T1B

I inspected a 1MW wind turbine earlier this week. This isn't really much of a PET, but I got a few pictures that were pretty cool.

Believe it or not, these are not B&W. It was just cloudy and getting ready to rain.

Each blade is about 100 ft long, and the tower is about 200 ft tall. This is not even nearly the largest one in production.

Wind Turbine from the Outside.





Wind Turbine from the Inside.

what does inspecting one of these things entail? do you climb up and look the generator over?

Luckily, no. This is the first one of these that I've done but I don't have to go up. I've heard that some of the larger ones have elevators inside. If I get to do one of those, maybe I'll ask to go up.

I just check out the controls, transformers, output meters and interconnection to the main electrical service. All on the ground. I've been pretty high up on some cement plant pre-heat towers, though.





It's kind of disorienting when your floor you're walking on is a metal grate and you can see the ground through it a couple hundred feet below, even though there are hand rails and stuff.

Just takes a little acclimating. The first time I went up on the mast to work on a radar dish on the JFK, I was shitting myself. After a while I was running around up there like it was nothing.

Somewhere on the way to El Bumfuck Centro?

Diego in Seattle wrote:Somewhere on the way to El Bumfuck Centro?

The wind turbine is in Riverside County.

The cement plant is in Victorville. Been to other cement plants in Lucerne Valley, Mojave, Tehachapi and Lebec. All the garden spots.

Nice PET, Mikey. Brevity is the soul of wit.