Earlier, Eric Greenwell wrote:

Is that because the quality is too poor,
or because the quality is too high to
afford?

I've always been fascinated by the use of the word "high" to mean
"great," "strong," "good," and "senior." I think that it speaks to the
nature in which the appreciation for flight is hardwired into at least
some people. Like us, for example...

Anyhow, based on the blade crawled into at Tehachapi, I would
definitely not say that wind turbines are lesser quality, they are just
optimized differently. And those optimizations seem to favor low cost
and low build hours over freedom from waviness and fine surface finish.
They are also optimized to operate unattended for long periods of time,
so the airfoil selection for them is predicated on a certain amount of
roughness from dust and bird crap.

Beyond that, many of you know that I ascribe to Pirsig's view of
quality, that it lies at the interface between subject and object (in
fact, it _is_ the interface!) and is not inherent in either the subject
or the object. Aristotle and his cronies get way too much credit for
founding western philosophy on the unstable underpinnings of absolute
truth and relative quality.

Thanks, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com