Today at Work!

[Flying Torquewrench]

A topic which is quite active and very interesting on other forums, I thought we may as well give it a go here.

Today I went to Lviv in the Ukraine. Quick trip out and back.

While we were on the ground an Antonov AN124 landed and was in the process of being loaded by the Ukrainian army as we taxied past for departure.

[Banshee]

Nice

[solarman216]

My thoughts on that are what the heck is an AN124 and more so are you not opening yourself up to photographing something that is possibly so called "restricted" Rick

[Flying Torquewrench]

The AN124 is one of the biggest cargo aircraft. It can take up to 150 tonne of cargo and is designed to operate from unimproved (dirt) runways. It is designed and built in the Ukraine when this was still part of the USSR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-124_Ruslan

We use them quite regularly to fly our engines around the world if we have an AOG (Aircraft On Ground) with engine problems.

Nothing restricted about this operation as they were loading it in front of the passenger terminal at civilian airport.

[solarman216]

Thank you FT most informative, 150 tonne wow, Rick

[Flying Torquewrench]

Rick, have a look at the Antonov AN225. That is a real beast designed to carry the Russian space shuttle on its back. It can take up to 250 tonne of cargo internally or 200 tonne on top of the fuselage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya

[solarman216]

OMG, but more importantly what about my post to your project thread, Rick

[Flying Torquewrench]

Apologies Rick, I hadn’t seen your post. I will get to it now.

[Flying Torquewrench]

A quick job this morning. Customer called to report water bubbling up in front of her driveway. She lives in the village so it was only a 5 minute drive to get to her and start investigating.

[Flying Torquewrench]

A drain runs underneath that takes water from further up the hill, past her driveway into a ditch. I was informed that there was also a electrical cable buried but that it would be roughly 2 feet underneath the drainage pipe.

No surprise really that when I found the drain I also found the electrical cable. The electrical cable is visible to the right of the top pipe connector and then crosses under the pipe roughly in the middle of the new bit. Luckily I didn’t snag the cable itself.

Normally I always test dig by hand but the customer installed the electrical cable and the drain herself and assured me that they were nowhere near each other.

[Flying Torquewrench]

Now back at home again to finish off my sleeper retaining wall. The difference in level is only about a foot but we wanted something to last. The vertical posts go 4 foot deep into solid clay so no chance of this ever moving.

[Flying Torquewrench]

And the front. Few plants in front of it and nobody will see it.

[solarman216]

Well here we are digging drains by an airline pilot who is also an aircraft engineer, what else can you do? , Rick

[Flying Torquewrench]

As I previously said, I am not your average airline pilot. I set up my own groundworks company a few years ago but didn’t do that much with it. Since I temporarily lost the engineering side of my job through Covid I put more time into the business. I now do a mixture of operating my own gear or operate a digger for another company during sickness or holiday. Quite enjoy driving a digger for a day/week, as long as I got some music to listen to.

Anyway I didn’t start this topic to talk about myself!! What is everybody else doing Today at Work?! Don’t be shy.

[solarman216]

Well yesterday a restaurant that I have done a lot of work for rang to say the walk in fridge was at 18 deg C, not good, with a very large value meat stock, so that was quickly distributed to alternative coolers, this system has a leak that we have been unable to trace so it is a fairly regular thing to top it up, so shot down with some gas etc, but soon discovered that gas was not the problem, the low side was far too high when running so connected the high side gauge and that was far too low, the return which should be cold was warm which suggested the inlet valve on the compressor had failed = nothing I could do on a Sunday.

Up at 8 am this morning to contact my supplier but as of noon no joy with a complete condensing unit (my preferred option as I suspect the leak could be in the condenser coil unit) so only other option was a replacement compressor, which meant dragging my oxy/propane gear to site, big bottles etc, while customer was driving miles to collect compressor I was stripping out the old one, pig of a job as had to erect a small platform in order to be at a good working height, and the bally wind got up which makes de brazing copper to copper joints difficult with a small flame, yes I could up the flame but other stuff in close proximity inhibits that, in fact one pipe I had to cut off at the face of the compressor as there was just not enough space to lift the pipe out, while waiting for the new one I needed to know what was the problem with the old one so out came Mr mini angle grinder and off with his head.

And after stripping it down found indeed that the inlet reed strip had failed, as in pic, new unit installed and gassed up by 4 pm, Rick