with heavy power generation systems and power plants.
Have substantial experience in aircraft maintenance all areas, all systems, all types.

My main current interest is computers and Linux operating systems, but still do short term contract work with overseas various equipment repairs.

This is a very impressive site, my congratulations for the effort and range of subjects.

Cheers, qldit.

Zazula

Hello, qldit, and welcome to TSF! We seem to share some common background.

Tumbleweed36

Hello and welcome. Jump right in and enjoy the forum.

qldit

Good Morning Chaps and thankyou for your posts, I have been retired 16 years but never worked harder in my life since!! LOL!!

Yes Zazula, the aircraft experience without trade demarkation was an incredible experience, line work involved all the support stuff, so you appreciate what is involved.

And yes, from the L1049's through to the 747-400's was my era, and all the dozens of different types in between, all operators.

I am running out of eyes these days for fine electrical work but still do a lot of mechanical stuff, engines, transmissions and drive stuff.

Much of my work was in South West Pacific areas, but my Aircraft Licences have now lapsed so it is just the other stuff these days.
I miss the smells of the aircraft though! LOL!! I don't miss the work hours though!!!

Never without some interesting gadget to repair or modify now though.

Certainly makes one think with all these vehicle electronics these days.

Cheers, qldit.

JohnthePilot

Hi there qldit. Welcome aboard.

qldit

Good Evening John, pleased to meet you, what have you been flying, big stuff or little's.
Gee there is a variation of technical chaps on this site!

Cheers, qldit.

JohnthePilot

Hi qldit. Only little ones unfortunately. Mainly Robins and Pipers.

qldit

G'day John, the littlies are much more exciting than the big stuff, I had a bit of a fly several times on different types but was never interested enough to try for a licence.
These days the big stuff is only manual on take-off, even the climb is usually auto max efficiency, all the rest is programmed apart from a bit of taxiing. Auto-Pilot, Auto-throttle, Auto-descent, Auto-land, Auto-braking, the sharp-end chaps are glorified programmers!

Must be nice flying up there where you are in cold air, it gets a bit bumpy over here especially on really hot days and the tropical cloudbase is often less than a 1000 feet at eight-eighths, some with "rocks" in them!!

Nice meeting you,

Cheers, qldit.

Geekgirl

Hello and Welcome to TSF

kodi

Welcome to Tech Support Forum, hope you enjoy it here

Glaswegian

Hi and welcome to the TSF family - glad you found us.

carsey

dai

hi and welcome to the forum

qldit

Good Morning Everyone, wow what a bunch of hi-tech people!

I notice a couple of kangaroos here also, small world!!

I used to live in Sydney, near the beaches, in the Maroubra area, but moved to Brisbane in the late 70's.

Nice to meet all you "happie chappies"!!

Cheers, qldit.

JohnthePilot

Hi qldit,
We don't get tropical weather here, but we get some fair old thunderstorms running in off the Atlantic. Also we are on the edge of a scarp slope (Cotswolds) and we get some interesting rollers at times. All makes life interesting. Plus having to dodge low-flying military aircraft.
Regards,
John.

qldit

Good Morning John, yes I understand exactly about those military A/C.
I was touring your highland areas and on a walking track to have a look at a waterfall, I was probably 300 feet above the valley floor and two of your fighters came through below my position and would have been doing at least .8 mach and at least 100 feet below my position, it was amazing, scared the wits out of me!!!
That was really "hairy" flying, there was still slight misty conditions, horizontal visibility must have been less than a mile!

Yes, flying near a mountain can be surprising with airflow!! LOL!!

You would love flying in the pacific islands, the colours alone are incredible.

On one occasion there had been an undersea volcanic eruption and there was "pumice" floating so densely that it looked like you could land on it, probably covered 20 sq miles before it began to spread!
Some of the island strips are real skill tests, "wet feet" jobs if you miscalculate, and conditions are usually pretty warm, and some really have fair inclines, others have limited wingtip clearance to the coconut trees for economic reasons, so a crabbing descent is very exciting when you suddenly get below the treetops, especially if there are animals suddenly appear on the strip!
It is really strange making a very low approach and then climbing, flying uphill to land.
Not for me I am afraid!! LOL!!!

Cheers, qldit.

JohnthePilot

Good Morning/Afternoon,
There's no doubt, those pilots can certainly fly. They must have nerves of steel. The first time I encountered it was in a valley in Wales. It's a really strange experience looking down on a plane. My scariest experinece was in the Dovey estuary. I was out wildfowling at dawn. The top of the valley was still in darkness and it was misty. I could vaguely make out the shape of a giant bird coming down the valley. There was total silence so I couldn't make out what it was through the half light. Then realization dawned - it wasn't coming to get vengeance for the birds I'd shot - it was a training flight from RAF Valley. It was doing well over mach 1 and passed overhead at no more than 200 ft. As it did so the sound was deafening. Put paid to any more shooting, not least because I was shaking too much to hold the gun.
Flying over the pacific islands sounds fun. I've seen photos, but that's not like the real thing. I don't much fancy the landing strips though. I did land once uphill and it gives a very low landing speed and stopping distance. I'd find the wingtip clearance more of a concern. The nearest I've got to experiencing that was in the jump seat of a 747 coming into Kai Tak airport. Pretty scary to see skyscrapers either side of you.
Other places I'd like to fly are down the Grand Canyon, over some of the major waterfalls and along the edge of an ice sheet. Pictures my brother in law brought back from his trip to Antartica are amazing.

Regards,
John.