Intelligent Design

I recently had the unexpected chance to see behind the scenes of a major airline's maintenance operations. A couple of observations:

1) The logistics required to run an airline must be incredible. I can only imagine the complexity in organizing people, parts, food, tickets, fuel, money, marketing, paperwork, terminals, the list goes on.

2) In an aircraft, the maze of tightly wound electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic connections is amazing. Seeing a plane up close, even a small one, gives one a great appreciation for the design skill needed to build and maintain aircraft.

I have often heard and used the illustration of comparing the complexity of an aircraft to biological life and then drawing the conclusion that since the aircraft was designed, life must have been also. This analogy is even stronger than I thought.

Also, I have wondered how mechanics go about fixing landing gear on a large airplane. Now I know...Just get a really strong guy to pick up the plane by the nose (Remember to lift with your legs, not your back).

Actually, with few very big jacks (The yellow things under the wings) hooked up to the jacking points, a 175,000 pound 767 goes up without a fight.