After I had to close the pottery, after working with Earth, Fire, and Water, I decided to work with Air, and became a Wind Turbine Maintenance Engineer. It's a very responsible post, as without these things there would be no wind....
The top picture's me and my little brother, fitting a new wind-speed sensor assembly on the top of a turbine.
The dark blobs and streaks on the tower were due to premature failure of the seals meant to hold grease in.
We had to hire a big cherrypicker to get up there with a hot pressure-washer and scrubbing brushes...
Oh, and the bearings all got replaced, needing a very big crane on site. The cherry-picker guy chickened out because we were getting pushed about so much by the wind, which cost us an extra couple of days.
damn, that's unbelievable! i guess you were not scared of heights. seems to me that soon this experience will be in really high demand although maybe i've go the scale wrong. i see semis on the highway carrying one long blade of a wind turbine but it doesn't seem as long as the one in your picture. maybe because it's only one on the truck but that one you and your brother are standing on looks massive.
ReplyDeleteThe single blades on these are a bit over fifty feet each.
Delete33 metre rotational diameter.
I guess a head for heights is a prerequisite for that job. Amazing pictures.
ReplyDeleteNot so much a head, as the legs for heights. Like an everest of ladder climbing. And a long way to go if you left the screwdriver you need in a bag at the bottom. I was a lot fitter, back then. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteA friend's just retired from the air force and signed on for offshore windfarm maintenance. I'm jealous. I'll bet the view from the top of one of those offshore giants is mind-boggling.