I realize that I wasn't a job shopper long enough, it wasn't even a year at Menasco and I really did not learn anything about being a contractor, well, maybe a bit, but mostly, my mindset was still very much that of a permie.
Permie, is that the right spelling?, perhaps it was, it was usually followed by wanker, for the full effect of the insult from the jobshoppeur, so my short tenure as a jobshopper was followed by a longer period of time as a PW.
Unpaid spare time continued, with a little bit of Patran education, but there was resistance, plus, I decided to learn some CAD and that was one thing that went down like a lead balloon, especially with the chief as he was not happy, not happy at all, with one of his minions learning to use a CAD terminal.
Yet, I persisted.
The reasoning behind that behaviour was that I believed there was a logical link between CAD and Patran and that conversion was possible between a three dimensional CAD database and a Patran model, it made perfect sense to "import" a solid model into Patran and then mesh it, plus it made sense to understand how the CAD models would dovetail into our analysis world.
But, the problem then was that (if my memory serves me well) the CAD software was written by one company, and that company wasn't PDA, so any importing would require a translation program, developed by PDA (eventually owned by MSC) and I think they were more keen to deliver the total package and sell the company the whole bundle. It seemed like everything was about money, and the software was insanely expensive, plus external forces wanted a change in analysis software, ie, NASTRAN and again, things would change once MSC took over.
I had the right idea, but they already had the solution, I just think they wanted Dowty to pay an enormous amount of money to achieve that goal. However, in the interim, while playing with the existing software, I learned quite a bit about the CAD process, something that would help me along the way.
It reminded me of the times back in 1985 when I would sit with Pete Gatehouse at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, we'd sit for hours at the "tube" and brainstorm various ideas for the T-45 landing gear and solve those kinematic problems in our own time, or the other times at APPH when Matt Hilliard and myself worked on the JAS-39 main fitting, rotating three dimensional points in space by creating a a BASIC program, almost as an unpaid hobby.
Unpaid spare time.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Lost my Mind
Dowty was a tech incubator, that was for sure and during the first year or so after my return, I found time to learn Patran, Fortran and by chance, develop my knowledge of the personal computer. This was augmented by my relationship with Jim Collins and the association with the ham radio community, branching out directly with the computer "fest" community.
It was an exciting time for sure, I bought my first personal computer, spent an absolute fortune on it, along with some dot matrx printer. In a very short time I was on the upgrade path, replacing stuff, motherboards and hard drives, all because the latest version of Doom would require something faster.
I was turning into a gamer.
I was also turning into a Homebrewer.
Not just a homebrewer of very horrible beer, but a term used for someone who builds computers from scratch, I recall that Rob Chappell gave me a box of stuff from his dad, a box of Dell computer parts that at one time had been a "286" and they sat around for a while until there was a need, and if I recall correctly, the need was Graeme Wright, who wanted a personal computer and all we had to do was assemble, as cheaply as possible, a unit to do the essentials.
The essentials being Lotus 123 or it's equivalent free version, "Aseasy (as) 123" again, if my memory serves me well. This Aseasy program was a public domain, freeware program, that was equivalent to the famous 123 program, and me and the Scottish guy developed ways to track our finances and more importantly, our mortgages on a home computer (besides our handheld computers).
In was the beginning of financial freedom.
So, really, It wasn't like I was really losing my mind, it was more like I was finding it.
It was an exciting time for sure, I bought my first personal computer, spent an absolute fortune on it, along with some dot matrx printer. In a very short time I was on the upgrade path, replacing stuff, motherboards and hard drives, all because the latest version of Doom would require something faster.
I was turning into a gamer.
I was also turning into a Homebrewer.
Not just a homebrewer of very horrible beer, but a term used for someone who builds computers from scratch, I recall that Rob Chappell gave me a box of stuff from his dad, a box of Dell computer parts that at one time had been a "286" and they sat around for a while until there was a need, and if I recall correctly, the need was Graeme Wright, who wanted a personal computer and all we had to do was assemble, as cheaply as possible, a unit to do the essentials.
The essentials being Lotus 123 or it's equivalent free version, "Aseasy (as) 123" again, if my memory serves me well. This Aseasy program was a public domain, freeware program, that was equivalent to the famous 123 program, and me and the Scottish guy developed ways to track our finances and more importantly, our mortgages on a home computer (besides our handheld computers).
In was the beginning of financial freedom.
So, really, It wasn't like I was really losing my mind, it was more like I was finding it.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Three Year Term
The three year term began, and a rough estimate of how much it actually cost me, adjusted for taxation rates, overtime and what have you, was somewhere in the quarter-million dollar range, so it was quite the little promise I made there to the Chief of Stress at the time.
However, it wasn't all about money, things happened during those three years that changed my career in very good ways, cemented some friendships and the very fact that I was earning less made me focus more on being more careful with money.
In addition, there was a whole bunch of extra time that was to be enjoyed, something like two hours a day or more, six days a week, that's a dozen hours a week, it gave me so much more time to waste.
In my last months of 1989 at Dowty, Patran-G had reared it's ugly head once more and there had been strong hints that I was required to wear that Finite Element Analyis hat once again, something that I was reluctant to do, in fact, in retrospect, it was one of the factors that pushed me away from Dowty (besides the evil money thing).
Now that I was back, it was fortunate that two of the guys had firmly placed their knees under the FEA table, so the expectation that the "young jockey" would take the reins was long gone, in fact, another fortunate thing, I had the suspicion that there was an essence of punishment (for my year at Menasco) and that the mighty Patran-G, or whatever it was called in 1991, was being withheld from my not so enthusiastic mitts.
The two guys, Andrew North and Holger Oberlander, also appeared to have no intention of allowing me, or anyone else for that matter, at one of the FEA workstations, yet the Chief of Stress was concerned that if one of his men was "run over by a bus" then the valuable FEA work could implode, so there was a general upbeat "everyone should learn Patran" theme in the office, it was a theme, but it seemed to go nowhere.
