ORIGINAL POSTING Here is
Wan Zaidi Wan Omar (WZO), a very close friend and colleague when I was with Aero group UTM and until now.Upon graduation from Mancaster Univ. UK, he joined UTM at the end of 1985 (few months before me).
Wan Zaidi mainly lectures on aircraft design and structures.
Infact, his engineering fundamentals are very strong that whenever there is not enough lecturer in other aero subjects, Wan Zaidi will be the first choice.
Once I followed him back for holiday to his
kampung in Selising, Pasir Putih, Kelantan (in 1987).It was at the height of UMNO' 1987 crisis (Dr M 'sTeam A vs Tengku Razaleigh's Team B).
I remember that his late father was a strong supporter of the Team B and gave us a very strong and emotional lecture on politics-of-the-day.... His father just passed away during the last Ramadan (Sept 2009).
Wan Zaidi, being a Kelantanese, is also very enterprising person. I was his 'assistant' in selling murtabak and burger when he and his Kelantanese friends took-up a stall at the UTM Open Day in Jalan Semarak.
I also remember Wan Zaidi had a big motorbike (a 250cc bike is considered big those day) during that time when we were in Jalan Gurney.
I used to 'tumpang' him few times those day as I did not have a car yet.
He had an interest in the world motorsport and grand prix and I think he was a great fan of Mamola (world champion those day?).
Comment from Wan Zaidi "The great rivalry in Motorcycle 500cc GP in the mid 80s was between Randy Mamola (riding Yamaha) and Freddie Spencer (riding Honda). I was actually rooting for Spencer. And he mostly won many races in the earlier 80s (including one year when he won the 125cc, 250cc and the 500cc GPs), and Mamola the latter 80s.
When he got married to a nice lady, Kamariah (an assistant registrar at the 'unit penyelidikan dan pembangunan' of UTM with full-fledge 'tudung and dakwah' dress), they came to work on his motorbike (everyone teased him with this newly-wed joke that Wan Zaidi always applied emergency brake when riding with Kamariah!) Dr. Kamariah later joined as a lecturer in the 'Fakulti Pengurusan UTM'.
How do I see Wan Zaidi as a person?
Wan Zaidi is a very pleasant and cheerful person with stress-free, very positive about life and everything else, very tolerant of people, hardly show his anger or temper on others.
Many many ex-students still keeping in touch with him and still asking his free-professional advice when they cannot solved engineering problems at work.
With these qualities, it is only natural that he is well-liked by colleagues and definitely earned great respect among students as well.
I visited his facebook recently. Many ex-students including Prakash, Kannan, Saladin Kamarudin and many many others were still in contact with him.
His interest now probably lies on the wind turbine researches which is part of his on-going PhD works (the above photo I got from his Facebook is probably at the site of one huge wind turbine (?)he visited probably somewhere in UK or Europe?).
Comments from Wan Zaidi " the photo was taken in Falkirk, Scotland. The background is the Falkirk Wheel, not a wind turbine at all. The Falkirk Wheel actually transfers boats between two waterways, which are at two different levels. You can see that the wheel actually carry two "tubs" at the ends of the big spoke. These two tubs actually carry the boats, from the top stream to the bottom stream, "and vice versa"
Reply to WZO: I did mention '....is probably...' I should have qualifed it as just an 'intelligent' guessing... turn out to be 'not-so-intelligent'...never been to Scotland myself...
1 comment:
Hi, Khir (MKM).
Firstly, thanks for the good things you said about me. Before I go to comment "deeply" I would correct a few things.
No. 1 - the photo was taken in Falkirk, Scotland. The background is the Falkirk Wheel, not a wind turbine at all. The Falkirk Wheel actually transfers boats between two waterways, which are at two different levels. You can see that the wheel actually carry two "tubs" at the ends of the big spoke. These two tubs actually carry the boats, from the top stream to the bottom stream, and vice versa.
No. 2 - The great rivalry in Motorcycle 500cc GP in the mid 80s was between Randy Mamola (riding Yamaha) and Freddie Spencer (riding Honda). I was actually rooting for Spencer. And he mostly won many races in the earlier 80s (including one year when he won the 125cc, 250cc and the 500cc GPs), and Mamola the latter 80s.
N0.3 (this one not to correct a mistake) - This about the hot air balloon. Whatever happen during the project was not suppose to happen. But let this be a lesson to every engineer. What happened was, every team member was so concerned with completing the project that nobody noticed so simple a mistake. During the flight testing of the balloon (twice) it could only lift itself without the payload (in both occasion). I had to do the design review pronto. And it was found that, the weight of the hot air inside the balloon was not calculated. Apparently the weight came up to the weight of two person. Well, the boys (1 girl followed the progress of the project as she was interested in everything aero at that time) had sweated and had some fun out of the project. I say they truly learned something.
Well, that's all from me for now. I may contribute later. And, thanks to Khir for the nice memories.
Wan Zaidi
WZ - my sons had a good laugh reading you piece.
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