Avionics News November 2015 - 70
MY LIFE IN AVIONICS PART 5 Continued from page 69 learn. It was a toy, and she told me I should get the best I could if I was serious about computers. I bit the bullet and purchased a system with four floppy drives and a $3,000 daisy wheel printer. There were no hard drives yet. My first hard drive cost me $150 for 10 megabytes. I thought there should be a way to do a weight and balance on the computation and began to write a program in basic that would do it. Then I proceeded to try and sell it. I also thought there should be a program to quote the time for an installation. I wrote that program in an afternoon, then another one that would complete a 337 form. Mitchell liked them so much he bought enough to give each AEA member shop a copy. When Windows came out, the programs fizzled. I wrote one in a Windows format that would ask a series of questions, and the program was able to tell you what your cost of operation is for each hour you are open. I was focusing on other things then and didn't push that one, although every shop should have it. During this time period, Loran-C was the thing to have. Many manufacturers introduced their models. I sold a man who owned a converted LST military landing craft a Loran-C. He was in the deep-sea diving business. He had a contract to remove some oil-well heads in the Channel Islands that were ripping fishermen's nets. The cost of using a company that went on board to locate the heads was $4,000 a day. I told him I could do it with a Loran-C mounted on his boat. They hired me to go to sea with them to find the heads. One morning, I got sick drinking coffee made with reclaimed sea water, making it to the stern just in time. When that passed, I looked at the list of well-head positions and noticed they were in minutes and seconds. Then I noticed the Loran-C positions were listed in minutes and tenths of minutes. With a calculator on a small table in the rolling sea, I somehow managed to convert the positions so we would be able to find the heads. The Loran-C had two rows of numbers (latitude and longitude), and you needed both to be on spot to have your location. Try that with currents and wind speeds fighting you all the way. Finally, I used two pieces of masking stuck to the A GlobalParts Group Company Come see us at NBAA 2015 Booth #C7324 Your Part. Our Services. Mechanical * Hydraulic * Brakes * Oxygen Bottles * Pneumatic * Structural * Electrical 1.316.733.9240 I www.globalparts.aero 70 avionics news * november 2015