A riveting story

Those of you who ever had to rivet something on an airplane can probably relate to this strip. I can’t say I have had the pleasure, but Mike, who had the idea for this strip, tells me that it can get quite noisy when you have to hold the rivet die (is that the correct name?) from the inside of a tail boom. But then, many things in aviation are noisy. One of the most ear piercing noises I have heard in this regard was an Alouette 3 helicopter landing about 50 feet away from where I was. Goodness gracious, great balls of fire, was the sound of that turbine sound annoying. But I was told that most older turbine engines make a similar noise. It sure is a great thing that airliners have become so much less noisy over the years!

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8 comments on “A riveting story
  1. Dick Veik says:

    Chuck would have had the “Bucking Bar”. Me thinks that his skills might be a bit wanting. Julio needs to look carefully at the “shop heads” of those rivets. No toe nails allowed…

  2. ThisGuy says:

    Pretty sure the “counterpart” of the rivet setter is called the anvil or bucking bar. And yes, that gets a “little” loud if your in a confined space. God knows how the workers of old on the dockyards had any hearing left, riveting boat hulls together day in day out.

    Be kind to your ears people. Always wear hearing protection when you think you MIGHT need it. Even a few minutes can do a lot of damage. Tinnitus sucks.

  3. Myotherplaneisapitts says:

    “What?!”
    Always the best answer when they call your name for the hearing test during medical examinations.

  4. Bernd says:

    I can relate to the turbine engine noise:
    the high-pitch whistle of the two Marboré engines on the Fouga Magister is just unbelievable. Otherwise I really like the Magister and would give an arm and a leg to be able to fly one (as pilot flying, not just as a passenger).

    The Alouette III’s Artouste engine looks a lot like a Marboré with an additional compressor stage and two additional turbine stages, but otherwise very similar, especially the shape of the combustion chamber. Both were made by Turbomeca.

  5. Fbs says:

    I doubt that julio will ever leave Chuck to hold the bucking bar while riveting. Or he will have to redo all the rivets. I wouln’t do it myself and I’m a part 66 holder. I do small repairs like patching engine baffles with the rivet gun, but never do any structural stuff. Parts cost way to much for me to take the risk of ruining them. I call real professionals that know how to do it right

    By the way, I’m not sure that the gun makes that much noise. Our air compressor makes much more 🙂

  6. JP Kalishek says:

    I have lovely tinnitis but it was one ear infection, and one REALLY loud race car that I drove (2.3 liter Ford Mustang II, open Schoenfeld header, turned to 8,500 RPM). I the rush to put it together, the oil for the transmission was not put in, so the owner cut a hole in the floor of the passenger side to access the fill plug. This turned out to be right at the exit of the collector, and the sound reverberated in the cockpit, and I first went out without earplugs.
    Ouch.
    tinnitis in the right ear.
    The car wasn’t that loud without the hole, but I normally wore plugs to better hear the other cars, though just running practice I sometimes went without with no issues.
    Until then.
    The left was an ear infection while building a racecar, before the Mustang.
    Back in my FOB days, I was wearing earplugs when I flagged in an MU2.
    When it left, I was wearing plugs AND muffs.
    jeezopete.

  7. Mike Pine Tree says:

    Regarding the AL3, i had the honour to learn to fly helicopters on those majestic 50 year old reliable little birds, and the whistle of the intake really pierces through one’s years. But i recall an old man saying for him it was not noise: it was sweet sound! For many, during the portuguese overseas war, it ment they would live to see another day. Even today, more than 50 years later, we still use it for short distance coastal Search And Rescue.

  8. 4EDouglas says:

    Back when I was a co-pilot on DC-7’s for
    Butler Aircraft in the 90’s this was when they had the C-130 fiasco and a whole lot
    of C-130 tanked and used (a few crashed, too.)I remember having to have earplugs in when fueling on the wing of the 7 as it almost always was behind a 130 being loaded . they had one engine running for loading.
    Allison T-56’s are not quiet on the ground..had to pay attention, as they had been known to start out of the pit while I was on the wing…

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