License Friendly Work

While working on airplanes we often have the opportunity (and the privilege) to work on complex machines using our trouble shooting smarts. This is very satisfying and all us A&P mechanics should take pride in having this ability.

There are also times when we do what we at SWA call "license friendly work". Examples of this could be:

Window wash

Demo mask
Seat belt extensions, etc.

Lots of guys get sent to a window wash call and they start huffing and puffing about "why can't the flight crew do it" and things like that. Back in the day the flight crews at SWA used to take pride in the fact that they would often wash their own windows. Sounds crazy but it's true! -BUT-that was back in the day.

Now a days with the FAA being the way they are none of the flight crews are willing to wash their own windows (can't blame them). So what option does the crew have but to call us to do it.

Back to some of my fellow mechanics. A few guys hate to wash windows but to me, it's license friendly work. Let's just say it's very hard to get into trouble while washing windows.

I look forward to wiring issues and hydraulic leaks and troubleshooting but towards the end of the week I love me some window washes!

While washing the windshields the flight crews will often open the slider and apologize for calling me out to wash the windows. I always ask them "Do you know how much money they pay me to wash these windows?"
Some weeks all I feel like doing is washing windows!
Hard to get in trouble.

Cooperation

There I was......that's how a lot of maintenance stories begin. "There I was, hydraulic fluid all over me, there I was, laying in a 2" deep puddle of rain, there I was, saving the day as usual."

The majority of days in our business are not that exciting. We muddle through the day putting oil in engines, fixing reading lights, adjusting the PA volume, checking tire pressure, any of hundreds of little things that comprise the industry.

One of the things that I'm sure the public does not realize is the amount of cooperation there is between airlines (at least in the maintenance departments). This is a brotherhood really and one that would grind the airlines to a halt if it did not exist.

Here is how it usually goes: Plane comes in and sure enough we need a new part. As usual the part you need is the one that you do not stock. Maintenance control will call around to maintenance departments around our area to see if they have the part. If they do and they are willing we can "borrow" the part from them. The borrowed part is used on a per hour or per cycle basis and is inspected and tested once returned.

That takes care of the big parts but what is really cool is how most airlines cooperate with the small parts. The innumerable bolts, nuts, washers, glue, sealant, grease, oil, tape, etc. Most often when a guy shows up at the shop from XYZ Airline and says he needs a bolt of such and such size with the correct washer we will simply let them have it. This may sound like a small thing to write about but I'll give an example of a couple of times where it saved me.

I was up in Seattle with a guy I'll call Mountain Man. We were there looking for short in a wire. The trouble was that this wire ran through the connection between the wing and the fuselage. After we got it all straightened out we realized that we needed a particular type of clamp for high temp areas. We called maintenance control and they suggested we head over to Alaska Airlines to see if they had one. A truck ride later and a quick visit to the Alaska Airline Maintenance hangar and the guy in the engine shop tossed one to us. We were able to install and get the plane ready for the next day. I should mention that it was around 2 or 3 am when this all went down. If we did not get the hook up from Alaska we would have had to wait until a clamp was flown up to us from Oakland sometime around 10 am the next morning.

Adel Clamp

The next example happened just the other day. We had a plane grounded that needed a CIT sensor replaced on the #1 engine. I was kind of excited because I could not recall ever changing one of those even though they do go bad every now and then requiring R&R. As it turned out when whoever took the old sensor out one of the threaded inserts in the engine case came out along with it's mounting bolt. I've never had one of those inserts fail like that and I'm pretty sure the guys I was with had never seen it either. Since that is a very unusual thing to replace we at SWA did not stock it in Oakland. The guys thought we were stuck until the foreman headed across the ramp to Alaska Airlines Maintenance and sure enough they were able to provide us with one so we could get that plane back in service.

Stupid little threaded inserts.

This cooperation occurs mainly on graveyard shift when a guy or gal from another airline's maintenance department will stop by to borrow a torque wrench, or hardware or whatever. While working graves I have had to drive to SFO and borrow parts from United Airlines plenty of times.

It's pretty cool that mechanics are like this (for the most part) any where you go. An airline mechanic will be more interested in getting that plane back in the air than worry about you being from the competition. There is no ego tripping or even thoughts of denying help. A write up is a write up, a plane is a plane, parts are parts.

This industry is surprisingly very small. We run into people we have worked with at other companies time and time again. What if you refuse to help a mechanic one night and years later he or she is doing the hiring at the next place you try to work?

Airports and FOD

One time I tried counting the airports I've been at and actually worked on planes at. I stopped at 17 or 18. Remember that we Line Mechanics at SWA will fly to other airports when a plane breaks down. For example if there is an engine issue in PDX we fly up there to work the problem. It's actually one of the better parts of the job and it another thing that keeps the job from being routine.