It was common in the industry for people to be protective of their jobs, even though we were not unionized the general approach was to keep knowledge and only reluctantly, impart knowledge. This had been true even back in the Harry Clark days at APPH, it was the hierarchy of analytical skills that kept analysts in the higher pay grades, and here, ten years later in another country, the same thing was happening.
The two FEA jockeys, who had formal training from MSC, were instructed to teach other members of the stress office, but daytime training sessions were few and far between because "real work" was getting in the way of any training, and also, any time spent on the machines was next to useless, mainly because the teachers had no teaching skills, or as I suspected, had no incentive whatsoever in sharing their knowledge.
So, even though I had a reluctance to relearn the FEA software, I knew that it would be of some use in this so called career of mine and so, with the Chief's permission, I started using some of my unpaid spare hours to grab terminal time, after our experts had gone home, and relearn the nuts and bolts of Patran.
Unpaid spare time...yes, I truly had lost my mind.
However, it wasn't all about money, things happened during those three years that changed my career in very good ways, cemented some friendships and the very fact that I was earning less made me focus more on being more careful with money.
In addition, there was a whole bunch of extra time that was to be enjoyed, something like two hours a day or more, six days a week, that's a dozen hours a week, it gave me so much more time to waste.
In my last months of 1989 at Dowty, Patran-G had reared it's ugly head once more and there had been strong hints that I was required to wear that Finite Element Analyis hat once again, something that I was reluctant to do, in fact, in retrospect, it was one of the factors that pushed me away from Dowty (besides the evil money thing).
Now that I was back, it was fortunate that two of the guys had firmly placed their knees under the FEA table, so the expectation that the "young jockey" would take the reins was long gone, in fact, another fortunate thing, I had the suspicion that there was an essence of punishment (for my year at Menasco) and that the mighty Patran-G, or whatever it was called in 1991, was being withheld from my not so enthusiastic mitts.
The two guys, Andrew North and Holger Oberlander, also appeared to have no intention of allowing me, or anyone else for that matter, at one of the FEA workstations, yet the Chief of Stress was concerned that if one of his men was "run over by a bus" then the valuable FEA work could implode, so there was a general upbeat "everyone should learn Patran" theme in the office, it was a theme, but it seemed to go nowhere.
It was common in the industry for people to be protective of their jobs, even though we were not unionized the general approach was to keep knowledge and only reluctantly, impart knowledge. This had been true even back in the Harry Clark days at APPH, it was the hierarchy of analytical skills that kept analysts in the higher pay grades, and here, ten years later in another country, the same thing was happening.
The two FEA jockeys, who had formal training from MSC, were instructed to teach other members of the stress office, but daytime training sessions were few and far between because "real work" was getting in the way of any training, and also, any time spent on the machines was next to useless, mainly because the teachers had no teaching skills, or as I suspected, had no incentive whatsoever in sharing their knowledge.
So, even though I had a reluctance to relearn the FEA software, I knew that it would be of some use in this so called career of mine and so, with the Chief's permission, I started using some of my unpaid spare hours to grab terminal time, after our experts had gone home, and relearn the nuts and bolts of Patran.
Unpaid spare time...yes, I truly had lost my mind.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Dowty Stress Office 1991
We had a lot of characters in the Stress Office at DAT back in 1991 and I tried to capture their characters in the following cartoon. I'm surprised it has survived all these years.
You might be in an Aerospace Stress Office if...
1. You plan your escape every day and make lists...
2. You yearn for a hardbound copy of Roark's fourth edition.
3. Someone asks you what you do for a living and they think you're a psychologist.
4. You get really excited about an unknown lookup feature you've discovered in Excel.
5. You sit in a cubicle that wasn't yours six months ago and has less reference and drawer space.
6. The fun really starts when the "bad monkey" is someone else.
7. Communication is something your "group" is having problems with.
8. You see a good looking woman in the office and know for sure she's not in your group.
9. You're happy that the component that failed on test was analysed by someone else.
10. You don't know what you're doing, even so, you think you know more than anyone else.
11. Your bosses favorite lines are...
"We've lost another guy to the competition, so we have to work smarter..."
"My Hands are Tied"
"I'll get back to you on that"
"If anyone else is thinking about leaving, let me know"
12. You think that thread undercut related jokes are funny.
13. You think that weights engineers are very silly and only need simple math skills.
14. Manipulating numbers to satisfy someone else's needs is considered a living.
15. The report you were working on four years ago is sitting, unreleased, in a box at Iron Mountain.
16. You reply to design engineers questions confidently, without knowing the real answer.
17. The guy who sits in front of you makes odd peeps and pops all day. Smells of cabbage.
18. You make assumptions that are good sometimes, other times they're very, very bad.
19. You know at least ten people who don't work in your group any more, and several are still in it.
20. You have a posture problem, yearn to ring bells and douse invaders with boiling oil.
21. You laugh hysterically when someone says that Tim O'Shenko was an Irish guy.
22. You've heard of, or maybe even understand RPN and know someone with a HP calculator.
23. One of your colleagues has only one eyebrow.
24. You know at least one person (besides yourself) who has plotted the death of the chief of stress.
25. Jokes about hoop stress, column stability and internal pressure are hilarious in relation to sex acts.
26. At least one other person in your group has lost the will to live.
27. You read this entire list and understand it.
2. You yearn for a hardbound copy of Roark's fourth edition.
3. Someone asks you what you do for a living and they think you're a psychologist.
4. You get really excited about an unknown lookup feature you've discovered in Excel.
5. You sit in a cubicle that wasn't yours six months ago and has less reference and drawer space.
6. The fun really starts when the "bad monkey" is someone else.
7. Communication is something your "group" is having problems with.
8. You see a good looking woman in the office and know for sure she's not in your group.
9. You're happy that the component that failed on test was analysed by someone else.
10. You don't know what you're doing, even so, you think you know more than anyone else.
11. Your bosses favorite lines are...
"We've lost another guy to the competition, so we have to work smarter..."
