Over the years...

Reminds me of a time when we were surveying along side the railroad and a caboose was "parked" and line was going through it. We tried to move it, did not work! I guess we did not know how the brake was set?

Probably real good that somebody from the RR did not see us, messing with the caboose.

Keith

Sure. You go messin' with some gal's caboose and someone's gonna get hurt.

You got that right!

This has nothing to do with surveying, but the ride in the Blackhawk brought this to mind.

I was in my plane departing Norfolk, VA, and noticed that 4 of the Navy's big carriers were tied up in port - a rare site to see 4 at once. But I digress. I've always dreamed of landing on a carrier so I asked the air traffic controller for permission to do a touch and go on one of them. He said sure, go ahead. Needless to say I thought the better of it and kept on course to come home.

But it sure would have been fun! That is until I got shot down.

> I've asked people to move a lot of things, out of my line of site, cars, trucks, campers...kinda boring stuff.
>
> todays conversation went like this:
>
> Me: Hey, how you doin' today.
>
> Worker: Fine
>
> Me: Cool, hey listen Mike V. said if I needed something moved you were the guy I needed to see.
>
> Worker: Oh? sure..what you need moved?
>
> Me: um...well can you move thatsecond blackhawk helicopter, it right in my line of site?
>
> Worker(pilot): Sure...hey you wanna go for a ride in it?
>
> Me: What???!!! real...
>
> Pilot: Sorry buddy, just kiddin'
>
> Me:Darn
>
>
> Besides my obvious disappointment, I've never asked somebody to move a helicopter!

Working out at Sikorsky again.:-X They have some interesting things going on out there at Stratford.
B-)

[sarcasm]What is a caboose?[/sarcasm] I don't see them on the trains.

caboose?

Yep, Scotland, no more cabooses.

Hmmm....not as cool as a helicopter, but; We were doing a survey with long traverse lines through commercial and residential areas. (Back in the 80's.) 1000' and longer legs. We laid out the traverse and I was turning angles (and clipping on an edm and measuring distances). I set on one tripod and turned the angles, unclipped the t2 and we left a backsight. A range pole on top of the tribrach. Moved forward and I started looking for my back sight. Searched and searched. (I was an experienced gunner). Crew chief got all po'd and kept haranging me. Finally he said "I'll find it". He searched for only a minute or two and said "there it is" and walked away in a huff. I looked through the gun and he had spotted some fence post with flagging on it. (okay I had to say that...served him right).

I finally found it. I found the very tip of the range pole - not more than an inch or two, above a brand new wall that had been erected up. We were shooting across a construction site. Between the time we turned angles from one set up, and moved to the next one, they had put up a wall on our line of site. (No I didn't go tell them they had to move the house)

One two different occasions I have asked that the end of buildings be removed to the steel to be able to get alignment correct for building piers on a mall extension and for a power turbine addition.

The baselines were in already. There was no control left for the center lines of the structures.

Both requests were met with total objection, we left the sites, only to be called back on a later date when they were told the same by everyone they contacted.

BTW, a fond memory of my oldest son is his end of mission ride from a mountain in Iraq to base in a blackhawk helicopter.

B-)