5One man can make a difference.
5One man can make a difference.
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I believe that with all of my heart. People here, one at a time, have made a HUGE difference in my life, again and again. Ransomnote is foremost in my mind. If she had never posted the Q threads, and continued to post them, probably contrary to mod instincts, I think I’d be a fearful and depressed normie. Numberonepal, littlejeremiah and AZliberty have contributed to my physical well-being. Every other poster has absolutely contributed to my mental well-being. There’s not a poster here who hasn’t made my life better. Thank you, every one of you, and apologies for not making individual thank yous. The list would simply be too long. You’re all absolutely wonderful and you don’t know how much you make my life better. Miss Didi, I love your party/dance posts. I love the fun and lighter side of life and you continually remind me to stay in touch with that. In these discouraging times, that’s really important.
Well, one man-—with a skill set——and a really bigaxx machine anyway. yup. One of the funnest things you might ever get to watch is a portal crane pilot and his happy band of Shop 72 Riggers on the ground, in an industrial shipyard. There is no language. Just hand signs. The Riggers waddle around with huge bundles of cables, straps, shackles, and such. The crane follows them and while there is a ground -to-cockpit phone it almost never gets used-—just for emergencies and relocates. The Riggers seem to scurry around a bit, hook up some really big chunk of something, and a few finger points, thumbs up, arm swings, hat waves, and maybe a bye-bye wave, and that big chunk starts moving to its new home. The only sound is that bigbleeping engine revving a bit for the lift.
As big/high as they are the driver can’t always see the thing his ground crew is working on. The flight deck on our super carriers is higher than the cockpit so a third Rigger stands between the cockpit and the load to relay hand signs. That’s some dicey stuff right thar but those guys never miss.
The operators are a bunch of hermits. They climb 30 to maybe 50 feet to mount the cockpit and they stay there for the whole shift. I’ve never seen a driver come down during his shift. Even the old cockpits are like Winnebagos-—full service, lunch, reefer, terlet, the works. Some even have a bunk for on-call duty. Some have been accused of doing their own laundry up there but that’s un-confirmed or un-admitted?
Those crews deserve a segment on Stu Varney’s “Made in America” show.