"My Hands are Tied"
"I'll get back to you on that"
"If anyone else is thinking about leaving, let me know"
12. You think that thread undercut related jokes are funny.
13. You think that weights engineers are very silly and only need simple math skills.
14. Manipulating numbers to satisfy someone else's needs is considered a living.
15. The report you were working on four years ago is sitting, unreleased, in a box at Iron Mountain.
16. You reply to design engineers questions confidently, without knowing the real answer.
17. The guy who sits in front of you makes odd peeps and pops all day. Smells of cabbage.
18. You make assumptions that are good sometimes, other times they're very, very bad.
19. You know at least ten people who don't work in your group any more, and several are still in it.
20. You have a posture problem, yearn to ring bells and douse invaders with boiling oil.
21. You laugh hysterically when someone says that Tim O'Shenko was an Irish guy.
22. You've heard of, or maybe even understand RPN and know someone with a HP calculator.
23. One of your colleagues has only one eyebrow.
24. You know at least one person (besides yourself) who has plotted the death of the chief of stress.
25. Jokes about hoop stress, column stability and internal pressure are hilarious in relation to sex acts.
26. At least one other person in your group has lost the will to live.
27. You read this entire list and understand it.
The Bunker, April 1991
Until the reversal of my fortunes I was hunkered down, wearing the wife's clothes, down in the basement in our townhouse and cutting coupons out of flyers to make ends meet.
To the far left the mighty Commodore Amiga A500 complete with disk drive, next the Commodore 64 and at the end, the soon to be, suitably attired, Permy Wanker.
What a plonker!
Permy Wanker
Almost a third of 1991 had gone by and strangely I found myself sitting back at Dowty with most of the old familiar faces around me once again.
As though I'd bonked those ruby red slippers together and returned back to Kansas.
Well, Ajax.
The Chief of Stress, Barry Levoir, had asked me at the interview "I hope you're not going to run away and leave us for jobshopping again as soon as the market turns around" and I had said, hand on heart, that I would stay for at least a few years.
Looking back, I am happy that I made that promise, even if within a few days of starting back at Dowty my words would start to cost me a thousand bucks or more every week.
It was like some evil plot turn in the film of my life the April Tuesday morning that the office phone rang.
It was a familiar Lancashire voice on the other end of the phone, like a favorite Uncle the man began with "Hello me old fruit" and asked if I wanted to go jobshopping once again down at Brand-X.
The other landing gear emporium.
Unfortunately, I had made my daft promise and for some even greater daft reason I told Larry that I would honour it and had to decline his invitation.
Thus, with the knowledge that my panic shopping for a salaried position hadn't been necessary after all, I began my three year term as a born-again permy wanker.
As though I'd bonked those ruby red slippers together and returned back to Kansas.
Well, Ajax.
The Chief of Stress, Barry Levoir, had asked me at the interview "I hope you're not going to run away and leave us for jobshopping again as soon as the market turns around" and I had said, hand on heart, that I would stay for at least a few years.
Looking back, I am happy that I made that promise, even if within a few days of starting back at Dowty my words would start to cost me a thousand bucks or more every week.
It was like some evil plot turn in the film of my life the April Tuesday morning that the office phone rang.
It was a familiar Lancashire voice on the other end of the phone, like a favorite Uncle the man began with "Hello me old fruit" and asked if I wanted to go jobshopping once again down at Brand-X.
The other landing gear emporium.
Unfortunately, I had made my daft promise and for some even greater daft reason I told Larry that I would honour it and had to decline his invitation.
Thus, with the knowledge that my panic shopping for a salaried position hadn't been necessary after all, I began my three year term as a born-again permy wanker.
End of Part Two
December 21st, 1990 marked the end of part two in the Canadian landing gear stress analyst employment story, the year had been surprisingly lucrative and, as time had shot by, surprisingly short.
It was therefore quite the time warp for me as the next twelve weeks dragged by, time spent cutting coupons, saving money everywhere I could, calling Larry every week to see if they wanted me back, which as the weeks dragged by became more of a daunting phone call as his patience wore thin.
What was I doing? - basically sitting around the house, keeping things tidy, a stay at home mother without any children (besides a pair of budgies) and I was literally going stair crazy.
Sometime in March someone called me and told me that Dowty were advertising for a stress analyst or two, something to do with a new project, I resisted for another week or so and gave Menasco a couple more phone calls, all of which were quite depressing, and I was more convinced than ever that Larry was tired of my calls.
So, I snapped.
One thing I never wanted to do was go back to Dowty with my cap in my hand, tail between my legs as a pathetic "tried and failed" jobshopper, but here I was, doing exactly that.
In retrospect, I did exactly the wrong thing at almost exactly the wrong time.
It was therefore quite the time warp for me as the next twelve weeks dragged by, time spent cutting coupons, saving money everywhere I could, calling Larry every week to see if they wanted me back, which as the weeks dragged by became more of a daunting phone call as his patience wore thin.
What was I doing? - basically sitting around the house, keeping things tidy, a stay at home mother without any children (besides a pair of budgies) and I was literally going stair crazy.
Sometime in March someone called me and told me that Dowty were advertising for a stress analyst or two, something to do with a new project, I resisted for another week or so and gave Menasco a couple more phone calls, all of which were quite depressing, and I was more convinced than ever that Larry was tired of my calls.
So, I snapped.
One thing I never wanted to do was go back to Dowty with my cap in my hand, tail between my legs as a pathetic "tried and failed" jobshopper, but here I was, doing exactly that.
In retrospect, I did exactly the wrong thing at almost exactly the wrong time.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Omar the Mysterious
The generic "letting go" letter probably was on the 19th December 1990 as the Christmas party appears to have been right at the start of the month.
The Party's Over
The letters went out in the middle of December 1990 to quite a few of the jobshoppers at Menasco.
The 19th December rings a bell, although that may have been the date of the Menasco Christmas Party.
For some reason I thought I was safe and would escape, but that was not to be, my letter arrived from Mister Bruce Yamashita, it basically said "so long and thanks for all the fish" and made a point of apologizing for this, what will probably be, temporary break in my valuable employment with the company. After all, there was hope that the 777 wingfold project may be resurrected early in the new year (it never was) and that my services would be much needed with the vast amount of work that was incoming.
It wasn't.
In ten years the horrible feeling had not changed, I remember it well from the end of my eighteen month Gullick Dobson tenure and, shortly after that, my six month stint at Alcan. Yet those were redundancy notices and this felt more like being sacked or the lighter term "let go" which did not make things feel better.
There would be no turkey for Tiny Tim this Christmas.
The 19th December rings a bell, although that may have been the date of the Menasco Christmas Party.
For some reason I thought I was safe and would escape, but that was not to be, my letter arrived from Mister Bruce Yamashita, it basically said "so long and thanks for all the fish" and made a point of apologizing for this, what will probably be, temporary break in my valuable employment with the company. After all, there was hope that the 777 wingfold project may be resurrected early in the new year (it never was) and that my services would be much needed with the vast amount of work that was incoming.
It wasn't.
In ten years the horrible feeling had not changed, I remember it well from the end of my eighteen month Gullick Dobson tenure and, shortly after that, my six month stint at Alcan. Yet those were redundancy notices and this felt more like being sacked or the lighter term "let go" which did not make things feel better.
There would be no turkey for Tiny Tim this Christmas.
Long Days
The year was being washed away by long drives, long working hours, short weekends and at times we both contemplated jacking it all in. Karen had a good mental breakdown quite early in the year, around the middle of a very wintery February, as she says, before tax time, which at Bata was a terrible time. I still remember talking her down off the proverbial ledge on that one.
As for me, well, I was exhausted most of the time, energized at work but then by the time I had driven home there was little energy left for anything besides a couple of hours plonked on the sofa, watching telly and waiting for bed. At least the summer had offered the pair of us that extra daylight that made it feel like we were having a regular life, unfortunately the summer was consumed quickly, the days grew rapidly shorter and we found ourselves approaching winter once again.
The thoughts of driving through the snow again put a great fear in me, fortunately (one way of looking at it) something was about to happen to change all that.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Colt Industries
Back in 1985 when I sneaked out of McDonnell Douglas for a half day to have a secret interview with Ray Crawley at Menasco in Burbank, I was hoping that I could start a new adventure in a new country.
It didn't happen.
What I had noticed at McDonnell Douglas was the American management style, which some may say is detached and impersonal, yet, I saw it as a great improvement over the style characterized by British companies like Gullicks, Alcan and APPH.
In 1988 when I arrived off the boat in Canada to work at Dowty, it was a bit of a shock to find that Dowty was in fact run like a British company and that the middle and upper management was dominated by immigrants from the old country.
What am I going on about? - well, Dowty was like working at a British company in a foreign country, the old feeling of a class system was very much evident and this would always magnify the experience of being a peon in the system.
The ladder of success seemed to be more about plotting, secret handshakes, being one of the "mates" and maintaining the royalty driven class system.
I'm not naive, I'm sure the same practices went on at all companies, regardless, however, what I saw at McDonnell Douglas at Long Beach and perceived at Menasco in Burbank was very different and after six months at Menasco in Oakville it was evident that the place was run like an American company.
Well, almost.
It was a hybrid, with some British born middle managers attempting to enforce a class system, yet the Colt Industries upper management style made the experience more like the McDonnell Douglas one, something that was actually very refreshing.
It felt to me that this was what an engineering company should be like, that visits to the test department, shop floor and assembly, salvage areas and general interaction with the manufacturing process were encouraged. It was helped somewhat by Menasco not being a union bound company and that occasionally, management joined in and rolled up their sleeves to solve problems.
And what was especially wholesome about Menasco was how rapid management could be when it came to giving you a good old fashioned bollocking for doing something wrong or stupid, something that must be respected, especially when, after the reprimand, no grudges would be held, the air would be cleared and things would move on.
Refreshing.
It didn't happen.
What I had noticed at McDonnell Douglas was the American management style, which some may say is detached and impersonal, yet, I saw it as a great improvement over the style characterized by British companies like Gullicks, Alcan and APPH.
In 1988 when I arrived off the boat in Canada to work at Dowty, it was a bit of a shock to find that Dowty was in fact run like a British company and that the middle and upper management was dominated by immigrants from the old country.
What am I going on about? - well, Dowty was like working at a British company in a foreign country, the old feeling of a class system was very much evident and this would always magnify the experience of being a peon in the system.
The ladder of success seemed to be more about plotting, secret handshakes, being one of the "mates" and maintaining the royalty driven class system.
I'm not naive, I'm sure the same practices went on at all companies, regardless, however, what I saw at McDonnell Douglas at Long Beach and perceived at Menasco in Burbank was very different and after six months at Menasco in Oakville it was evident that the place was run like an American company.
Well, almost.
It was a hybrid, with some British born middle managers attempting to enforce a class system, yet the Colt Industries upper management style made the experience more like the McDonnell Douglas one, something that was actually very refreshing.
It felt to me that this was what an engineering company should be like, that visits to the test department, shop floor and assembly, salvage areas and general interaction with the manufacturing process were encouraged. It was helped somewhat by Menasco not being a union bound company and that occasionally, management joined in and rolled up their sleeves to solve problems.
