JosephH

No one has ever built a structure remotely this complex or large using these design, material, or manufacturing technologies. The Dreamliner team also didn't make the big call they were saddle with on divvying the plane substructures up to different countries and subcontractors for sales/political reasons; they also have no control over Boeing's supply chain management. Both the team and Boeing management are learning what works and what doesn't in the process. The composite and design technology development and use over the course of the project has been nothing short of stunning and have greatly advanced the state of numerous arts. The planes' final delivery date isn't the priority - rushing Dreamliners out the door could have been done, but it would have come at the expense of getting the overall buid processes ironed out. And overcoming the fundamental and unavoidable shortcomings of the decision to farm major assemblies out, and distributed supply chain control nightmares associated with it, is part and parcel with those decisions - decisions made by Boeing execs and imposed on the Dreamliner team.

You'd have to check in with Bill Coe and his partners for the naked climbing action - I'm sure he's posted it up here somewhere several times now - besides, I don't even own any roller skates.

Not at all, the project has been exceedingly well managed and those managers have been given the authority to push back the schedule to get it right. The problems have mostly been with structural analysis of mated assemblies across large scale joints - scaling up the structural analyses. At every step of the way they do physical tests to validate and verify their models, and that allows them to hone the software. But it's an iterative cycle that takes a few times through the hoops to get right. I take the fact they've delayed delivery several times now as a very good thing and a sign the project is being well managed.

It's a great project and has pushed the boundaries of how large manufactured structures are designed. An amazing amount of software has been advanced due to the Dreamliner which has been entirely computer-designed. That experience certainly hasn't been flawless, the structure analysis software has been a work in progress relative to analysis of larger and larger composite structures and assemblies. The feedback loop from design > analysis > manufacture and back to design and analysis has brought us leaps forward in our capabilities to design, build, and assemble large structures with computer models alone. That the first significant project of this scale has had to go through the loop a few times is to be expected - and the real payoff won't be with the Dreamliner itself, but rather the designs that follow it.

I only have a stance that could be classified as sitting about a quarter of the time. Sitting is in no way a necessary stance for a good hip belay which dependent on the stancing available. A single non-locking biner through the harness loops clipped to the rope going to the climber is all that is require to make the belay 'omni-directional'. If the rope is anywhere near your kidneys you aren't doing a hip belay, you're doing a stomach belay. The rope should stay down on your hips (just under your harness loops), it should never be above the top of your hip bones. I teach well-stanced hip belays in all sorts of stances - sitting, standing, and everything inbetween depending on what's available for the best stance. A munter is a suck thing to do to a rope; I would never use one for anything whatsoever except in a rescue scenario. Depends on how you tie them, the way we always did they are entirely comfortable. Phillip has seen the green harness enough so we'll spare him, but sometimes I still have to skip a harness if I'm just visiting or wander onto the scene of someone working a problem as a tourist. Last time I was in the New York with my wife and daughter it wasn't a climbing trip, it was an NYC / Broadway trip, but I talked them into a drive to the Gunks and a walk on the sulky trails and around the grounds of the Mowhonk Mountain House. In the course of the walk we stopped watched some folks working a roof problem and I eventually asked if I could have a quick ride on it. They looked at me quizzedly and said, 'but you don't have any gear...?' - no problem. Barefoot, tied in to the end of the rope, and no chalk to do it. Comes in handy sometimes and is also plenty comfortable to fall, hang, and lower in. Phillip, you should come out with me sometime and give the new route a look...

Haven't gone over to look. Each of the past two falls when I've been in whatever constituted my "best shape" of the year I've been working on roofs at Beacon. Will have to make a point of stopping to check it out this year. Given I've lost my FA partner to Eldo recently I am looking for a new partner to tackle the ongoing project roofs; anyone intersted and completely confident with their [marginal and unknown] trad skills way off the deck in the .11+/.12- range should pm me. (P.S. Gotta dash and go climbing...)

So do you clip a bolt before every significant move?

In thirty five years of climbing I've never done a tandem rappel or had any need to do one. And tie-off or escape a belay? No more trouble than with a belay device.

I was recently told the wasps weren't a problem on Jill's. Maybe they just meant they didn't get stung. Who knows, maybe it's a wasp-based personality test.

All the folks I've taken out to Beacon recently, for whom it was their first time ever climbing, all learned to hip belay. In each case we did the S.E. Face with six nuts, eight trad draws, and one non-locking biner each as a belay device. In the course of each climb they had to hold multiple unexpected falls. Had I attempted to teach them with a belay device of any kind I would have been constantly choked and strangled while trying to climb and the belay wouldn't have been nearly as assured. Belay devices are, and always were, highly over-rated.

Well, it least it gets climbed (Edit: more often than my climbs...).

Love Goldsworthy, but no, they're not - they are only 'owned' by those who end up interested and willing enough to attempt to climb them.

My climbs are me, but I am not my climbs.

Give a shout if it ever looks like you're going to be in PDX...

Like I said, what if all the alpine classics had fixed lines?

No need. My climbs are a mold of myself; if people don't fit that mold they probably they probably won't like or climb my routes.

Well, they way things are, sure - no doubt. But choices were made along the way; choices I for one, and maybe just one which is fine, think were ill-advised. What I guess is the 85% of the demographic which is wholly sustained by bolts is a direct consequence of those choices.

That, we don't have to ever worry about. No stars for Joey.

Good piggy! You hit the nail on the head. I now typically drive out to Beacon past somewhere between 6-18 cars at Ozone. I works quite well in that respect. If it weren't available they'd be burning gas driving to Smith so I guess you can say that Ozone was green-bolted.

Just got my Sawzall batteries re-built and it is available on a loaner basis for worthy causes. Send Old Larry aiding up there or rapping in with an assist and he'll get it out for you.

No, I'd say more like ego maniacs building attempting to build a reputation under the guise of 'community service'. Anyone getting on my routes is more likely to rave at me than about me.

Bill, pretty much my main consideration on Menopause has been protecting it at the minimum level necessary to still be able to find someone sufficiently lunatic enough to climb it with me. Since Shane left for Boulder I'm scouting again for someone to come up and help me with the next roof. Though I guess I will concede to having swapped a couple of fixed pins for Crack'N Ups and small ballnuts on LW - must have been a moment of weakness.

Off, you are correct. My intent in climbing has always been entirely selfish and self-serving - I climb for no one but myself and the fewer climbers the better. BITD we started and went climbing in no small part to escape the mindless suburban horde; in our wildest dreams it never would have occured to us to invite them all climbing, or to create vertical environments where bimbos can be entertained. We liked it very much that the hordes didn't climb. Does that sound harsh...? P.S. How do you think all the alpine folk would feel about fixed lines up all the Cascade classics...?

Ask Bill Coe what he thinks on the health care topic. He's one of the owners of a small business. It would be good to hear his level of satisfaction or disatisfaction with the current health care system. I'm self-employed and the current system sucks. But then I felt it also sucked when I was employed by a large corporation as well.

If it's just the tail cover that got torn then hit it with a wrap of sport tape and you're good to go. If it's the actual sling proper that's torn toss it. The other thing to be aware of with skinny' Mammut slings is they're only good for two or three seasons of reasonable use and then they should be tossed as they will have lost around half their tested strength at that point.