[DeTomaso] Leaving end of month

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/3/10 19 52 15, kirby.schrader at gmail.com writes:


> 
> OK, OK... I'll admit it... You won the foot race that day, but _I_ have 
> been in more sheeeitholes.....
> 
> http://web.mac.com/kirbyschrader/tws/tws3/therealrace.jpg
> 
> The crappiest places I've been are:
> 
> Iraq
> Eastern Turkey
> The Sudan
> Peruvian jungle (Iquitos)
> 
> just to name the worst ones.
> 
> You had it easy in Saudi... Very civilized there.
> :-)
> 

I'll see your sheetholes listed above, and raise you a Mazar e Sharif, 
Afghanistan. :>)

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=20100

This was taken Thursday.   I was passing through Afghanistan on the way 
down to Iraq (no Disneyland either!), and just as we were about to start 
engines, BLEAH!, ten gallons of hydraulic fluid poured out of the wing onto the 
ramp.   We'd blown out a Wiggins fitting (a kind of AN connector used to 
connect two hard pipes), and there were no Wiggins fittings anywhere for hundreds 
of miles, nor was there anybody capable of installing one.   So the whole 
crew got to camp out in a big tent for two days while they flew in a team of 
maintenance specialists and the necessary fitting, and got to the job of 
fixing things.

I put the time to good use, and spent many, many hours banging away on my 
laptop, both answering e-mails and working on Profiles. :>)

The US Army had been there for several years, and their camp was awful.  
Like a third-world refugee camp.   The Air Force had only been there for 60 
days, but in typical Air Force fashion, they built their own 
camp-within-the-camp and their tents all had wood floors and were all air conditioned, and we 
had hot showers, internet, big-screen TV, video games, movies, etc.   No 
golf course yet, but give them time.   The golf clubs were already there. :>)

There was a big fence surrounding the whole Air Force compound, topped with 
barbed wire.   Not to keep Al Qaeda out--to keep the ARMY out! :>) :>) :>)

On the other hand, sometimes things work out in my favor.   We left 
Afghanistan in the middle of the night, had a super breakfast in Iraq (chow halls 
are *nothing* like what they used to be!) and got to Spain Saturday 
afternoon.   Sunday morning I was supposed to be flying back to California.   When we 
got to the airplane, it was raining hydraulic fluid, this time from the 
opposite wing.   Inspection revealed a two-inch diameter hydraulic pipe had 
been rubbing against a wing spar for days/weeks/months????   It finally 
cracked, and BLEAH!

The pipe is buried deep inside the wing, and no replacement parts exist.   
Instead, the mother of all tubing benders is needed to fabricate a 
replacement, in the USA, then it has to be flown out here, the wing has to be taken 
apart and it has to be installed.   And since airplanes are hand-built (and 
hammer-built!) there's no guarantee that the part will actually fit, without 
some, and perhaps considerable persuasion.

Anyway, the moment I determined we weren't flying that day, I rallied the 
crew, we ran away from the airplane like it was on fire, quickly changed 
clothes, rented a fan, and blazed to Jerez, only 20 minutes away, and by noon I 
was here:

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=20103

In the grandstands for the 2010 Spanish MotoGP race!

Afterwards we went to the nearby town of El Puerto de Santa Maria, pulled 
up in a corner of a sidewalk café on a quite little cobblestone square, and 
enjoyed tapas and drinks:

http://www.poca.com/index.php/gallery/?g2_itemId=20106

It's a long way from Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'l be here in Spain for another few days (perhaps until the end of the 
week?) so I'm making great headway on Profiles during the day--and enjoying the 
local culture and cuisine at night. 

War, as they say, is hell. :>)

Mike