How about some quality scores.

We are decommissioning some gear at work. Snagged some good wire for my solar panel interconnects. It even had EMI shielding. (nice Velcro type)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nsaspook/sets/72157624006984258/show/

 

Brings back memories. Back around 1970, the Navy decided to survey a CIC mockup. That meant that all the equipment was to get hauled off to a dump. We spent the entire weekend salvaging every component that could be unscrewed or pried loose. I still have one of the relays in use in my waterbed heater controller.

 

Brings back memories. Back around 1970, the Navy decided to survey a CIC mockup. That meant that all the equipment was to get hauled off to a dump. We spent the entire weekend salvaging every component that could be unscrewed or pried loose. I still have one of the relays in use in my waterbed heater controller.

Survey, that's a squid term

I've got the wire, but the equipment had to go to hazmat first to clean up the toxic piping first. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride
Nasty stuff, stupid dangerous, worse than Hydrazine. After that we can "Survey" it.

 

I love the Clark quote:

"It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water — with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes."

Reading that reminded me of the Propionitrile they were using at the Kalama (Vega) chemical plant across the highway from MCAS Beaufort. Even found a reference to the explosion in Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propionitrile

Had a friend who worked there as a chemist. He wasn't there when the explosion occurred. One of the workers tried pumping propionitrile through a hose without cleaning the "rainy nickel" out of the hose first.

It set off a chain reaction that caused a chemical reactor that was about 25' tall and 8' in diameter to be blown a mile in the air and two miles north of where it originally was. I was about three miles from the blast; it shook our steel and concrete hangar like a truck had crashed into it.

By some miracle, nobody was even seriously injured.

 

Holy crap-shoot. Nothing happened to the guy that was pumping the propionitrile?

Im guessing by pumping you didnt mean using a hand pump. But the guy activate a pump FROM A DISTANCE. Cause juh-eeez-us, that had to be a huge amount of pressure that was released to push that vessel a mile...UP.

Not to mention the horizontal travel.

You would think his eyes, ears, lungs, etc. would be paste.

I have the same feeling when I see that guy that was sucked into the intake of that A-6 on the Teddy Roosevelt. That guy WOULD BE PAINT. The fella they show "a few hours afterwards", looks like a bandaged up actor.

http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Man_Sucked_Into_Jet_Engine

 

That reminds me of the ltjg who was blown over the side from jet wash, played on the ships TV for a month! He was okay, but it looked like a cartoon! (I was on the America, CVA66)

joe

 

Oh, those wacky men and their flying machines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc2ibjiCQ0g

 

Holy crap-shoot. Nothing happened to the guy that was pumping the propionitrile?

Im guessing by pumping you didnt mean using a hand pump. But the guy activate a pump FROM A DISTANCE. Cause juh-eeez-us, that had to be a huge amount of pressure that was released to push that vessel a mile...UP.

I don't know what happened to the guy. The whole plant looked like it had been bombed. They had large fiberglass storage tanks filled with propionitrile; the explosion caused them to be peppered with shrapnel, and the propionitrile was spilled over a fairly large area. I don't know if they ever resumed production after that accident; I left for California several months afterwards and lost track of what was going on there.

I have the same feeling when I see that guy that was sucked into the intake of that A-6 on the Teddy Roosevelt. That guy WOULD BE PAINT. The fella they show "a few hours afterwards", looks like a bandaged up actor.

http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Man_Sucked_Into_Jet_Engine

A-7 Corsair II's were the most scary intakes I've ever looked into. They were a subsonic attack version of the F-8 Crusader fighters. The intakes were chest height, wide, low, long, and there was nothing to stop you between getting sucked in and the front compressor blades, which were spinning at 30,000+ RPM.

There would be nothing left but a burnt red mist.

 

For a real interesting feeling, you need to be on the taxiway at National (now Reagan) airport with a Philadelphia rod to get elevations of the centerline drain covers while a Super Constellation or a Lockheed Electra bears down on you. That's a long way to go to get out of the way of both sets of propellers.

 

A Harrier intake is pretty impressive. We had one of the first USMC air wings on my ship for testing. I watched them suck up the none-skid right off the helo deck without missing a beat while testing vertical takeoffs.

VTO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctT5TtUTdGA

 

I must admit I have done share of dumpster diving. But I it will always be a limit of say how many not quite up to date network cards you need, small and slow used HDDs, or say who needs a big collection of mid range PC power supplies And even better a collection of outdated cell phone chargers. I still do some dumpster diving now and then. But have been much more picky about what I take home. As I found out much of the salvageing was nothing more than a postponement of the death sentence.

 

My best score so far was a Laser copier.

Apparently the copier was transported on its back and toner went everywhere.

I had to clean the optos for the paper sensors and jam sensors, but thats about it.

 

My best score so far was a Laser copier.

Have you got past second base yet

 

Have you got past second base yet

see retched, your roosters have come home to roost!

 

I can barely reach the keyboard, cuz my whoo-ha is caught in the paper feed..

Voodoo, you live close, bring bolt cutters!

 

A Harrier intake is pretty impressive. We had one of the first USMC air wings on my ship for testing. I watched them suck up the none-skid right off the helo deck without missing a beat while testing vertical takeoffs.

