Broken Part Security Blanket

This little battered scrap of metal
A pseudo-triangle of aluminum
A bit tattered at one end
Is my job in a microcosm

Flashlight in one hand
A rag in the other
I'd found this little beauty on an engine pylon
Not the most important piece of metal
But it's part of the airplane
And it was damaged
So I'd written it down

It's an easy fix
Only an official Boeing drawing away
To find the material spec
And the dimensions

That combined with the mostly intact sample part
Makes for a fine fabrication
All written up proper and signed off after installation
It looks like new up there
The brand new little pseudo-triangle
Riveted in place with brand new rivets

Which leaves me here at the desk
Idly playing with this now useless old damaged piece
With a shiny smooth spot that my fingers like to touch
It feels satin-y

I wish everything in life was as easy to fix as this piece of metal
To just excise the bad part
Consult the proper drawing
And fabricate the new part
Installing with standard practices

Looked at in that light
My job is easy
It adheres to a fixed set of rules and criteria
With techniques that are known and must be followed

All of which leaves you with a shiny airworthy aircraft
Safe to use for flight

Life isn't as easy
The points of data always seem to move about
Everyone has a different idea of how to do things
And you never know if it's safe to proceed

The little broken part feels good in my hand
I think I'll take it home
A small reassurance that not everything is hard to figure out
That maybe there is hope for life after all

The Smokeless Mirrors of Progress

I took a video of a customer's Beoing 767 today

I had barely heard it taxiing out to the runway
It's engines were so quiet
The two General Electric CF-6's sounding so far away
Almost like they weren't even fired up

I drove my car across the ramp
To the taxiway turn-off
So that I could watch the plane takeoff
On the runway only three hundred yards away
My iPhone at the ready
Video camera mode engaged

The brilliant looking silver and maroon aircraft turned square with the runway
Spooled up it's barely heard engines
And began picking up speed
With no fuss whatsoever
It's front wheel becoming light as it passed perpendicular to me
Leaving the ground entirely a few seconds later

The details of the plane grew fuzzy as it pulled away
Climbing at what seemed to be about a 30 degree angle
Very faint black smoke trailing behind it
Marking it's path through the air
Until it was just a dot in the blue cloudless sky

I turned off the camera
And reflected on how uneventful it all was

I don't mean that I wish something bad had happened
No

It just made me wistful for the older aircraft
The DC-8's
The 707's
That always made such a production out of takeoffs

Usually pulling onto the runway and stopping
Brakes set hard
Spooling up all four engines until it felt that the earth was shaking
Black smoke bellowing out behind them
Before releasing the brakes and rolling
Gathering themselves for an eventual leap into the sky
A desperate grab for the stratosphere
Propelled by the crackling barely contained turbine explosions
Happening in quartet under their wings
The deep dark black smoke trails lingering for long minutes after their departure
And sooty marks on the ground at the start of the runway
Where they had spooled up their engines before rollout
Marking their presence as a dog pisses on a hydrant

There is an engineless DC-8 out on this very ramp
Resplendent in sleek styling
Various air intakes and exhaust all over it's fuselage
Things that the new jets don't require

It's waiting for the recycler's chop
To be turned into scrap in just another dumpster
It's only crime that of age
And to have lived long past it's predicted life

Another ghost for the concrete ramp of the Air Base to collect
Another mark on the bedpost of progress
But I don't have to like it
So I don't