Friday, I flew back to Charleston and immediately after returning on Saturday morning, Tony and I flew down to Miami to check out another Mercedes I found on craigs list.  

It is another 1999 Mercedes, E300 Turbo Diesel.  The owner held the car for me while I went skiing.   This one had 50,000 miles less than the my first one I purchased two weeks ago.   The only difference between the two cars is this one has tan leather (in absolutely perfect condition) and the first one had gray leather AND there is less rust on the the body.  

There are a number of little items I have to get checked out when I get it back to Charleston.   There seems to be a rough idle, the trunk opener doesn’t work from inside the car and both rear windows are non-functional.  Most of the stuff is easy enough to fix. 

After buying the car and leaving Tony behind to spend the weekend in Miami visiting buddys and drive it back up to Charleston, I few up to visit Jerry in Tampa.

After spending a great day visiting with Jerry and Debbie, I spent the night in the “Elvis Room” and early Sunday morning it was off to visit with Ed and Sue just north of Tampa and a quick flight back home.

Last night some moose made the rounds in the parking lot and licked all the cars.  Apparently they like the road salt which collect on the cars in the winter.  All the cars in the in lot were ‘attacked’.

This is the last day (Thursday) of skiing for us.  We woke to 4 inches of fresh snow!  What a great way to end the trip.

The ski areas were just beautiful.

Driving was a bit of a challenge for me as it has been a long time since I have experienced lots of snow.

This is the condo where I spent the week.

I was a bit worried about driving over the pass to get back to the interstate, but as it turned out, I didnt have any issues at all and made really good time back to the airport for the flight back to Charleston. 

After skiing for two days, I wanted to do something different today.  I decided to drive back over the pass to Idaho Spring, Co.

Idaho Springs was famous for the discovery of gold in the 1800’s.  A big tourist draw is Argo Gold Mine.    Construction begin in 1893 of the Argo Tunnel which took 17 years before it would reach Central City, over 4.5 miles away. The tunnel would provide water drainage, ventilation and economical transportation of the gold bearing ore from the many mines it would intersect along the way.

The Argo Mill was constructed to process the gold bearing ore from these mines.  Now it is just is a tourist spot with lots of really cool old equipment outside

A tunnel train.

Some really old equipment.

Unfortrunately, the freaking place was wasnt open!  I knocked on the door but the gentlemen who met me said they were having sewer problems and the place was closed.  Shit.

A quick visit to the town, a Starbucks coffee and I was ready to drive back to the condo.  Bummer.

Today was a great day skiing…

I climbed to the top of the highest point of Winter Park.  It was a bit of a tough hike as the air is very thin at this altitude.

In the distance I can see Fraser Co (where we are staying) which is 12 miles away.

The snow is a bit sparse here as the wind blows most of it off. 

The highest point at the ski area, 12, 063 Ft

Friday,  I flew to Denver to do some skiing and get away from Charleston in a NON-aviation vacation.  I had a great time and some terrific memories! 

Flying into Denver was a real treat.  I have read about the fabric roof on the main terminal but had never seen it.  What a great design!   Of coarse the engineer in me had to check out the support columns, stress points, tensioning systems, etc.  I just cant help myself.

The highlight of my trip was getting up early on Saturday morning for a 3 hr drive from Winter Park to Greeley Colorado where Lee Devlin lives.  It is a beautiful drive over a mountain pass and through the city of Denver.

Although there was snow on the ground, the temperature of Greeley was in the 60’s.  It was amazing how comfortable it was.  Lee has the most incredible house with a huge solar panel on the roof.  Lee told me he hasn’t paid an electric bill in over 2 years. 

Of coarse we had to visit his project to see how it is going.  Nice work Lee.

A great meal at a TexMex restaurant, lots of margaritas Saturday evening, and early Sunday morning it is back to Winter Park to prepare for skiing on Monday.

