Seventy feet
Give or take a few feet
The Boeing 747 was on jacks and shoring
So that height is just a suggestion
This man lift is an eighty footer
So to reach the top of the vertical stab
It wasn't pointing straight up
Quite
But it sure felt like it
We are looking quite chic in our black plastic trash bag ponchos
They aren't really doing a damn thing to keep out the rain that is swirling around us
Or the chill of the fifty degree wet day
Lightning flashes not that far away
We both look at each other
Thinking how fucked up this really is
Thunder rolls over us
I'd absentmindedly counted the seconds after the flash
Four
My daddy told me that meant the lightning was about four miles away
Give or take some windage error
What's that rule of thumb for aircraft personnel on the ramp?
Ten miles
If there's lightning within ten miles
You should get the fudge off that ramp
But in our case it had seemed smart to saddle up an eighty footer
And go up as high as it could
With tools
And little brains
The wind rocked the basket
Sending my stomach into weightless orbit
I grabbed the 'oh shit' handle below the controls a little harder
My other hand still relentlessly working the boom controls
We were almost there
My partner grasped the vertical stab cap with a death grip
The wind kept grabbing it's concave side
Trying to tear it away from him
It stuck up almost four feet above the lip of the basket
Taller than either one of us
Looking roughly like a small canoe with one end rounded
The other end coming to a point
Finally up next to the, for now, stump top of the vertical
We both wrestled the cap into place
It only took about five minutes
It felt like five hours
It felt like I fell over and over with every gust of wind
Every drop of rain that fell on us making my grip that much slipperier on the cap
My fingers were going numb
Finally we got the edges of the cap over the mount flanges
I stood on the first rail of our basket
Both hands firmly planted on top of that cap
Lest it take it into it's head to blow away
My partner grabbed his screw gun to get a few fasteners started
It was in this pose
Standing like some kind of want to be hero
Wind swirling, rain pounding mercilessly
Another lightning flash illuminating us
That I looked down
Almost straight down
And saw the Boss
He was riding in a company Crown Vic
Stopped just below us
Leaned forward in the front passenger seat
Face turned upwards
It was funny almost
I was seventy feet up
And I could still see how pissed off he was
The front windshield a picture frame for his angry face
He leaned back out of my sight
But I could see his hands moving
He liked to talk with his hands when he was agitated
And suddenly being up here felt like an even worse idea
Six screws in on the left
I took my hands off the cap and stepped back down into the basket
Almost slipping off the rail as I did so
I grabbed the controls again and swung us out a few feet
Rotated a few feet over
And dropped us back up against the stab on the other side of the vertical
Had to put some screws in on this side too
It's strange how my fear of heights is relative
Relative to how close to something I am
I can be almost comfortable at almost any height
As long as I'm right next to something
Whether it's something that actually adds safety
Or not
But swing me out away from anything
Even only eight feet up
And suddenly all I can think is how I"m about to fall
The brain is a strange thing
I helped this time
So we had the six anchor screws in quickly
That's when our lead came out of the hangar
Waving his arms at us
Gesturing for us to come down
He seemed upset
I don't know why
He's the one who had us come up here to begin with
I retracted the boom slowly
The large links on the cable guide clinking and kachunking into place
Hitting the stop
I jammed the joystick into the down arrow
The boom swung down
The diesel engine spinning merrily
Not giving a damn about the storm around it
Upon getting to the ground our lead was shaking his head
"You guys just got me in trouble
What were you thinking going up there in this weather?"
My partner and I looked at each other, and explained
"You told us to go do that"
Out Lead got a pained look, like he had gas
"You should be smarter than that though"
Then he walked away
Needless to say, we didn't go back up there right away to finish the job
The both of us went to the back of the hangar
To the little room where the power converter unit for the aircraft was located
A large ground generator looking affair
It had a huge cooling fan on one end of it
There was a constant stream of hot air that come of of the grill
We stripped off most of our clothes
We stood in front of the hot air flow in our underwear and t-shirts
Smoked a few cigarettes
Talked about how stupid this all was
But then, like Forrest Gump said
"Stupid is, as stupid does"
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