Today Is Aviation Maintenance Technician Day

Discussion in 'Gadgets & Tech Talk' started by Joe Riley, May 24, 2016.

  1. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    AVIATION MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN DAY

    On May 24 we honor the men and women who have worked behind the scenes making and keeping aviation possible. It is Aviation Maintenance Technician Day.

    We all know the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright, Kitty Hawk and the experiment of human flight.

    How many of us know the name Charles Edward Taylor? He came to work for the Wrights in 1902 when then experiment turned to powered flight. The automobile companies couldn’t supply an engine both light enough and powerful enough for flight.

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    Enter Taylor. A machinist by trade, with a metal lathe, drill press and other hand tools, he built the 12-horse power engine which propelled the Wright’s plane 20 feet above the wind-swept North Carolina beach. The longest flight lasted 59 seconds for a distance of 852 feet. It took Taylor 6 weeks to build the engine and yet, history books rarely mention the man who helped make the historic December 17, 1902, flight possible.
     
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  2. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    When considering those who operated right on the "fringe" of knowledge and predictability regarding their efforts, I can only marvel at their ingenuity and bravery.

    Louis Slotin: Canadian-born Physicist experimenting at Los Alamos, instrumental in developing knowledge regarding how, why, and how much, Plutonium would be needed to construct a bomb, used gravity to drop a sub-critical hunk of it from ceiling-height through a hole in another sub-critical hunk, thereby for a tiny instant creating a burst of fission energy.

    Enrico Fermi was heard to tell Slotin once, that if he continued such experimentation he would be dead within a year! Nice guy! More than a year later, after the War had ended, still experimenting similarly, the deal went awry, jammed with the Plutonium stuck together, filling the room with an intense flux of free Neutrons. Slotin, as quickly as possible, though he knew it was too late, pried the stuff apart with a screwdriver, stopping the fission reaction. There had been 8 people in the room. Though knowing he was a "deadman", Slotin went to a chalkboard, quickly drawing a sketch of who had been standing where, for evaluation by the Physicists to possibly aid in saving their lives.

    Slotin, I think about 30, was dead within a few days. General Groves had his parents flown in from Canada, to be with their son while still alive. They, of course, had no idea, due to the extreme secrecy everywhere, what was being done in Los Alamos. I believe one other man died. This is all from memory.

    Just an example of my understanding of "living on the fringe" use of "cutting edge" knowledge and ability.
    Frank
     
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    Last edited: May 24, 2016
  3. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    CHARLES E. TAYLOR: THE UNSUNG HERO OF KITTY HAWK FINALLY
    GETS HIS DAY


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    "When the Wrights returned from one of their trips south in 1902, they informed Taylor that
    they were no longer interested in gliders and wanted a powered machine. They developed
    the specifications for the new biplane they would build, but were unable to find a manufacturer who could or would make the engine. So they turned to Taylor for help. As Taylor recalled, “While the boys were handy with tools, they had never done much machine work...” The Wright brothers went to work building the airframe, and Taylor, using only the simple tools he had in the shop – a drill press, lathe, and assorted hand tools – went to work constructing a 180-lb., 12-horsepower engine".

    “We didn’t make any drawings,” he explained. “One of us would sketch out the part...on a piece of scratch paper, and I’d spike the sketch over my bench.” Following what he saw in the sketches, Taylor made the first airplane engine in only six weeks. He also made all the metal parts for the airframe. How was this phenomenal achievement ever forgotten? After all, Taylor made the first airplane engine, thus becoming the “First Airplane Mechanic.”

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    Last edited: Sep 15, 2021
  4. Nancy Hart

    Nancy Hart Veteran Member
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    My mother's first job at Goodyear Aircraft during the war was repairing the outside of airplanes. Then she became an instructor for new hires. From what she described, probably something like this.

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  5. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    Charles E. Taylor, at 95.
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  6. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    Charles E. Taylor: My Story
    May 16, 2016

    "When Orville Wright died Jan. 30, 1948, Charles E. Taylor became the only surviving member of the three who built the first airplane. Charlie Taylor was the only employee and intimate associate of Wilbur and Orville Wright throughout the critical years. Without precedent or fanfare, Taylor built the engines for the Wright's first planes to their designs".

    "This article, written in 1948 while Taylor was living in retirement in California, was first published in Collier's, Dec. 25, 1948, and was reprinted in Air Line Pilot, December 1978. Taylor died Jan. 30, 1956, at the age of 88".

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    "It was a hot June night in Dayton. It must have been a Saturday because I was at the Wright Cycle Company gassing with Wilbur and Orville. They used to stay open Saturday nights to take care of the folks who worked all week and couldn't get around any other time".


    "One of the brothers, I forget which, asked me how would I like to go to work for them. There were just the two of them in the shop, and they said they needed another hand. They offered me $18 a week. That was pretty good money; it figured to 30 cents an hour [Editor's note: Taylor's statement implies a 60-hour work week]. I was making 25 cents at the Dayton Electric Company, which was about the same as all skilled machinists were getting".
    (READ MORE)
     
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  7. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    If the Wright brothers had been crows........:confused:o_O
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    UFO?
     
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  8. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    mid course.jpg
    Just a note of correction: In Post #5, Charles is identified as being 95 years of age. Since he died at the age of 88, in 1956, that is incorrect....although their longest flight was 95 feet!;)
     
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  9. Nancy Hart

    Nancy Hart Veteran Member
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  10. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    #10
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