I have been hard at working building harnesses. I believe I am now up to about 10 of them.  You know the funny thing is the wiring is fairly easy, but keeping track of all the wires (documentation) is turning out to be a major PITA.  I now know why most people do not have wiring diagrams of their airplane.  It is just too difficult to keep everything up. 

The wiring bundles on the floor. 

More to make before I can start installing them in the plane….

I finally made the decision to buy a new Mercedes to replace my trusty old 1981 diesel.  I was getting tired of the creaks and groans of a 30 year old car.  Besides,  I wanted to be sure I had lots of safety features a any car I was driving.  I figured since I am retired and on the gov. dole,  I wanted make sure I have every opportunity to live a long, LONG life to get my more than fair share from Uncle Sam coffers.

I started looking on Craigs List specifically for a 1999 E300 Turbo Diesel since it is the absolutely last model I could buy which could still be converted to cooking oil.  I finally found one in Crystal River, Florida which was at the right price point and condition.  It had 249,000 miles and appeared to be in fairly good shape.  The interior and body was in terrific condition.  I talked the owner into holding it for me long enough for the weather to clear as I knew it would quickly sell.

Tony and I flew down to Florida, I checked the car out and bought it on the spot.  Tony drove it home on Wednesday.  The car wasnt driven at all on Thursday.  On Friday, after getting new tires, and on the way to the DMV, it caught fire and was totally destroyed.  I had a total of 18 miles driving it during the 2 days I owned i.    What fun it was driving it!  The acceleration was just fantastic!

I had flames coming from the center console to the ceiling.  Amazing!  Diesels are not noted for catching fire.   As I told the fireman, “that was the quickest $6000 I have every lost….except for the stock market!”  He asked if I had insurance….  I think I did as I had called USAA prior to the purchase and discussed it with them, but had not called to confirm the purchase…..

Totally trashed….   Can you imagine, I was driving the car with flames shooting up the windshield!

Fortunately, USAA said the car is covered completely!  They paid for all my costs so I am not out any money.

I have started my search on Craigs list once again for another 1999 Mercedes.

Today I finished up the battery monitor system.    It is a tiny circuit to monitor the battery and lets you know if you have a dead cell or if (when you are flying on backup battery power) when the voltage of the circuit is less hits 11 v.  By this point the battery is just about dead.

Three of them have been made to monitor the aft, forward and emergency extention batteries.  When activated a blinking red LED light on the dash notifies the pilot.

A little heat shrink and they are nicely protected.  They are all interchangeable if necessary.

I just returned from the 2 pm show of  Aluminum at the Performing Arts Center.

A while back, I saw an advertisement for Aluminum inthe papers and have a secret  love for the metal.  I enjoy it as much as using fiberglass.    I like aluminum because it shiny, easy bend, holds it shape, inflexible and unforgiving nature and the creative easy to work, forgiving, complex to work with, high tech BUT difficult to fabricate nature of fiberglass.    I would love to build an RV aircraft someday.

The news paper add showed a shinny round tube of Aluminum with two legs sticking out (M? or F?)    Quite a visual image!   …. heck, why not go I thought.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I purchased the ticket.   This week a short  article about the show appeared the Post and Courier.   I quickly scanned the article and in one sentence the story could be summed up as: 

A BIG tube of aluminum drier hose which gives birth to a tiny baby drier hose THEN the parents and baby tube get separated THEN begins the quest of reuniting the baby (which has many interesting adventures with new friends) WITH the sad, lonely, distraut parents aluminum tubes who are desperately searching everywhere for their missing young one. 

After reading the article,  I scratched my head and I thought “WOW, how lame is THAT?”     I can watch the CBS nightly news and see the same story line.  Heck wasn’t it this week a woman who was living in New York and stolen at birth was reunited with her biological parents in Alabama or am I just imagining it?  It was a big deal on TV (I think?)     

Now I am going to see a bunch of aluminum tubes with the same heart breaking problem.  Got the ticket…got to go.