VTO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctT5TtUTdGA

East Coast Harriers were based out of MCAS Cherry Point NC in the late 70's. They liked to do sorties down to MCAS Beaufort SC; for some reason they seemed to like our runways better for hovering, I guess.

For awhile it seemed like they were pancaking one a week at the end of runway 21 (23 maybe?). It took them quite a while to figure out what was happening, as the pilots weren't surviving the incidents . Turns out that the pilots were over-correcting in hover mode; once you started teeter-tottering the aircraft in yaw, things quickly got out of hand and the aircraft wound up inverted with full engine thrust skyward.

They added a computerized hover mode to avoid that problem.

I was on CV-59, USS Forrestal (aka the FID, aka El Zippo) in '76. One of VF-11's F-4J Phantoms came in too low and caught the round-down with the MLG, tearing 10' long rips in the round-down, shearing off the MLG, causing the A/C to tumble down the flight deck. I was riding brakes on a Phantom at the time, we'd just dropped from the flight deck. Amazingly, nobody else was even injured. Sadly, the aircrew didn't make it; both ejected but the pilot struck an A-6 parked on the starboard cat, the RIO was lost overboard. They searched for hours, but the accident happened around 2330hrs, and it was a moonless night and choppy seas.

I've done a little bit of dumpster diving, but not in a number of years. Sometimes people throw away the darndest things.

Laser printers are great finds; even if they're not working you can salvage all kinds of good stuff for use in robotics projects. Be careful with emptying/rinsing out the toner though; it's carcinogenic.

 

Not a laser printer. An office grade laser copier. This thing probably weighs 300-400 pounds. Page-flipper(for auto front and back copying), 100 page feed with flip, stapler, collator (?) Its the thing that puts the pages in order.

Its a SAVIN 9927DP.
http://www2.boisestate.edu/purchasing/copiers/Savin 9922DP.pdf
The one on the left of the front page.
Or the right on the 2nd.

I was surprised to see it tossed.

 

I was on CV-59, USS Forrestal (aka the FID, aka El Zippo) in '76. One of VF-11's F-4J Phantoms came in too low and caught the round-down with the MLG, tearing 10' long rips in the round-down, shearing off the MLG, causing the A/C to tumble down the flight deck. I was riding brakes on a Phantom at the time, we'd just dropped from the flight deck. Amazingly, nobody else was even injured. Sadly, the aircrew didn't make it; both ejected but the pilot struck an A-6 parked on the starboard cat, the RIO was lost overboard. They searched for hours, but the accident happened around 2330hrs, and it was a moonless night and choppy seas.

About the same time I was at NCU Key West. We had the last RA5 Vigilante recon group there for missions over Cuba, etc... Totally stripped down with nothing but cameras and electronics they could do Mach 2 easy. They would takeoff full AB and head south below radar.

My old shack. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou....572182,-81.676&spn=0.003337,0.00618&t=h&z=18
I worked at the commsta far out at the end of the base where they tested the engines. One day we heard one being cranked to full power in the bunker and just as we turned to look it must have sucked something inside because the entire fan assy blew out the back and exploded in a million pieces. That was one hell of a plane.

http://yellowairplane.com/pics/CV63_RA5C.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyIOyQniNe0

 

My friend is a professional Dumpster diver. My best find was 800 packs of Basic cigarettes sealed up in the dumpster of a 7-11. Great find when your 15 and broke. Sold em to all the kids in the neighboorhood for $1 a pack. My buddies best find was an original electronic football game from the 70's. It talked, buzzed, and shook. Picked it up out if the trash on his way home from work. After dinner he check ebay and saw it sold for $300 Buy it now within 2 hours!

 

About the same time I was at NCU Key West. We had the last RA5 Vigilante recon group there for missions over Cuba, etc... Totally stripped down with nothing but cameras and electronics they could do Mach 2 easy. They would takeoff full AB and head south below radar.

RVAH-7 aka "Heavy 7" was onboard with us. They set up a "drag race" between a Viggie and one of our Phantoms. We could see 'em setting up miles astern with those smoky black trails - then the trails disappeared, and we knew they'd hit A/B. In just a few seconds our Phantom flashed by in the lead, about 50' above the flight deck and just off the port side of the ship - supersonic! I snapped a photo and then the shock wave darn near knocked me on my butt. The Vigilante was right behind.

There's a Vigilante at the Sanford Int'l Airport, just about a 20-minute drive from me.
Photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/RA-5C_VigilanteOrlando.jpg

My old shack. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou....572182,-81.676&spn=0.003337,0.00618&t=h&z=18
I worked at the commsta far out at the end of the base where they tested the engines. One day we heard one being cranked to full power in the bunker and just as we turned to look it must have sucked something inside because the entire fan assy blew out the back and exploded in a million pieces. That was one hell of a plane.

http://yellowairplane.com/pics/CV63_RA5C.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyIOyQniNe0

Nice vids!

Yeah, those J79's would come right apart if they sucked just about anything metal down their gullet. Someone let a 7/16" nut get sucked into one; all it takes is one blade breaking off in the compressor stage at high RPM and you've got a pile of junk on your hands.