And what was especially wholesome about Menasco was how rapid management could be when it came to giving you a good old fashioned bollocking for doing something wrong or stupid, something that must be respected, especially when, after the reprimand, no grudges would be held, the air would be cleared and things would move on.
Refreshing.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Incoming
I had been dropped in the thick of it all at Menasco and I would liken myself to one of those music hall acts where the performer has to keep a series of plates spinning on poles, usually running around like a madman to keep them all upright.
MRB was a big daily job, in addition to the other things like report generation, proposals and general troubleshooting, MRB was the backbone of the work at the Menasco stress office and a lot of it was Boeing MRB work and of course, Menasco did a lot of work for Boeing.
In that first year at Menasco my attitudes to salvage and repair work changed dramatically, at first I felt that the work was beneath me, however, after a few months of working with the Boeing methods and the MRB guys at Menasco, I felt that MRB was by far the most interesting aspect of being a stress analyst.
In addition, as a job shopper, I could see that it was an endless gig.
I'll talk about differences in management style in a future post, but the one thing that was obvious about the structural department at Menasco was that no one was afraid of rolling up their sleeves to get MRB work approved and moved through the system. There was also no fear, no matter what the priority, about scrapping something that could not be salvaged for either structural or aesthetic reasons.
Larry Abram and myself would sit down and blitz through the salvage reports, his boss, a larger than life Greek guy called Gerry Kouverianos, would also roll up his sleeves when the waiting pile of MRB became too high, it was a simple thing, the engine of the business was production and warranty work which coupled with aircraft safety meant that we all took the job very seriously.
The only lighter side to all of it would be the liaison between the stress office and the chief representative of the MRB department, Nick Chronopoulous (another Greek) who would tend to "hover" about the office when critical salvages were required for approval. Nick would constantly roll an elastic band between his index fingers as he invaded our space,occasionally beads of sweat would appear on his brow when he suspected we would be scrapping something that "could not be scrapped" and he would, every now and then, cross the line and offer important stress analysis advice to exactly the wrong person.
Larry.
At those delicate and highly explosive moments (I would call them the "light blue touch paper" moments) it was best for the rest of us to scamper away and retire to the safety of a nearby bunker and watch and giggle as the firework display progressed...
MRB was a big daily job, in addition to the other things like report generation, proposals and general troubleshooting, MRB was the backbone of the work at the Menasco stress office and a lot of it was Boeing MRB work and of course, Menasco did a lot of work for Boeing.
In that first year at Menasco my attitudes to salvage and repair work changed dramatically, at first I felt that the work was beneath me, however, after a few months of working with the Boeing methods and the MRB guys at Menasco, I felt that MRB was by far the most interesting aspect of being a stress analyst.
In addition, as a job shopper, I could see that it was an endless gig.
I'll talk about differences in management style in a future post, but the one thing that was obvious about the structural department at Menasco was that no one was afraid of rolling up their sleeves to get MRB work approved and moved through the system. There was also no fear, no matter what the priority, about scrapping something that could not be salvaged for either structural or aesthetic reasons.
Larry Abram and myself would sit down and blitz through the salvage reports, his boss, a larger than life Greek guy called Gerry Kouverianos, would also roll up his sleeves when the waiting pile of MRB became too high, it was a simple thing, the engine of the business was production and warranty work which coupled with aircraft safety meant that we all took the job very seriously.
The only lighter side to all of it would be the liaison between the stress office and the chief representative of the MRB department, Nick Chronopoulous (another Greek) who would tend to "hover" about the office when critical salvages were required for approval. Nick would constantly roll an elastic band between his index fingers as he invaded our space,occasionally beads of sweat would appear on his brow when he suspected we would be scrapping something that "could not be scrapped" and he would, every now and then, cross the line and offer important stress analysis advice to exactly the wrong person.
Larry.
At those delicate and highly explosive moments (I would call them the "light blue touch paper" moments) it was best for the rest of us to scamper away and retire to the safety of a nearby bunker and watch and giggle as the firework display progressed...
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Industrial Secrecy
The story that I heard about the mysterious similarity between the programs at both Menasco and Dowty was a simple one really and it was to do with personnel moving from one place to another, I know who it was, but as this is a blog, on the world wide web, I will keep the name to myself, mainly because some will argue the toss about which came first.
The chicken, or the egg.
The majority of the programs I am speaking about originated at Menasco, which of course, does not mean that the programs or the code originated or was proprietary to Menasco. It just means that a bunch of programming code that ended up at Dowty had been taken there by a former Menasco employee.
This was nothing new as the practice was rife in the industry, as I mentioned, McDonnell Douglas was fairly open about methods with their trusted customers, they also shared the same with their subcontractors. As multiple subcontractors may have been in competition with each other, it was the subcontractors, like Heroux, Dowty and Menasco, who started coveting each others methods.
It became quite common for employees who were leaving for the competition or had been given their marching orders to be escorted from buildings by the security officers, in later years, access to the computer systems would be removed before the unfortunate employee even knew.
I think the atmosphere of mistrust developed from those senior men that came before all of us, at the end of the day, the coveting of the likes of a lug analysis based on theories from Melcon and Hoblit developed thirty years earlier could hardly have been an excuse to vilify anyone.
Yet, at some point in the future, an event would happen based on the origins of these programs that would amaze and astonish me.
Something that would affect more than my own destiny.
The chicken, or the egg.
The majority of the programs I am speaking about originated at Menasco, which of course, does not mean that the programs or the code originated or was proprietary to Menasco. It just means that a bunch of programming code that ended up at Dowty had been taken there by a former Menasco employee.
