But You Can Teach a Monkey - 203

 Bravely Looking Forward

The speed, scope and scale of societal, economic, and cultural change has made the past seemingly irrelevant, and the future uncertain. I might also add, both mainstream media and social media exacerbate these uncertainties causing anxiety.

Since I read science magazines, I take comfort in the progress being made by scientists to solve our problems. In the past ten years the cost of solar panels has decreased 90% while improving 90%. Wind turbine technology has been on an equal tear making it the cheapest form of industrial power. We are the beneficiaries of an energy race, the race to be the clean and efficient energy source.

Recently I read a chapter on technologies being developed to keep wind turbines turning by improving maintenance technology.  At first, I was dumbfounded such progress was possible but then I thought back to my career in helicopters and realized I was a witness to rapid change in wind turbine technology.

When you have something revolving rapidly such as a wind turbine or helicopter blades you must make sure they are balanced. The example we are all familiar with is balancing our tires. If one side of a tire is heavier than another the tires vibrate making the ride noisy, the tires wear uneven, and sometimes even shake car parts to pieces.

It is the same with the blades on a helicopter, or a wind turbine.

With helicopters we call it tracking and balancing. Much of my time as a pilot was spent working with the mechanics as they tried to smooth out the ride.

When I first started flying the fix was a bit primitive. The whole rotor system was balanced by taking it off and balancing it by adding or removing weights to the blades. The rotor system was reattached, and the helicopter pulled out on the ramp.

Then the blades had to be checked to make sure they flew in the same plane. The mechanic put different colored grease pencil marks on the end of each blade. Then the pilot cranked up the engine and set the revolutions at operating speed.

Here is where it gets a little dicey. The mechanic had a long vertical pole with two short horizontal pipes sticking out from the pole. He strung a piece of flagging cloth between the pipes. He then planted one end to the pole on the ground just beyond the outside edge of the whirling rotors.  Carefully he raised the flagging until it just barely encountered the rotors.

I still get nervous thinking about it as any mistake and there could have been a mess on the ramp.

After the blade ends struck the cloth, the mechanic inspected the cloth to see how close the marks were to each other. By measuring the distance between the different colored marks and consulting the maintenance manual the mechanic figured out how many turns he had to make on the pitch change links, and/or how many degrees he needed to raise or lower the blade trim tabs.

This procedure was repeated over and over until the chopper flew smooth, or should I say, smoother?

Eventually, technological innovations made the mechanic’s life easier and safer. Tabs were attached to the end of the blades with different angled reflective metal strips. The mechanic simply shot a timing light out the window and could see which blade was flying high or low. He then went into the book and calculated the turns and angles.

Still later mechanics mounted sensors on the helicopter and shot the revolving blades with a timing light. The sensors fed data directly into a computer with the blade tracking entered by the mechanic. By entering a little data and then hitting “enter” the computer spit out the number of turns to make on the pitch change links or angles to bend on the trim tabs or weights to add or subtract.

This was the technology ten years ago!

The goal of this technology was twofold. First the operation became safer and second it dramatically shortened the time smoothing out the rotor system. An educated mechanic* could get the job done safer and faster, making him more effective.

Additionally, from a pilot’s point of view, it took far fewer boring starts to wrap up the maintenance.  More importantly, the new technology produced a smoother ride resulting in less trips to the dentist to fix loose fillings.

How does this relate to Wind Turbines? Maintenance on Wind Turbines is 40% of the cost to operate them. I am sure all the same technology used to make a helicopter fly smooth is being used to keep a wind turbine running smoothly too.

Today the wind turbine mechanic is getting a high-tech helper. It is the “Blade Bug”, a robot which can shimmy up a wind turbine capable of detecting anomalies, conducting nondestructive testing, and completing repairs.

The makers of the Blade Bug even foresee a time when, for offshore turbines, an autonomous ship will self-deploy with an autonomous blade bug to do routine maintenance on wind farm turbines at sea.

The effort to bring us pollution free electricity is a constantly evolving business with exciting job opportunities at every turn of the blade. Scientists, engineers, mechanics, entrepreneurs, and blade bugs will be chipping away at those wind turbine costs which means our electric bill may go down, instead of up. And, without a doubt, by creating clean energy our collective health and future will continue to improve.

Since I read a lot of science about the strides being made to give us clean power, there is little doubt science has and will continue to bring us the tools we need to thrive. The only question I have is will man become wise enough to pick up these tools and use them? Will the citizens of democracies vote in the science literate politicians to incentivize the Great American Marketplace in time to save the planet? Will we even act to protect our cherished democracy?

We may not be scientists or wind turbine technicians but we have important roles in our country’s progress.

Reference book on the Blade Bug: “39 Ways to Save the Planet” by Tom Heap.

*As you can see, a mechanic must be technologically proficient.  It takes education and hands on experience to become a master of the trade. A pilot, too, must be able to hit the books and then execute. There were lots of good-natured give and take conversations between pilots and mechanics about whose job needed the greater brain power. The bottom-line comeback by mechanics, and one tough to dispute, was “But you can teach a monkey to fly!”

Before you laugh too hard about the skill level required to fly a helicopter, Israeli scientists have built a FOV (Fish Operated Vehicle). Next time you sit in awe watching NASCAR drivers on the circular track, understand scientists have taught goldfish to do the same.