As you can imagine it is normal for airports to be kept clean. Usually the airport operations people are very concerned with garbage and stuff like that on the ground in the ramp area. Foreign Object Damage (FOD) is a big concern for a few reasons:

FOD can get ingested in the engine of an aircraft and cause major damage to the fan blades. It will also bounce around the inlet and tear up the engine inlet.




FOD gets run over by planes and get stuck in the tires. I've seen plenty of bolts, nuts, caps, safety wire, stir sticks you name it stuck in aircraft tires.

FOD on the ground will also puncture the tires of the ground equipment such as jet tugs, etc.



FOD gets blown up by the airplanes as they taxi out to the runways and gets airborne. These missiles can hit equipment, other planes and always seems to find an eyeball or two.

Most airports take FOD damage very seriously and clean the ramp areas often to reduce the threat of such damage. I finally after visiting plenty of airports have decided that the dirtiest, most FOD filled, not caring airport of them all is the one I actually work at the most: Oakland International Airport.

Oakland International Airport is filthy. There are places where the dirt and FOD are piled up, wind blown and more than a few inches deep! It's really bad here in OAK and what makes it even worse is that a lot of the debris gets blown right into the Bay. The Port of Oakland people don't seem to care and they can't say that they don't notice it. As you walk into the airport along the service road from the employee lot the trash is piled up along the fence and just pass the fence is the Bay.

I must have gotten numb to it or else it has recently gotten really bad. Every night when the airport more or less is shut down to the public the cleaning crews come out. I'm not sure what they do all night but when I walk in at 5am and there are cigarette butts piled five or six inches deep in the smoking area trash thing and falling out onto the floor it can't be much. There are garbage cans around the ramp area that get filled up, overflow and wait days and days until they get any attention. The sheer amount of trash is astounding really and I'm not sure what to do about it. It has gotten to the point that it is high on the list of things that make me want to leave this job.

When I go to Sacramento or Boise I marvel at how clean the places are. There are FOD buckets around and the airport must come through with sweeper trucks quite often to keep them that way. I'm not sure how SWA allows Oakland to not clean up. They must know that all that stuff is going into the engines etc. No one seems to care much. I mean I grew up in NYC, The Bronx to be exact, in the 70's when no one really cared about littering. That is what Oakland International Airport reminds me of.

Old Timey Maintenance

For a while now I have been collecting pictures of aircraft maintenance from back in the day. It facinates me. The pictures demonstrate how far we have come but in many ways also show how little has changed. I figured I would put some of these up for you guys to check out.

The old prop-liners were cool and the Connie was the coolest of them all. Check these guys out wearing their white coveralls. It looks to me like they have some kind of radar issue but whats funny is that even today we say "one guy working, two just watching". Some of the ground equipment even looks the same as the stuff you would find at any airport these days.

A patch from a mechanics hat from Wilmington-Catalina Airlines. Even back in the day we wanted to be recognized as mechanics, not rampers. Today there is a struggle-mechanics want to stand out, not be confused with other ground crew. How many times have I gone up to the flight deck to be handed the landing gear pins or the fuel slip by the captain because he thought I was a ramper or fueler. I know it's cost effective for companies to have everyone have the same uniform but every mechanic wants to be recognized as such.

Look at these poor bastards!! Look at those ladders and no safety lines or lanyards. The term "back when men were men" comes to mind. Imagine having to climb up that ladder with tools or heavy parts. Think any of them had a fear of heights? These days the heights may not be as great but they say a fall from even four feet could kill you. Remember that these days we do have to put ourselves in some crazy positions to fix these planes. Walking the crown looking for lightning strikes, RRing rudder PCUs, working out on the wings. The dangers are still prevalent.

 

This is actually an old picture. It was taken during WWII, and yes they had color photography back then. This is an awesome pic that shows that women have been involved in our industry from way back in the day. Even prior to WWII women did the majority of work on the fabric of fabric covered planes. It always amazes me when people are shocked that we have female mechanics at our job. As a matter of fact one of the best students at my A&P school was a woman. She already had a job lined up working in an auto garage and could work circles around us guys.

The last one for today is not an airplane but it does have a lot of similarities. Hatches are open, tools are being used, etc. These guys are hard at work on this old locomotive. I wanted to include this pic because of the dirt and grime. I don't think this was a staged shot. There is grease and dirt all over these guys and this is what maintenance is actually like. We have a dirty job, some nights you make it through and you are not too bad off, but other nights you are filthy. The dirt and grease get everywhere. Also this demonstrates that the chemicals that we use to keep our equipment (trains or planes or cars) running gets onto us and, let's face it, is slowly poisoning us as we work. It is an unfortunate by product of doing the job we love.

