The Birds!!!!

I was thinking of all the interesting things that Line Mechanics do. We go on road trips and work on engine issues and have the pleasure of working in the sun, rain, and snow. We change windows, tires, APUs, and the like. We change vomit covered seatbelts and broken coffee makers. And I thought to myself that I have likely mentioned most of these things in my past blogs. One of the more interesting things we do that I have not mentioned is BIRD STRIKES.

Recently the bird strike activity of the airlines has come into public focus with the US Air emergency landing into the Hudson River by Capt. Sully. That was an amazing bit of flying and an unusual result of the bird strikes that we encounter as Line Mechanics.

Strike on a Kruger Flap

Working the Line for the last 15 years I must have worked on or been involved with hundreds of bird strikes. That may surprise some people but it happens every week. For the most part when we go out to a call about a bird strike we simply do a "Bird Strike Inspection", do some clean up and the plane is on its merry way. There have been some unusual ones that I have been involved in that cause damage but the vast majority of the bird strikes do no damage at all.

Because of the recent publicity of the bird strikes, however, we must now collect a sample of the bird (a feather or chunk of meat) bag it up in this neat little "Bird Strike Kit" that we now stock and sent it to the Smithsonian Institute in D.C. In D.C. they can tell from the sample what type of bird we killed and I guess that must be fed into some kind of super computer somewhere which tells them.....I have no idea what.

I once went to a terminating plane. It was night time and I did my usual walk around before going up to talk to the pilots. On the walk around I counted 26 bird strikes! I went up to the flight deck and I asked the crew if they were aiming for the damn things! They said they were on approach to land and a whole flock of tiny birds took off right in front of them. The Captain said it sounded like machine gun fire was hitting them. They Midnight shift guy did the inspection and found no damage.

One time while doing a walk around, again at night, I came around to the nose of the plane and the radome was caved in like someone punched a car door only larger. The crew told me a pterodactyl hit them (that's how big the thing was). Again we did the inspection R/R'd the radome and that was that.

Those instances and many more were before we had to mail evidence of the birds to D.C. Since then there were two interesting bird strikes that I was involved in. The first was a call from an F.O. He was doing his walk around and said there was a bird strike on the left gear. Me and another guy I'll call GrassHopper went out to see what was up. Once there I could not believe it: there wrapped around the still hot brake was an entire turkey vulture!

 Usually we only see some blood, feathers and maybe a couple of chunks of meat but this thing was complete! As a matter of fact the hot brake had cooked some of the bird! We unwrapped it and did our inspection (no damage) and then got to thinking. Most of you know that when mechanic get to thinking the result is not going to be good

. Since there was no management there at the time and the whole "Bird Strike Kit" thing was not put together yet, all we had to go on was a letter that stated we were to keep a sample of the bird to sent to D.C. GrassHopper and I thought 'we can do better than that, we can send them the whole damn bird!" We got a trash bag, put the bird in and stuck it in the freezer in the shop. I then copied the log page and wrote a letter to the manager and left both on his desk. I never did hear anything about it and I never saw the bird again.

The latest large bird strike I was involved in was what I ended up calling "Bird -Ageddon". This thing was a mess but at first it was decieving. This plane was again a terminator. When I was walking around her I noticed some feathers sticking to the left forward wing-to-body fairing and some blood streaked aft of there. There was nothing in the engine, nothing on the gear, nothing on the tail leading edges. I went up to talk to the crew and they told me they saw the thing, it was pretty big, they tried to miss it but then heard the thump. As a matter of fact the passengers and the Flight Attendants heard it too.

After the crew left I went back down and started to look the hit over. The bird hit on the leading edge of a seam between two panels. I pulled the feathers out and could see that the panels were damaged. The holes that once had screws in them had been torn and the screws were missing all along the seam. I called the Foreman and asked him to bring the camera so he could take a picture of the panel and sent it to MX Control. My buddy Brika-Brack came over and we were looking over the damage. I told him "I have a funny feeling that bird is back behind that panel". He was not sure but he helped me to take the panel off. As soon as we got the panel off I called the Foreman (and his camera) back. Just as I thought the bird hit that seam, it deformed, the bird went inside, and then the panel popped back into place.

 Inside that panel was like a bomb went off. There were bird parts and blood everywhere. The bird hit so hard it actually bent the box structure that comprised part of the kruger flap compartment. The bird continued in two pieces up over the wing and down under the wing in the spaces left by the wing-to-body fairings. The Foreman was quite impressed, he said it looked like the bird exploded in there and that is a real good description of it. That plane was down for something like 5-6 days while they figured out how to clean/repair all the damage!

That was certainly the messiest bird strike I have been involved with others are just strange. Any Line Mechanic will tell you about bird strikes that leave no evidence except a perfect impression of the animal on the plane. It's like a ghostly imprint. You can make out the head, beak, feathers, feet, some times even the eye, but there is no blood or damage. I have heard of bird strikes that go through the radome, through the forward bulkhead and into the flight deck-spraying the pilots with blood! At Delta we had one the hit the side of the plane, on a seam I assume, made its way into the fuselage, past the sidewall and sprayed the passengers!

