The Longest time

The CDR was over but the work continued, stick models evolved as they were updated with the latest component stiffness and the new results were not without their drama, analysis on certain components had to be revisited, and in some cases, material was added.

When material was added, or taken away, the stick models had to be rerun, it was almost an endless loop.

The swinging link that connected the trailing arm to the cylinder was a component that we had "fun" with, resulting in the following song that would be sung to Billy Joel's "Longest time" :

"Let me sing a sorry little tale,
of a link that surely will fail,
Torsional shear stress,
greater than yield stress,
and we know it happens on the longest side.

(chorus)
Swinging link, gonna swing no more
Trailing Arm, trailing on the floor

And when all the shit hits the fan,
Tasker will be over in Japan,
And while he's sailing
Links will be failing
Failing in the middle of the longest side."


Japan was replaced with Garstan' for some reason, which equally made no sense. I thought the original words included Ray Norton which would make more sense of the (wind)sailing reference.