It's Hard To Let Go

I work with tools for a living. Tools have allowed me to own a few homes, buy nice cars, go on vacations, put clothes on my families back, and feed them as well. Tools have been a major part of my life since high school and like most mechanics I have come to love tools, all tools. I can spend a lot of time in the tool section of any store. I like ALL tools, I even collect old and antique tools so when a tool breaks and is no longer useful to me it is understandable that I have trouble throwing it away. Like a lot of mechanics, I think, I end up with a lot of broken tools in my tool box at home.

The other day while working at home I needed a pair of Channel locks or slip joint pliers. I went and pulled the largest ones I have out of my box and went to work. Well these pliers came to me a few years ago from a person who was working on my back yard. This guy disappeared and later I found out he got arrested! When he got out he called and said he was going to finish the job and come by to get his tools. Long story short: two years later I sold all his stuff but kept some of the things I thought were worth it.

When I tried to use these pliers they would slip, every time I went to apply pressure to the stupid thing the joint would slip and the pliers would not be tight anymore. I tried tightening them with the same result and by now I was pissed off so I chucked them in the trash.

Sounds like an easy choice but those pliers sat in the trash for two days and every time I went into that room I saw them. Being a tool lover I kept thinking "maybe I could fix them" or "maybe I can use it for something", "hey I could always use the handles as levers". I stayed strong and they ended up going away. But this brings to light how hard it is for a mechanic to throw away a tool.

When a tool that I use at work breaks I "retire" it. When I retire a tool I bring it home and put it in my big tool box. These tools have been to battle and war with me, they have been on the cold ground with me, they have fixed millions of dollars worth of equipment in their lifespan. When they get too old or busted up I bring them home. The nature of my job requires that the tools I use work when I need them so when they get too old they have to be replaced. When I worked in the hangar I was able to keep my older tools at work and in that setting it is often handy to have some wrenches that you no longer use around which you can cut up or weld on to make special tools.

For me are my life. I will always have a hard time getting rid of them and truth be told, if you take care of them they do not need to be replaced often. I have a hard time letting go of them, some of them have been with me since Aviation High School and are really a part of me. They say that you always remember your first love, well you always remember your first flip-flop screw driver, or good pair of safety wire pliers. I may be a "tool nerd" or "airplane junky" but that's ok, I keep planes in the air, sounds simple but requires a lot of tools and some knowledge. Tools are to mechanics like a computer program is to a tech guy, we use them to figure out (in our case) what is wrong with a plane. Simple concept and when done right it's like a little miracle.

Veteran Tool Spotlight: Safety Wire Pliers

It's been a while since I did a tool spotlight so I think I am going to discuss safety wire pliers. Like most mechanics I have a couple of pairs of safety wire pliers and have "gone through" a couple more. When I first started out in the industry I had a large pair of Mac safety wire pliers that were "liberated" from me by someone who thought he could take better care of them. I pretty much used those pliers for the first three years that I worked on airplanes.

A good pair of safety wire pliers is pretty much an essential to a good mechanic. Like the Ford Wrench I wrote about in an earlier post the safety wire plier can be a multi-use tool. Of course there is the obvious use for twisting wire, but I have known guys who use their safety wire pliers for cutting wire, zip ties, etc. pretty much replacing their diagonal cutters (dykes) with their safety wire pliers. By the way before I get too far along there are two sizes of safety wire pliers typically found: a 6" and a 9-12". The larger version is what guys in the hangar use. If you are reading this blog and just getting into aircraft maintenance than I suggest buying both. I personally only used a large pair until I got laid off and then started working line maintenance. In the line maintenance world just about everybody uses the smaller 6" version. Working the line you are safetying items that use .032 or smaller wire and not much .040 wire so we can get away with the smaller plier.

The larger pair of safety wire pliers I own were given to me by and old guy at Hayward Airport. They are Milbar Wire Twisters and are all silver (kind of unique). They are also unique in that the bar that you pull out to create the twisting action ratchets back into the plier instead of wisting back in. The smaller pair that I used for years is a no-name plier I bought new off of a truck. They worked very good for a long time and I only retired them because I got a better replacement. The safety wire pliers I carry in my line bag now are Bluepoint reversable safety wire pliers. The Bluepoints are very good and I like the fact that they can be reversed although I have to admit I rarley use that feature. The other thing I like about the Bluepoints is that the head of the plier is very small compared to an el-cheapo brand.

There is a funny thing that happens to line mechanics when they get used to using their own safety wire pliers. It is very awkward to use someone elses. When a buddy hands you his pliers to safety something they just do not feel right. I have also noticed that guys will use those pliers long past their useful life. I've seem some pretty messed up safety wire pliers being used after the lock or return spring thing is busted up. That just goes to show you how attached mechanics become to their tools (or are we a cheap bunch?) and how important useing a tool that one is familar with is to mechanics.

As in most Tool Spotlight posts I have to admit that I have used my safety wire pliers as a hammer before, but is that really that unusual? For all you guys with busted up safety wire pliers I even included a link to Amazon.com so you can pick up a new set!