While I was walking up to the PAC with ticket in hand I happened to notice TONS of kid.   Kids everywhere.   Chatting with to a couple of parent I found they too had no idea of what the show was about.  The  kids were bringing them in tow.    Hum, I guess I am not alone in blissful ignorance.    Surprise me Aluminum I thought. 

And surprised me it did. The creative use of small and large aluminum tubes made of mylar was just amazing.   The blend of “human” and “human hybrid tubes” and “mechanical puppetry” was incredible.  This show just works. 

It is a HIGH energy, energetic music  show with great performers and creative use of props.  Visually stunning Aluminum is simply an over the top production.  A fantastic unusual show which will delight you.    Easily, this is one of the best shows I have EVER seen at the Performing Arts Center.

I was drawn into the story, was dazzled by the imagery and thoroughly enjoyed the non stop action and surprises.   Aluminum is definitely a stage show which should be featured at the 2011 Charleston Spoleto Festival.   It would be the must see, most talked about, killer show of the year.    

Here is a Youtube link for the Aluminum show

If you EVER get a chance to see this production GO.   Definitely, GO!   Get a seat dead center about ten rows from the front.  You WANT to be right up front so you can get involved in the audiance interaction, the characters and props.  You’ll have a blast! 

Take the kids (5 yrs old on) and your parents if they have even a minimal abount of motor and cognative skills (basicly they are still breathing).   Both young and old will have a fantastic sensory experience none of you will never forget.

Copyright 2011
Nick Ugolini

I think the epitomeof a good wiring job is how the wires are bundled together.  When ever I look at someones wiring, I look at how the wires are grouped together, are they in nice straight lines, do the corners have radius’s, etc.  Good wiring is an art as well as science.

The most important aspect of wiring is how the wires are grouped or bundled.  Lets say you have a 100 wires, it is not a good idea to bundle them all together.   The problem is that when trouble shooting you can’t determine which wires goes to which plug or if you need to test a wire or spice into one, which one is it?  If you have 30 white wires in a big bundle you’re got a problem. 

In production shops identification information is actually printed on each wire.  I dont have the luxury of having a dedicated piece of equipment to do this.

A better way is to bundle wires is to separate them into smaller groups for a dedicated purpose.  An autopilot bundle, a trim controller bundle, etc.  This way if there 8 wires in the bundle, you can figure out the purpose of the bundle is and therefore what each wire represents.

There are a number of ways to fasten the wire bundle together.   The easiest and quickest way is to use zip ties.  I dont like them but they have their place.   They are heavy and the little cut ends (if you are not careful to trim the properly) will slice your hands when reaching around them.   Boeing decided to stop using them in the 747’s which saved them over 400 lbs per plane.    Granted, I am not using tens of thousands of them in this plane but you get the point.  Besides I think they look unprofessional, they can squeeze the wire to tightly, or not tightly enough. 

The “old fashioned” and I think the best way of  bundling wires is using lacing cord.  It is bee’s wax coated polyester cord and is the standard for the aerospace industry.   I think it looks great, is very light weight and wont cut you.    The only issue with lacing cord is that it is a bit time consuming to use (although I am getting faster with practice).   When done properly it is very artistic.   

When I went to the National Air and Space museum in Washington DC, I marveled at the wiring on the old NASA space craft.  All the wire bundles were beautifully stitched together.  Nice even knots and they used techniques I couldn’t even find on the web.   Wire lacing is truly an art if done correctly.

Here is a picture a wire bundle using individual knots. 

Fairly easy to do, but as I was sitting (butt getting sorer by the moment) I remember seeing on the web techniques for “continues” lacing, so I did a little more research and printed out some instruction sheets.  Continuous lacing uses a starter and end knots and a repeating lace stitch between them as you just move down the wire bundle.  I think it looks fantastic and is much quicker than individuals knots.  Not as nice as NASA, but I am getting better and faster.

Here you can see the left bundle with a continuous lace stitch and the right bundle with individual knots.    The continuous  lacing looks much better for sure…

I plan to lace as many bundles of  wires I can.   Sure makes for a good looking an professional job!