This was nothing new as the practice was rife in the industry, as I mentioned, McDonnell Douglas was fairly open about methods with their trusted customers, they also shared the same with their subcontractors. As multiple subcontractors may have been in competition with each other, it was the subcontractors, like Heroux, Dowty and Menasco, who started coveting each others methods.
It became quite common for employees who were leaving for the competition or had been given their marching orders to be escorted from buildings by the security officers, in later years, access to the computer systems would be removed before the unfortunate employee even knew.
I think the atmosphere of mistrust developed from those senior men that came before all of us, at the end of the day, the coveting of the likes of a lug analysis based on theories from Melcon and Hoblit developed thirty years earlier could hardly have been an excuse to vilify anyone.
Yet, at some point in the future, an event would happen based on the origins of these programs that would amaze and astonish me.
Something that would affect more than my own destiny.
Parallel Universe
The transition from Dowty to Menasco was easy, it was essentially the same company as far as my limited world of stress analysis was concerned.
Even the programs had the same names...
The methods for creating text files were different, the procedure for running and executing the programs were different but the actual programs, well, the input format was the same and the output was predominantly the same.
Which struck me as odd.
In fact, Menasco had their own manual for their programs that felt vaguely familiar, it wasn't as organized or as updated as the Dowty version, however, at times I felt as though I had slipped into a parallel universe.
Access to source code, well, that was a different thing altogether. At Dowty, once proficiency at FORTRAN had been established, analysts could request access to a copy of the source code to attempt to fix errors or improve accuracy, this was quite tightly controlled and any changes would be placed in a logbook and text added to the source to explain what subroutines had been changed.
Eventually, changes would roll into the programs manual at the subsequent release.
At Menasco, there was no access to source code at all. It was all handled via one guy, a chap called Alvin Fong who was highly protective of the cache of programs and nobody except himself would alter or change any program. The problem was compounded by the fact that Alvin was usually a very busy man, concerned with his own discipline (Dynamics, Landing Predictions etc) so that any fixes or tweaks requested by the stress jockeys would go on an endless "back burner" eventually to be forgotten about or just discarded with disdain.
It was a puzzle then, that two different cultures of program management in competing companies would have a set of core programs that had almost identical inputs, similar outputs and most intriguingly, the same names...
Even the programs had the same names...
The methods for creating text files were different, the procedure for running and executing the programs were different but the actual programs, well, the input format was the same and the output was predominantly the same.
Which struck me as odd.
In fact, Menasco had their own manual for their programs that felt vaguely familiar, it wasn't as organized or as updated as the Dowty version, however, at times I felt as though I had slipped into a parallel universe.
Access to source code, well, that was a different thing altogether. At Dowty, once proficiency at FORTRAN had been established, analysts could request access to a copy of the source code to attempt to fix errors or improve accuracy, this was quite tightly controlled and any changes would be placed in a logbook and text added to the source to explain what subroutines had been changed.
Eventually, changes would roll into the programs manual at the subsequent release.
At Menasco, there was no access to source code at all. It was all handled via one guy, a chap called Alvin Fong who was highly protective of the cache of programs and nobody except himself would alter or change any program. The problem was compounded by the fact that Alvin was usually a very busy man, concerned with his own discipline (Dynamics, Landing Predictions etc) so that any fixes or tweaks requested by the stress jockeys would go on an endless "back burner" eventually to be forgotten about or just discarded with disdain.
It was a puzzle then, that two different cultures of program management in competing companies would have a set of core programs that had almost identical inputs, similar outputs and most intriguingly, the same names...
Cut and Paste
I was impressed with how organized the structures department at McDonnell Douglas was back in 1985, in fact they had their own, formal, structural manual that was not just an instruction manual of how to run the computer programs, it also presented theory behind the methods.
As the stress office at APPH had to produce formal reports using those methods, we were tasked in reproducing both the logic and the output format for our programs (written in BASIC) and went through a benchmark process to ensure that our programs results and output format matched theirs. The resulting output from our computer programs would then be "cut and pasted" onto our headed paper.
Literally.
When I arrived off the boat to work at Dowty in Ajax, Canada in 1988. The methods were about the same, computer programs (written in FORTRAN) were run on the mainframe via dumb terminals, printed on the big rattling Decwriter dot matrix printer (picture to follow) and then scissors and paste sticks used to add the output to headed paper for our formal reports.
The logic behind a lot of those programs had also been acquired in a similar way, theory from textbooks like Bruhn, Roark, Timoshenko or Maddux. or over time, theory filched from aeronautical trade publications quoting the likes of Melcon and Hoblit or Cozzone.
The bulk of accepted theory would be from more formal sources such as the Military handbook, DeHavilland, Boeing or McDonnell Douglas structures manuals and as I would eventually find out, from their competitors.
It seemed like an industrial standard that we had a sort of industrial standard.
As the stress office at APPH had to produce formal reports using those methods, we were tasked in reproducing both the logic and the output format for our programs (written in BASIC) and went through a benchmark process to ensure that our programs results and output format matched theirs. The resulting output from our computer programs would then be "cut and pasted" onto our headed paper.
Literally.
When I arrived off the boat to work at Dowty in Ajax, Canada in 1988. The methods were about the same, computer programs (written in FORTRAN) were run on the mainframe via dumb terminals, printed on the big rattling Decwriter dot matrix printer (picture to follow) and then scissors and paste sticks used to add the output to headed paper for our formal reports.
The logic behind a lot of those programs had also been acquired in a similar way, theory from textbooks like Bruhn, Roark, Timoshenko or Maddux. or over time, theory filched from aeronautical trade publications quoting the likes of Melcon and Hoblit or Cozzone.
The bulk of accepted theory would be from more formal sources such as the Military handbook, DeHavilland, Boeing or McDonnell Douglas structures manuals and as I would eventually find out, from their competitors.
