1, 2, 3 Technical Visits and the 4th of July in Toulouse

Bonjour!

Well I was able to sleep in until about noon on Sunday since our optional visit to another small city in the Basque Country wasn’t until 2pm. I am very happy that I did go because it was a very nice beach spot with several scenic areas. Since we were there for only a few hours, I opted to walk around the water to get to the hill on the other side of the bay. Before heading out on that trek, most of us got an ice cream from a local vendor that ended up being extremely good. On the way we also ran into about a dozen dogs that just made me miss my dogs back home, but it won’t be too much longer until I get to see them. As we kept walking the clouds kept getting darker, but luckily it never rained and even got sunny at random intervals. We ended up climbing to the top of the hill to see that there are trails that lead all along the coast. There were barriers at the opening of the bay that I guess serve to break up some of the bigger waves, but we were able to get some nice pictures of waves crashing over them. As we were climbing back down, we found a staircase that lead to big rocks that you could walk on and get down to the wave barrier. I didn’t want to fall in since I had some valuable stuff with me, so I decided to stay away from that. Some of us did go out that way after handing off valuables to other people, but I guess some of them were close to losing their footing as waves crashed over the barrier. Anyways, we all survived and headed back to the meeting point. We arrived a bit sooner than expected, so we checked out the town and found some kind of festival going on. Everyone was wearing a red or black neckerchief and there we young girls doing a dance similar to flamingo dancing. After checking that area out for a bit, we headed for the bus to go back to Biarritz. It was a bit late, so I headed out with some friends to get find a Mexican restaurant they had found online. I have to say it was amazing to have something a little different for dinner and it was even better to have Mexican food. I must say that their version of Mexican food is a lot like the American version of Mexican food. We then went back to the hotel, and I decided to go for a soak in the tub to try and help the mosquito bites that I had gotten by leaving my window open the night before. We had two technical visits tomorrow anyways, so it was probably good to turn in early.





















On Monday, we had to be up around 6am so we could make it to the Messier-Dowty Bidos Plant by 9am. Messier-Dowty is mainly a landing gear manufacturer for most types of the commercial aircrafts. They’ve provided landing gear for all of the Airbus models, several helicopters, and now the Boeing 787. It was a pretty impressive visit just because we were able to see the raw material for the landing gear shafts which are the size of any adult, but after machining they lose about 70% of their weight. We were even shown the different processes that the parts go through to improve fatigue life such as heat treatments and chromium coatings. We then got back on the bus to head towards our next visit to Turbomeca. Although we ended up stopping in a small village to have a sack lunch the program provided. We had a bit of time to explore the city, and I stumbled upon some sort of hydroelectric plant. Sadly, we didn’t get to see much else since not much is open on Mondays, but we didn’t have a lot of time to do exploring since we needed to make it to our next visit by 1:30. Turbomeca mainly produces engines for helicopter manufacturers such as Eurocopter. We were able to take a pretty in depth tour into where they fabricate many of their parts. We were even allowed to watch a laser drill about 1000 holes that were about a millimeter in diameter. As with Messier-Dowty, we had to don steel toe covers to put over our shoes to prevent injury during the tour. They were quite interesting mainly because they didn’t want to stay on my feet, so I’d have to readjust them every time we stopped, but at least I learned I’m somewhere between a 40 and 44 in European sizes. After the tour we went back to Biarritz for our last night on the coast. It was a very long day, so I called it a night after a quick sandwich by the beach.












Sadly, it was another early morning on Tuesday so we could make it back to Toulouse in time for lunch and an afternoon class covering the aerodynamics of propulsion systems. It was about a 4 hour bus ride, and thankfully I slept most of the way. We got back just in time to throw our stuff in our rooms and head to lunch. After class, I went back to my room to unpack which is never fun at least for me. After that I just went to dinner and tried writing my paper on Messier-Dowty.

Wednesday was another day of aerodynamics followed by French and lunch. In the afternoon, we had a presentation on the European Union (EU) by a woman who’s spent a lot of time studying the organization. I have to say I learned a few things about European politics that I didn’t realize especially about the controversy of adding Turkey to the EU who has been in the application stage for the past 50 years. We even had a mock debate about that topic as we were split up into groups and given a country to represent. For instance, France is against the entry of Turkey since France has a high Algerian population which dislikes Turkey due to human rights violations against their people. Germany is for the entry of Turkey because Turkey has a large youth population. This seem like it would be simple, but with decisions this big, any EU country has the power to veto the application. It was interesting to see just how complicated foreign politics can get when each country has its own agenda.

For Thursday, we again had aerodynamics and French. We also had a technical visit to ATR in the afternoon. ATR is a manufacturer of regional turboprop aircrafts. They have only two models, but they are releasing the 600 version of each model within the next year. I must say that turboprop technology has come a long way, and I can understand why they are a big competitor for regional jet aircraft manufacturers.

















Sadly, I forgot my camera, but Pooja, a fellow U of M student was nice enough to send me her ATR photos.

Well we had our last class of aerodynamics for the week on Friday morning. We still have two more lectures next week, but Friday was the beginning of our 3 day weekend. After lunch we had another presentation, but this one was over the history of aviation. He was a very knowledgeable man that corrected a lot of us on our facts. For instance, I think of the first flight as being by the Wright Brothers on December 17, 1903, but historians actually consider that a hop similar to hops done by the French. The true first flight which consisted of taking off, turning, and landing was done on the Wright Flyer II in November of 1904. I guess people can argue about the true meaning of flight, but I guess if we go with the 1903 lift, it’s less impressive than earlier lifts performed in France. It was at least fun to hear that they is still some debate between historians and the aeronautical community. He also covered many milestones that are overlooked in a lot of textbooks such as the first supersonic flight by a German rocket which then lead to the inspiration for the Chuck Yeager flight.

As it was my first day of absolutely nothing in quite some time, I enjoyed sleeping in. I eventually decided I should get up and start catching up on some of the papers that will be due in the next week. I also went into town with a friend who also stayed in Toulouse over the break to go to a grocery store. It sucks that we don’t have a refrigerator, but junk food works for me. We also decided that to celebrate the 4th of July, we would try to find some American things to do.

Happy 4th of July! Well we had to celebrate it somehow since we knew we weren’t going to get fireworks. The best we could come up with on short notice was going to the movie theater to see a movie in English and having Domino’s Pizza for dinner. I’ll admit it sounds kind of boring, but it was a good time. Only the A-Team and Shrek 4 were playing in English, so we opted for the funnier of the two, Shrek 4 in 3-D. I have to say I wasn’t expecting it to be that good since Shrek 3 sucked, but we both had a really good time, plus it was fun to read the French subtitles and figure out how comedy translates. We even got to enjoy popcorn which comes in sweet (caramelized) or salty. Afterwards, we walked down to the nearest Domino’s to have dinner. The menu isn’t exactly like the US menu, but they still had a pizza with meat on it so I was good. Overall, it wasn’t exactly how I normally spend my 4th of July, but it was still a fun time.

Well we still have one more free day before classes begin, but I also just realized I only have 20 more days left in France. There’s still a lot left to come in those 20days, but I’m sure it will go by very quick just as these last weeks have. I’ll post again sometime next week, but I’m not sure when since I’ll be spending 5 days in Spain. I promise I’ll make it worth the wait.

See you later!