This is my first content in many years. As I was looking back at this blog I realized that my "The Legend Of..." series stopped at one post!
I have been an aircraft mechanic for 30 years this year! It has been a fantastic career. I have been involved in many, many, troubleshooting fixes that the flying public will never be aware of, and that's the way it's supposed to be. We sign up for this career not for the accolades but for our own personal satisfaction.
Anyway, enough of my soapbox speech. This post is about all the absolute legends of aircraft maintenance I have had the pleasure to work with and learn from.
Today we talk about one of the best mechanics I have ever worked with, Trees. Now Trees has been in the business for many years. He has done Line Maintenance for four airlines in his career and has worked all over the country in the trade. He was in effect an Old School Mechanic.
You will soon learn that most of my Legend stories will be about "Old School Mechanics".
I obviously met Trees when I got hired back in 1996, but I really didn't get to know him until I started working Day Shift in 1998. When I bid Days after working my whole previous career on Mid-Night shift I was very intimidated. I envisioned the Day Shift mechanics (correctly) as these super-heroes who somehow knew everything about how these planes stay in the air.
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| An unknown airliner. |
As I learned my trade it was because of guys like Trees that I began to understand the importance of our work. We are the last line of defense for the flying public and it's important that we manage and handle ourselves in the correct manner. Always think about the plane and the passengers. It does not matter if our decisions are not popular ones (I.E. we ground a plane).
After a while working Day Shift I realized that Trees was one of the best troubleshooting people I had ever met, so I started paying attention-big time. As Trees and I worked together year after year I soaked up as much knowledge as I could off the guy. Trees and I worked Day Shift and Swing Shift and even signed up for OT on Graveyard Shift together. We worked well as a team and made lots of money together working and more importantly fixing planes. One rainy night we changed all four of the Eyebrow windows on a 737-300. We discussed the importance of not stopping until we were done because the plane needed to make it's departure time and how there was no way it would if we took many breaks. Of course we finished up. It was a long night but one of the best memories I have from working planes at SWA.
As time went on Trees stopped working Graveyard Shift. I continued and he would always say "one day you will give up on working Graves". I really never thought I would, I liked working some extra shifts and the money wasn't bad either. But as the years past by, Trees was right. As much as I loved working planes the environment and the politics of the place finally got to me and I stopped working Graveyard Shift.
To Trees it was all about the job. He was serious about his work and he taught me that everything we do as Line Mechanics is very important. Learn your craft and use what you learn to fix the plane-the correct way. And when something is incorrect you fix the situation. If someone needs to be told off-you tell them off! (This is one of the skills they do not teach you at trade school.)
Another thing about Trees is that he was a self made dude. He played the market and in that way he secured his future so that this mechanic gig was more of a way to keep himself occupied until he was old enough to retire. (Lucky him!!.)
Towards the end of his tenure Trees would go to his gate calls armed with only a flip-flop screwdriver and a pen-and he would walk to every call-no cart or anything. He was completely at ease with the job. No worries, no rush, no panic. Mechanical perfection a guy at the top of his game. So here's to my mentor and friend Trees fair weather and smooth skies during your retirement.-GOAT