It seemed like an industrial standard that we had a sort of industrial standard.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Small Print
One of the things I realize as this blog and my story progresses is that the web is a very public place, so in some respects, as I name people in future entries, context will be important, knowing that some are very sensitive to criticism or have been rightly labelled by myself as psychopaths or sociopaths.
You know, a selection of the darker side of the population that we all end up working with.
So, going forward, if you see me naming people, it's because I respect them, if you see people being referred to more in a nefarious manner or just on a first name or position basis, it's because in my opinion, they lacked certain qualities (which of course I will highlight) and really, in all fairness, their names should not be gifted to the world wide web.
Right, with that disclaimer out of the way, I can continue with this diatribe.
You know, a selection of the darker side of the population that we all end up working with.
So, going forward, if you see me naming people, it's because I respect them, if you see people being referred to more in a nefarious manner or just on a first name or position basis, it's because in my opinion, they lacked certain qualities (which of course I will highlight) and really, in all fairness, their names should not be gifted to the world wide web.
Right, with that disclaimer out of the way, I can continue with this diatribe.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Ladies Night
I mentioned I had bought the cradle and printer for my Casio PB700, it was bought on a visit to the UK in 1989 and it is worth remembering.
The trip was booked at an Oshawa travel agency called Armstrong Tours, flights at the time (February 1989) were $402 a piece (including taxes) flying from Hamilton in Ontario to Gatwick. The reason for the trip was not really about acquiring the aforementioned interface, it was actually because my dad was becoming grand-poobah of the lodge (he was a freemason) and it was going to be my mothers ladies night.
It seemed like it was too soon in our Canadian adventure and money was thin, but we arranged it anyway, for mum and dad it was a once in a lifetime thing and we would get to see friends and family after our year long vacation in Canada.
Arriving at Rhyl I was surprised how my mum looked, over the previous year she had been treated for an overactive thyroid, took them a long time to diagnose for some reason, so she looked somewhat different, as the Saturday evolved Auntie Alda and Uncle Bob arrived and Auntie Maggie, it was great to see them.
Saturday, February 18th, 1989
Ladies Night
The night was special, especially for mum who made a lovely speech, my brothers Rob and Paul and their respective girlfriends were there and the "do" was a great success with everyone dancing and having a great time, I would say the food/dinner was great, but really it was a bit of a let down, typical of British catering (perhaps more accurately, Welsh catering).
I hadn't seen this side of the freemasons before and it almost made me wish that I belonged to an organization like this, I probably pondered that for a few weeks after we arrived back in Canada and then went back to my traditional way of thinking that it is a load of old rubbish.
I was getting romantic with Karen in the back of the late coach on the way back to Kimnel Bay when the thing broke down, overheating being the problem. It was hilarious with all the family and the goings on, made me realize how special they all were and that the expense of this trip home was worth it, just for the short hours spent with this bunch.
Less than two weeks later we would be back in Canada, a few thousand dollars lighter and just a bunch of memories of a cold visit to the old country, coincidently, the new country was still bloody cold as well, so we felt right at home.
The trip was booked at an Oshawa travel agency called Armstrong Tours, flights at the time (February 1989) were $402 a piece (including taxes) flying from Hamilton in Ontario to Gatwick. The reason for the trip was not really about acquiring the aforementioned interface, it was actually because my dad was becoming grand-poobah of the lodge (he was a freemason) and it was going to be my mothers ladies night.
It seemed like it was too soon in our Canadian adventure and money was thin, but we arranged it anyway, for mum and dad it was a once in a lifetime thing and we would get to see friends and family after our year long vacation in Canada.
Arriving at Rhyl I was surprised how my mum looked, over the previous year she had been treated for an overactive thyroid, took them a long time to diagnose for some reason, so she looked somewhat different, as the Saturday evolved Auntie Alda and Uncle Bob arrived and Auntie Maggie, it was great to see them.
Saturday, February 18th, 1989
Ladies Night
The night was special, especially for mum who made a lovely speech, my brothers Rob and Paul and their respective girlfriends were there and the "do" was a great success with everyone dancing and having a great time, I would say the food/dinner was great, but really it was a bit of a let down, typical of British catering (perhaps more accurately, Welsh catering).
I hadn't seen this side of the freemasons before and it almost made me wish that I belonged to an organization like this, I probably pondered that for a few weeks after we arrived back in Canada and then went back to my traditional way of thinking that it is a load of old rubbish.
I was getting romantic with Karen in the back of the late coach on the way back to Kimnel Bay when the thing broke down, overheating being the problem. It was hilarious with all the family and the goings on, made me realize how special they all were and that the expense of this trip home was worth it, just for the short hours spent with this bunch.
Less than two weeks later we would be back in Canada, a few thousand dollars lighter and just a bunch of memories of a cold visit to the old country, coincidently, the new country was still bloody cold as well, so we felt right at home.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
A bit Heath Robinson
In the later part of 1990 one of the structural proposals I was involved with for Menasco was for a latch mechanism for the Boeing 777, not just a simple door latch that is, this was one latch actuator (of a series of seven or eight a side) that would allow the wings to fold up.
Yes, you heard me, a folding wing concept on a massive airframe like the 777.
I'd heard the phrase before, probably from good old Jim Collins and here it was again from Larry Abram, as he put it in a meeting one day:
"It's a bit Heath Robinson"
That's one of the English phrases in life that can sum up an entire concept as being far-fetched, overly complex or just plain old silly, yet here we were, a group of important design and structural engineers, giving it a go (again, the paint it pink approach for your average contractor).
The latch mechanism was the first that I had been involved with where the "rapid prototyping" approach was used, nowadays we just call it 3D printing which is fairly inexpensive, but in 1990 it was far from cheap. However, watching a three-dimensional CAD solid be created into a tangible, full size prototype was impressive.
This was not the first full size prototype in my career however, if you exclude photo-elastic models for various landing gear systems, the best, most exciting mock-up was for the C-17 fuselage, back in 1985 when I was enjoying life at McDonnell Douglas in California.
