New Stuff

I worked graveyard shift last night. The first one of the year for me. There is always a lot of apprehension when you show up for graves because you never know what you will be assigned. I was fortunate in that I was working with one of the senior graveyard guys. In fact I was working with the only guy senior to me on graveyard shift. We were assigned an MV4. We at Southwest are switching over to an MSG3 maintenance program. Previously our maintenance checks were PM, Service Checks, and A Checks. The A checks went from A1 all the way up to A4(?) and then C and of course the D Check was a Heavy Maintenance Check, basically an overhaul.

Under the new system we do MV Checks. Maintenance Visits from MV1 up to MV(something). We in Oakland do MV1, MV2, and MV3 checks. The heavier maintenance is done at places where Southwest has hangars. When an aircraft is making the switch from the old program to the MSG3 program it gets an MV4 check. An MV4 is only done once and it combines the older A1 and A2 checks. Once the MV4 is done the plane starts over with MV Checks. What MSG3 does for us is way above my pay grade of knowledge. Whatever it is you can bet that it must save Southwest some money because they never make changes like that unless there are significant financial savings involved.

Now that that is out of the way: One of the cool things about my job is that there is always something that comes along that I have never done. I believe that when one of these things comes up I should embrace the opportunity to learn and maybe next time when someone else is doing it I can give some constructive advice. It also breaks up the monotony of doing check after check.

Last night our check included a special item that the powers that be wanted us to look into. The Flight Data Recorder was getting incorrect information regarding the angle of the #2 engine throttle lever. We checked out AMM and did our research and had a pretty good idea of what to do by the time the plane got in. Once the plane got in we did the normal check items first, including changing tires, lube, etc.

The paperwork had us connect a hand held reader up to the FDR to see exactly what the Throttle Position Servo was telling the FDR. Sure enough it was out of range. I went down to the engine and tried to adjust the servo position per the AMM. Mechanic A was upstairs reading the position numbers on the CDU and comparing them to those on #1 eng. I went as far as I could and still it was out of range so we had to change the servo. We put the new one in and adjusted it until the outputs were matched up and we were done.

It was cool to work with a "Veteran" as we say and it was really cool to do this job that I had never done before. Sometimes the jobs are huge and messy but sometimes as in this case they are more technical in nature. In either case the new to me jobs are the ones that I look forward to and really enjoy. It helps also to have a knowledgeable mechanic working with you.