Building for The Future

[workinwifdakids]

I was following until phase four... when my mouth fell open.

I'd be very, very interested in submitting a resume when the time comes.

[Steamforger]

Focus on your strengths. If it's designing. then spend your time DESIGNING, instead of overseeing everybody else. Keep a small prototype shop, for working out bugs, but when it comes time to do the 5000 piece run, call a jobshop, and let them handle it.

We relied on job shops rather heavily when the oil industry would take any kind of an upturn. We soldiered on with the precision stuff, and sent the much more simple turn and thread parts out. When the industry would settle out, we would simply stop outsourcing that work, and the employees kept a rather steady schedule of 40-70 hours per week through out the entire year.

[BadgerAZ]

Also, have you considered putting in a little pad for a helicopter? The construction is cheap and truly straightforward, and it's an easily hidden strategic asset.

I've previously worked on multiple facets of this, both for fixed-wing and rotary-wing landing facilities to serve remote locations. Two thoughts:

If you do build a helipad, I'd suggest you build it so it doesn't look like a helipad. Conventional helipads are easily visually spotted from a long way away, easily auto-detected and tagged in overhead imagery, and thereby draw possibly unwanted attention. It could be easily built to look like (and in fact be), say, a tennis court, yet still be fully usable for the purpose.

"Unwanted attention" can take many forms, both official and unofficial. In border states a common form of unwanted attention is having your facility used by people and aircraft hauling certain chemical and vegetable products from south of the border -- or north of the border, in your plan. Even if no confrontation or harm comes from it, the fact that it was used that way (easily noted and recorded via air or ground surveillance) can result in much very-unwanted attention from law enforcement, and often in very hard-to-disprove criminal drug-trafficking charges. After all, how do you prove it was totally unwanted on your part?

Second thought: Likely the most common, and perhaps most important, use of your helipad may be medevac transport to a trauma center or large-city hospital for someone at your place needing acute medical care. Plan it and build it with that in mind. That would include proper ground lighting, marker strobes, platform weight-bearing capacity, designated approaches, height vs. distance restrictions around the facility, radio capability and procedures, and other things many people don't consider when planning a private landing facility.

[JohnOC]

My criteria, as I said, are "interesting jobs, for interesting amounts of money".

"I'm Winston Wolfe, I solve problems."

[Aglifter]

I'm sure Idaho is not as bad as TX, but I know one rancher who dynamited his runway to stop having to deal w. the cartels... Would a grass strip work for your purposes?

[Combat Controller]

Well I'd jump at the chance Chris. The deal I have with the wife about emigrating to the USA is that I would have to go over on my own and break the trail first. The moving costs would be so huge ( for the horses, she's spent years building up her breeding stock ) that it would be almost like a one shot deal.
After my experience of living in Spain, in an area where almost no-one spoke a word of English, I know I could do it. Plus we have the kind of marriage that is strong enough to survive a bit of seperation.

Once I get my next venture started ( making parts for racecars and engine building ) I'm going to visit the US. Hopefully we can hook up and talk about stuff.

Drop me a line, I will hook you up with our cryo partner in France. My company does a lot of NASCAR and I have an exclusive contract with the largest fleet in the United States.

[HTRN]

We relied on job shops rather heavily when the oil industry would take any kind of an upturn. We soldiered on with the precision stuff, and sent the much more simple turn and thread parts out. When the industry would settle out, we would simply stop outsourcing that work, and the employees kept a rather steady schedule of 40-70 hours per week through out the entire year.

As somebody who got his start in an Aerospace(specifically microwave) machineshop, I can tell that's pretty much how it works in almost all the industries that use them. The idea is to have about 120% of what you can handle at all times, so if things head into the shitter, you can still make payroll, you simply cut back to regular hours(I, for example, remember one delightful little stretch where I was working 80 hours a week, in the middle of summer for several months, in a brick building without air conditioning. Joy)


HTRN

[Netpackrat]

You're going to have to change the name of the forum to The Gun Compound....

[FelixEstrella]

It's a good start.

[randy]

"Gun Commune" avoids issues with the "compound" image and the cognitive dissonance of putting those words together would have an entertaining effect on certain parts of the population.