Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Maxnc - don't buy it!

Jon Anderson wrote:

> I used to work at NASA Ames Research Center in a college work-exp
> program. Walked by the U-2 almost every day going to the head. I'd go
> watch it take off nearly every time. A great sight to see. One day I
> heard the pilot pour the coal to it much sooner than usual, and it
> popped up WAY early, and climbing nearly vertical. Impressive sight
> indeed. Especially if you've seen this plane up close like I have.
> There's just enought fuselage wrapped around that engine to attach
> wings
> and tail surfaces to, and a cockpit that a TR-7 driver would find
> cramped. Camera bay is bigger!

I worked at NASA Wallops Island (eastern shore of Va.) for about 18
months, in
a similar arrangement. I got to see all SORTS of neat stuff! Just
phenomenal!
I saw the U-2 a couple of times before they converted them to RS-1s.
Before
the conversion, they couldn't land until the sun went down, on a hot
day.
It was pretty wild watching the guy drive behind it to grab the bogey
wheels
when it took off. Noisiest thing I've ever heard! Sounded like a
Saturn V!

I also saw the prototype of the F-15, which came over one afternoon from

some work they were doing at NASA Langley (across the Chesapeake Bay).
It took off, and within 2 minutes was passing an international passenger

flight. I later found out that it could climb even faster, and took a
climb record
to 102,800 Ft. in 2 min, 51 seconds, or thereabouts! (This was not the
same
aircraft, but a specially prepared production unit.)

I got to see the clear-air reference test of the terrier-Recruit rain
erosion
vehicle, a test done for DoE to measure ice particle sizes in cloud tops

for use in evaluating how well an ICBM re-entry vehicle would handle
hitting this stuff at 6000 MPH. It was incredible, from 7 miles away,
an arcing yellow light going across a wide chunk of sky in about 20
seconds. It went 19 miles from a standing start, and reached a height
of over 40,000 Ft. and then back down, all in about 19 seconds!
Normally, when you saw this test scheduled, you knew, with absolute
certainty, that the weather would be absolutely ABOMINABLE on
that day. Something like a burnt-out hurricane coming up the coast,
torrential rain all day long. Somebody has a weather department that
REALLY knows how to make long-range forecasts! They scheduled
these things a couple of weeks in advance.

I got to see a Super-Loki DataSonde, which is used for ionospheric
research. It achieves over 120 G acceleration when taking off.
I was one mile away, and could hear the count, so I knew exactly when
to look. The rocket simply disappeared, INSTANTLY, with absolutely
no sensation that any motion had ocurred! It was instantly replaced
by a HUGE column of white smoke. I jerked my head up, and there
was an incredible trail of smoke going WAY up into the sky, with a
bright dot at the end. I watched it, and it faded, then flashed
brightly
as the second stage lit, and now left a black trail going still higher.
(A different solid propellant, apparently.)

I also got to ride in the equipment room at the focus of the ADAS
(Advanced Data Acquisition Site) 80' dish. Normally, to minimize
wind load, they keep it pointing straight up, but we needed to swap
out a boresight (video) camera with a 2 M lens, and it was quite
heavy. So, they had to drop out the pins and rotate the dish
horizontal for us, but it is a pain to get into the room when it is
other than straight up. So, we were in the room while they
rotated the dish 90 degrees down, and then back up. It was
remarkaly smooth, as it HAS to be, of course.

I also got to spend a night in the blockhouse, tending some video
gear, during the last 12 hours of the countdown for launching
the MTS-D (Micrometeoroid Technology Satellite) on a
Scout-IV rocket (4 stages, 80 feet tall). When there was no
picture after the sun came up, I had to go up on the roof and
wipe the salt spray off the windows on the video cameras.
They guys who were supposed to close the big blast door
broke the handle off, so the door couldn't be closed. We got
to hear the roar of that rocket, it was plenty impressive, since
we were only about 500 feet away. Lots of great war stories
on that one. One of the best ones was there was a hold at T-7
seconds, because one of the payload speacialists said he was
supposed to get a certain green light at T-7, but the chart of
the launch sequencer clearly showed that the light didn't do
much except light up when the launch sequencer reached
T-3 seconds. There were plenty of people standing around, so
the guy responsible for the launch sequencer didn't want to
risk making a goof under pressure, so he plugged a toggle switch
into the programming board, verified with the guy upstairs
that this switch controlled his green light, and then told one
of the guys standing around, "Okay, when the clock goes to
T-7, flip this switch." Then they backed up to T-50 seconds,
or whatever, and restarted the clock, and everybody was happy!

There's still more, but those are most of the really incredible
things that happened in the short time I was there. Now, I've
got to get my kids out there to see "where daddy worked a
long time ago".

Jon