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A 1,000-ton barge rammed into a pier supporting an aging bridge over Florida's Apalachicola Bay last week, delighting civil engineers, who plan to ram it a dozen more times.
Depending on your job, it isn't often that you get real-life data to work with. These structural engineers are loving life right now, getting to study the effects of bridge and boat collisions. With the goal of improving national construction standards, of course. I watch NASCAR for the racing too.
When stationed in Germany as part of the US Air Force, I'd heard that the runways at Ramstein AB were going to be redone. Part of the plan was to let pilots blow hell out of things with live ordnance (great training), followed by Prime Beef teams repairing the runways afterwards (more great training). This was supposed to go on for some time as aircrews were rotated in for the chance to actually blow something up for real.
I transferred back to the States before that happened. Did it? If it did, I bet it was a great show.
Posted by Ted at April 5, 2004 02:26 PM