Saturday, September 27, 2008

Can't control the weather ... but you can get space age polymers ...

I hadn't anticipated how frequently flight school would need rescheduling. The weather, despite having been amazingly consistent all summer, simply isn't cooperating. I'm not complaining, just learning to accept this as another dimension of the project. I'll likely have to continue switching around days to fly. I was supposed to go up last Thursday but the weather was terrible. Now I'm set for tomorrow and the weather at this point looks a bit iffy. So we'll see.

On another note, I am the proud owner of some incredible space age polymers: my new cast! It was amazing to watch my doctor put it on. He pulled out this tiny little bag with a blue spool of fiberglass (or whatever this magical stuff is), ran it under some water, then wrapped it around the gauze already positioned on my wrist and arm. In less than five minutes the wrap was hard as as rock. Amazing. There is no doubt in my mind that this technology has come to us from aerospace composite material research.


Sorry, my cell phone doesn't take the best images, but it's all I've got for now. I want more of this stuff. You could make anything out of it. I could, for example, make my very own little mechanical Iron Man (or Fiberglass Man) suit. Oh, and I checked with CFC, it seems as though I can in fact fly with a broken hand. Well, at least I can *try* to fly with a broken hand and not violate any FAA rules.

If only I could attach a wrist mounted rocket launcher to my arm, then we'd have some real fun. Yeah. ;-)

1 comment:

Lissa said...

Yikes, I'm sure that you and Troy could come up will all sorts of things to do with that stuff! As long as it isn't involved in drinks as I'm sure it's not food safe.