Hi, and good to meet everyone

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Joined: 2 Sep 2009
Age: 63
Gender: Male
Posts: 6

03 Sep 2009, 1:22 pm

Ok, I'm posting under this topic because I am new here. My new wife gave me this link and asked me to look around. A little about her, she is the survivor of a serious TBI years ago and her son is an adult autistic. Some of you may have already guessed who she is. Now, about me. I have Tourette's Syndrome. I'm a twitcher. I also know now (through my wife's knowledge and conversations with her) that I have several spectrum disorders. I grew up in a little country town in the Midwest and now live in the Great White North. I believe that if my parents had known back in the 60's to have me evaluated, I would have shown to be Autistic to some degree. I always new I was different growing up and have never been diagnosed as an adult, but through her knowledge I can see that the signs are there. I could go on and on but I just wanted to say hi to everyone while I'm beginning to explore this new world of mine. Coptermech

southwestforests
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03 Sep 2009, 2:06 pm

coptermech wrote:

I believe that if my parents had known back in the 60's to have me evaluated, I would have shown to be Autistic to some degree.

Hey there, welcome to the forum.
You're a year older than I am, and, yeah, that thing about the 60's - it sure would have helped :!:

They, however, couldn't have diagnosed us at that time, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

Quote:

Lorna Wing popularized the term Asperger syndrome in the English-speaking medical community in her 1981 publication[92] of a series of case studies of children showing similar symptoms,[88] and Uta Frith translated Asperger's paper to English in 1991.[6] Sets of diagnostic criteria were outlined by Gillberg and Gillberg in 1989 and by Szatmari et al. in the same year.[84] AS became a standard diagnosis in 1992, when it was included in the tenth edition of the World Health Organization's diagnostic manual, International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10); in 1994, it was added to the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic reference, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).[9]

With 'coptermech' as a screen name, it's a good bet you do, or have done, the same thing for a living my nephew is over in Korea doing right now. Cool.

Trivia Warning :lol:

Somewhere in past decades have heard nuts holding rotor head together described as the "Jesus Nut" - because if that goes, that's the next person you're going to meet.

Hey! it's in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut
They say something slightly different:

Quote:

The Jesus nut, also called the Jesus pin, is the nut that holds the main rotor to the mast of some helicopters, such as the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter. It is a slang term that maybe was first coined by American soldiers in Vietnam; the technical term is main rotor retaining nut. Other sources suppose that the term may be coined as early as by Igor Sikorsky, a pioneer of rotor wing aircraft, who was a deeply religious person [1]. The Vietnam War was the first war fought seriously by the helicopter.

The origin of the term comes from the idea that, if the Jesus pin were to fail in flight, the helicopter would detach from the rotors and the only thing left for the crew to do would be to pray to Jesus. Real examples of the Jesus pin failing are few and far between.

That last is a very good thing!

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coptermech
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Joined: 2 Sep 2009
Age: 63
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Posts: 6

03 Sep 2009, 3:29 pm

Thanks for the welcome. Yep, you are right, I do turn wrenches on helicopters for a living. It's not only my job, it's my passion. I absolutely love what I do. It doesn't really bother me that I never knew about myself growing up. I did try to run from myself for most of my life though. I have come to grips with it and I hope that in some small way that eventually help someone else come to grips with their condition (?). Not really sure what to call it yet. As for the main rotor mast nut..it is called the Jesus nut. This is because if the nut fails, the pilot can only say "Jesus the nut came off." Again, good to meet you and have a good one!

Willard
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03 Sep 2009, 5:10 pm

Good to have You!

My best friend in high school went into the Marines right after graduation and became a coptermech. Sorry to say he was killed during training maneuvers in the Pacific when two choppers locked blades. The saddest part was, like me, he was an outcast and a misfit in school, but he was thriving in the service and looovvved his job.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, too - I've tried weighing the pros and cons of growing up not knowing just how different I really was, and I just can't decide if it would have been better to have known back when, or if I only managed as well as I did for many years because I had nothing to fall back on. I do feel blessed and lucky to have found out now (just turned 50), or I'm afraid I'd have ended up homeless.

Welcome!

BTW, what's a TBI?

coptermech
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03 Sep 2009, 6:05 pm

That sounds the same with me. I was pretty much a misfit growing up I had very few close friends and I was a BAND GEEK! I did excel in the Nav y and finally found something I loved to do. Didn't care much for military bearing though! TBI is traumatic brain injury. My wife now tells me that technically I'm handicapped although I was never raises that way. I think it's actually a blessing in disguise that I didn't know when I was young! :afro: :afro: :afro: :afro: