Mile High Mission
Jeff and I arrived in Denver last night and headed out to the hotel in Loveland. Nothing that exciting other than the usual dramas of flying commercial. Shoes off, laptop out, belt off, full body scan, and a full pat down just for good measure. Can I tell you how much I want to have the Raptor flying.
Got a great price on the ticket only to find out that even a carry on bag was an up charge of $30. Seat assignment ahead of time was between $13 and $35. Soda was $3.99 and a mixed drink was $12. Water for me thanks. No wonder everyone thinks that flying is expensive. You get anywhere near an airport and the price of everything goes up like we’re in a country with out of control inflation. I still don’t understand why, other than greed.
This morning we were up bright and early for a short trip to the shop where our new CNC machine was waiting for us to run it through it’s paces.
Above you can see it going through a few motions. It’s a beast and you can’t appreciate from the video or pictures how formidable it really is. The top of the bridge is 11 feet high. The arm holding the head is 8 feet long and is operated with compressed air and so it makes a cool sound each time it drops, kind of like a waste gate on a turbo. Sorry, geeking out on our new toy.
We spent a couple of hours disconnecting all the cables and air hoses. Tomorrow morning the semi is arriving and we’ll have it in pieces and loaded up ready for the trip to Atlanta. With any luck we’ll be unloading it on Friday.
It’s going to take a few days to get it correctly aligned and ready for duty. After that we’ll start figuring out how to get a tool path on it and eventually the first plug will be milled from polystyrene foam. Exciting times ahead.
