NickDG

LoL, I had three fire extinguishers standing by with their pins pulled . . . NickD

Anybody but me hear it? I thought Nina's first words were, "Da Da!" NickD

NinaGram . . . !!! Flash: Finished wiring early this AM! Attempted very first motor bump!! Results are here!!!: http://www.blogtv.com/Shows/1260225/Ze7EZ27GbWFwZm3HYeX&pos=ancr NickD

>>How's it going Nick?

Politics aside for the next few years when you look up "campaign gaffes" in politics 101 there will be this photograph . . . NickD

>>redyy/orange bits reddy/orange?

The wires are all marked in indelible ink. Put on the Mickey Rooney today! NickD

Wish I had one of those lifts . . . I'm deep into the wiring. The new handlebar controls I purchased (to replace the set I stripped the master cylinder on) were junk. It's about the only thing I bought for Nina (so far) that I wasn't happy with. So I'm going back to the original stock controls and switches they're beefier anyway. NickD

My younger brother is in town so I've been doing more relative work than Nina work. His name is Anthony and he does celebrity hair styling. He's out here with some movie star I never heard of from New York that's making a film in Hollywood. And no, he's not gay, LOL . . . NickD

Ya. right Bill, I did that long before you at Perris. (When you were still in the sticks down at Sandy Eggo hooking up static lines to floater bars, LOL) and always took off my jumpsuit between back to back loads . . . NickD

You're not allowing for the time shift of future shock . . . NickD

It sounds like a gimmick. Unless you're the type that walks around the DZ all day long in your jumpsuit. Otherwise it's only on you for a ten minute call plus the time it takes to climb to altitude and jump. NickD

I'll second the fact that everyone I know who was/is in the jumpsuit business says of all the ways to work in this industry building jumpsuits is absolute hell on earth. "It makes my ass look saggy!" "This Fuchsia color appears a shade off from what I ordered!" "My booties are too hard to get on!" I'd last all of ten minutes in that biz, LOL! I remember when a custom jumpsuit meant you cut the hammer loop off the Sears overalls you bought for jumping. Extremely custom meant you dyed it some other color than white . . . ! NickD

I remember the Double Dactyl rigs. They were being manufactured in Elsinore by someone, Handbury maybe, in the late 70s. Or was it Guardian? The poor Paradactyl shared the same fate as the medieval crossbow (the weapon, not the canopy.) Crossbows were better than any other stand off weapon of the time like the Dactyl was better than any round of the time. But the crossbow was invented just prior to gun powder and the Dactyl came around just prior to the squares becoming popular. NickD

This is kind of hard to understand if you don't speak the King's English but this is Guy Martin narrating his lap around the Isle of Man Time Trials on a Honda 1000. He's doing 190 MPH most of the time. I love it when he casually says, "that's a real man's corner." Boy, lose concentration here for just a second and you're done for. Might ship Nina over there. I'm sure I could manage a lap around doing eighty or so . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVXc29ZgutI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFUYIH2Ttzk&NR=1 NickD

Wow! Is tomorrow really 20-years since that horrible day? The way I recall it is the fuel pumps weren't working that day so they used the fuel truck to pump fuel into the Otter tanks which at the time they weren't normally doing. There were also two pilots on-board. One was a new pilot Ben just hired who was in the right seat making his first familiarization flight. I believe he was an experienced pilot but wasn't a jump pilot. Nobody really knows which pilot had the controls for takeoff. On the seat-belts. At that time (1992) all jump planes had them but almost universally nobody used them. And yes, this crash changed that practice. In looking at the plane post-impact you could see the cockpit was crushed in almost up to the first bulkhead but the cabin area was intact. So seat belt use (along with side by side seating, instead of sitting on the floor in between the legs of the person behind you) could have made a difference in the final death toll. Before you say not using seat belts for take-off is whacked keep in mind it was a different time and it seemed very normal to us. Then whatever happened - happened . . . Post-accident inspection seemed to show the good engine was feathered instead of the engine that initially quit. How that happened will forever be a mystery. In any case since fuel is common to both engines the other engine was probably a few seconds away from flaming out too. One other, and in my eyes more important, factor about those times is the Twin Otter was just becoming "the" plane to have as the DC-3s and Twin Beeches were being phased out. The big draw was the much lessened time to altitude so to attract more customers from other DZs they flew the Otter very aggressively. On T/O they would rotate to a very high angle of attack something a layman would call, "hanging it on the props." And I believe that, more than anything else, is what put them in the corner. Who was to blame? Sure, like any accident change one factor and you change the outcome, but to me this accident is the very definition of "shit happens." But the great aviation writer Ernie Gann put it much more eloquently, "Fate is the Hunter." The memorial video is here: http://www.dropzone.com/videos/Detailed/57.html NickD