I've never mentioned the T-45 mock-up that we had back then either, however, something hand crafted from foam board, sitting on a table, could hardly compare with my first rapid prototype that evolved from a designers sketch, stressed using a rudimentary beam model, developed into a CAD solid and finally printed (sintered) using minute plastic beads to produce a life size component.
Amazing, even if the (doomed) concept was a bit Heath Robinson.
Yes, you heard me, a folding wing concept on a massive airframe like the 777.
I'd heard the phrase before, probably from good old Jim Collins and here it was again from Larry Abram, as he put it in a meeting one day:
"It's a bit Heath Robinson"
That's one of the English phrases in life that can sum up an entire concept as being far-fetched, overly complex or just plain old silly, yet here we were, a group of important design and structural engineers, giving it a go (again, the paint it pink approach for your average contractor).
The latch mechanism was the first that I had been involved with where the "rapid prototyping" approach was used, nowadays we just call it 3D printing which is fairly inexpensive, but in 1990 it was far from cheap. However, watching a three-dimensional CAD solid be created into a tangible, full size prototype was impressive.
This was not the first full size prototype in my career however, if you exclude photo-elastic models for various landing gear systems, the best, most exciting mock-up was for the C-17 fuselage, back in 1985 when I was enjoying life at McDonnell Douglas in California.
I've never mentioned the T-45 mock-up that we had back then either, however, something hand crafted from foam board, sitting on a table, could hardly compare with my first rapid prototype that evolved from a designers sketch, stressed using a rudimentary beam model, developed into a CAD solid and finally printed (sintered) using minute plastic beads to produce a life size component.
Amazing, even if the (doomed) concept was a bit Heath Robinson.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
NTN
The pub of choice for those midweek outings had NTN trivia, a radical new way of wasting time (and encouraging extra beer to be drunk) and it provided an excellent break from the real world.
The pub up on Taunton Road, was called Mickeys (eventually turned into the Waltzing Weasel) and provided great food, atmosphere, BEER and of course, NTN.
I adopted my online nickname of DRYICE and for some reason, Karen's monica became PICKLE.
It was the start of a decade or more of occasional play on the trivia network with various bars in the Oshawa region, Mickeys would become the Waltzing Weasel (and lose the NTN franchise) and eventually, years later, we would find ourselves at a great bar, Jack's Filling Station, on Simcoe Street, home of four dollar pints, free peanuts (throw shells on floor) and of course, NTN and a good crowd of working people out for a good time.
Sorting it all out
So here I was in 1990, a very hectic year and what would be a very rapid year as fifteen hour days would strip all the daylight from my life, Winter, Spring and Summer.
Although the Summer was far better.
When we left Britain in 1988 there were a few things that were left outstanding, I still owed part of my college grant, a lump of money on the Barclaycard (Visa) and four hundred pounds to the National Westminster bank.
The middle of 1990 presented a zero balance on all of that and the only link left to the UK was a monthly money order that I was sending to my first wife.
So, the money situation was being sorted out, probably due to the excess from jobshopping and not particularly from any business savvy, we were still extremely inefficient in the managing of money, but it was slowly starting to change.
Weeks flashed by and we made sure that we had our midweek pub night, something that was an oasis from all the ridiculous lost time from both our epic commutes, the Summer made it all that much better because even leaving the house at 7.30pm we could walk down to our local pub in the daylight.
This second (or third) pub night per week was essential...
...we needed the receipts.
Although the Summer was far better.
When we left Britain in 1988 there were a few things that were left outstanding, I still owed part of my college grant, a lump of money on the Barclaycard (Visa) and four hundred pounds to the National Westminster bank.
The middle of 1990 presented a zero balance on all of that and the only link left to the UK was a monthly money order that I was sending to my first wife.
So, the money situation was being sorted out, probably due to the excess from jobshopping and not particularly from any business savvy, we were still extremely inefficient in the managing of money, but it was slowly starting to change.
Weeks flashed by and we made sure that we had our midweek pub night, something that was an oasis from all the ridiculous lost time from both our epic commutes, the Summer made it all that much better because even leaving the house at 7.30pm we could walk down to our local pub in the daylight.
This second (or third) pub night per week was essential...
...we needed the receipts.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Music Revisited - Part One
How many times in this life will it happen?
When I was younger music was one of the most important things in my life, a feature (almost) bolted onto my head using these amazing ear things, it always seemed to be available even without the aid of walkmans or ipods or anything else remotely portable.
It was elusive, but I sought it out.
And when music became more portable, it seemed, for me, that the appeal of music became diminished, because, music was being fed into my head while other things were happening, not when I was relaxing on the couch or spread eagled on the floor meditating between two speakers.
(because we had no headphones in our house)
So, bit by bit, because of portability, music became less important to me, not more important.
So in 1990, during all those long, long commutes, I was able to sit back once more and enjoy music, not just soundbites, I was listening to full albums once again, all the way through, and it became vibrant and meaningful once again.
And as life is cyclical, I would lose it once again.
When I was younger music was one of the most important things in my life, a feature (almost) bolted onto my head using these amazing ear things, it always seemed to be available even without the aid of walkmans or ipods or anything else remotely portable.
It was elusive, but I sought it out.
And when music became more portable, it seemed, for me, that the appeal of music became diminished, because, music was being fed into my head while other things were happening, not when I was relaxing on the couch or spread eagled on the floor meditating between two speakers.
(because we had no headphones in our house)
So, bit by bit, because of portability, music became less important to me, not more important.
So in 1990, during all those long, long commutes, I was able to sit back once more and enjoy music, not just soundbites, I was listening to full albums once again, all the way through, and it became vibrant and meaningful once again.
And as life is cyclical, I would lose it once again.
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