I get what you guys mean. I'm not going to lock down that ignition sheath until the pipes are on. But all the cone sided Harley motors (since the Moco did away with the slabsided Shovelhead and went to electronic ignition) run their ignition wires out the bottom of the cam cover. So they should sit far enough away from the front pipe. (Also I'm sure the front pipe will sit outboard and even with the lower frame rail so it'll be all right. NickD

Do you mean the oil line tube to the filter? I'll tie down the ignition wire sheath well away from that . . . NickD

Getting closer! I have most of the wires made and just need to route them. But the new handlebar controls haven't arrived yet so that's slowing me down somewhat. On a good note Nina's starter relay and main circuit breaker all fit nicely under her seat. I also placed a small bus bar under there in case I want to hook up something else later on. I also installed a well hidden kill switch. It turns out my exhaust pipes are "out of stock" but they're getting them for me. It'll just take until next week sometime. I'm also waiting on intake manifold seals so I can install the Micky Rooney carb. I ran the ignition wires up inside Nina's center post and up and over to the coil. So that made for a neat installation. Also did a bunch of those "I'll do it later things," as "later" is right now! NickD

I saw somewhere you can get a swivel plate mount for those who travel a lot. Here in So Cal the law isn't specific only saying the plate must be visible. What that means is if a cop wants to bust your chops about it he can. I've been anti-big government since Nixon was President (unlike these idiotic newbie tea baggers) but I don't mind paying taxes to live here (it's the only way things will work) but I hate we don't demand the Government makes things just a little bit easier on us folks. One reason is (as a group) we don't care what happens to the "other" guy. Bullshit laws that effect bikers are of no never mind to someone who only rides bicycles but the fallacy in that is the bell tolls for us all. Years of shortsighted tax cutting means more laws need to be implemented to raise the shortfall in funds. So the very freedom teabaggers demand is only further curtailed. Well, enough of that BS. Don't want Nina sent to SC! Got a few hours this morning so it's back to watts, amps, and volts . . . NickD

Julia launched out of LAX earlier this evening. And about two hours ago she boarded a Lufthansa flight for Frankfurt out of Chicago. We think she's on one of the first flights, if not the very first one, allowed to proceed . . . NickD

Yup, using the string and vacuum trick, I learned that one a long time ago . . . Spent all day routing wires, stripping, soldering, and shrink wrapping. And you're right about that part, you always see a better way to run wires right after you lock them down. This is a little thing in the big scheme of things, but Nina's tail light lit up for the very first time today. The photo doesn't do it justice - it was very pretty . . . It's so cool seeing her come to life! NickD

Put Nina's brain in today. A programmable ignition! It has six dip switches on it for setting it up the way you want. If it works well that should beat the hell out of the old points and condenser dealio. I can also limit the RPMs and hook a tachometer up to it plus you can download stored data from it like engines hours, cycles, (starts & shutdowns) and some neat other stuff too. Also made up a battery hold down system in place of my cool battery box that won't fit now. And I'm still a bit bummed about that. Also built a coil mount so I also got the coil installed and the plug wires cut to size and the ends put on . . . NickD

Big bummer on that battery box I made a year ago. With the starter and fender in place it's a few thousands of an inch from fitting in the space I have available. At first I thought, okay, I'll grind a bit off the bottom of the solenoid, but being everything is influenced by everything else I saw I needed to also shave some material off the fender and it went on and on and on. So I gave up on it. It's the price paid for making the battery box too early in the project and its just a pretty pencil box now . . . I figured out another way to secure the battery in place so that's a done deal. Today I started the wiring (holy shit the pig horn works and is it loud!) and also got the oil lines hooked up. My brother and his wife are out here on holiday from back east so I didn't get as much done today as I wanted. (Damn relative work!) NickD

>>Nick I think it needs a custom design air intake check this out