Those last two are very rare. As a matter of fact any damage resulting from birds is rare. Bird strikes, however, are NOT rare and as a Line Mechanic it's just another in a long list of "interesting" calls you will contend with. The other thing about birds is that they seem to find their way into the engines. As with Capt. Sully's plane this can cause the engine to flame out, damage blades, etc. This is also pretty rare and while there is a special inspection for birds that go into the engine most of the time the planes are good to keep flying.

Doomsday Prepped!!!

There are a lot of shows on TV these days about Preppers and Prepping for the coming Apocalypse. These are the folks who store a years worth of food and water so they can survive in case the S%#@ Hits The Fan. The preppers have guns and ammo and tactical gear at the ready and practice exactly what they would do in the event of a an emergency. There is good reason to be ready if an event happens that would require you and your family to "bug out" or "bug in" as the preppers say and I must admit that it makes sense to me to have some food and extra water in the event that it is needed. I am pretty sure that I will never have a years worth of food and water stored but to each his own.

pic submitted by SkyWalker

These shows got me thinking, airline mechanics are like preppers or at least they should be. While the preppers are getting ready for the next polar shift or super volcano we mechanics (at least the responsible ones) are always thinking and getting ready for the next lay-off. Ever since I got laid off at Delta Airlines I never really looked at any of my next jobs the same. Lay-offs are a way of life in the airline industry and most everyone at the airline level has been through one. I even know one guy who has been at 14 different air carriers!

pic submitted by SkyWalker

A responsible mechanic will keep his/her skill level up-just in case. Again I will say we should never stop learning new things at our jobs. Sure there are practicle reasons like not having to ask for help running an engine but the other reason is-you never know. You never know when the company you work at will have financial issues, get bought out, or simply close the doors.

What would you do if you were told that in 2 weeks time you were going to be put out on the street? What if during your whole time at  your current job you never took advantage of any of the engine run, taxi, sheetmetal, inspection, etc classes that the company offered you? Now you are out of a job and have learned nothing during the time you spent with said company.



We should all get in the habit of being prepared. Learn all you can. Volunteer to do things you have not done before. Look things up in the MX manual. Experience what a Lead Mechanic or Foreman do by doing "Bump-up" duty. Learn how the paperwork is handled. How do you order parts? How do you contact and talk to Engineering? Never did an engine change or MEC change?-Volunteer. These are all skills that can help you out if you were to ever get that lay off notice.

I know one thing-I am doing it. I like to learn new stuff anyway so it is not hard for me to try. I will never get caught flat footed again. And if any thing like that happens again I want to be able to say that I am even more marketable than when I got this job.

Please understand that I don't think that SWA will be laying anyone off any time soon. I love the company and feel very secure here. Those things do not diminish  my responsibility to my family and that comes first. I am a Vocational Prepper I guess. Stay prepared and you won't be surprised-Oh and you may learn a thing or two along the way.

If I was a person looking to hire a mechanic and I saw two resumes from mechanics that were at the same company for the same amount of time but one of them was engine run and taxi qualified and the  other was not. One mechanic has stated that he did bump up Foreman duty on occasion and one did not-who do you think I would hire?

Doomsday to most Americans would be a Tsunami, hurricane, tornado or flood. But doomsday in my house would  be getting laid off and being a little less marketable than the other 100,000 airline mechanics out of work.

I am taking on a new challenge this year. I am currently studying to get my IA rating from the FAA. I always wanted to get my IA and now seems like a good time to go for it. Who knows one day it may come in handy. Stay tuned!!!

Troubleshooting Be Damned!!

I was working recently when a call came in from MX Control. There was a plane in Portland that they needed two guys to fly up to look at. This was one of our -300s and the "ANTI-SKID INOP" light would illuminate when the crew set the parking brake. Once we figured out who was going on the road trip, me and a guy I'll call "Tactical",  we started our normal pre-road trip routine:

Get your tools ready. I know guys who only bring the tools they think they will need for the specific job they are going to do but I tend to over pack. The problem with just packing what you think you will need is that we often get there and another issue pops up. Also check your flashlights and bring extra batteries.

Check the history. I wish I could tattoo this one some of the guys foreheads. Before you work any problem, if you have the time, you should always check the discrepancy history. If you go and change a part and then look in the history only to find out that someone changed that same part, for the same problem, just yesterday than you just wasted time and a lot of money. In the case of our Anti skid issue we had time so we checked the history. I found history back to over 120 days for this airplane having Anti skid lights coming on. They had changed about everything in the system so we had some troubleshooting ahead of us.

Check the weather! If it's raining where you are going than you better bring some rain gear.

Luckily we have a great stores department but it was not always that way. Once upon a time we had to pack our own parts which means you have to check the effectivity and make sure it will work for the airplane you are going to fix.

Get on your plane and go.

In our case stores packed a control panel, an Anti-skid valve, and a  parking brake valve. We of course had our multi meters and I brought my kit I made for when I have to shoot wires. You will hear the term "shooting wires" or "ringing out" wires. All this means is to check for continuity and power of certain wire runs. We also  printed out and brought with us the wiring diagram for the anti-skid system.

I grabbed my road trip bag, extra set  of clothes, tooth paste and tooth brush, deodorant, etc.

Luckily we got some seats on the plane (did not have to sit on the jumpseats in the flightdeck) and away we went.

Once we landed and made sure our tools were ok we went up to the plane which was parked and turned off. As we opened the jetway door I kiddingly said to Tactical "Watch the thing work now-since they turned the plane off". As sure as a bear s!%&$ in the woods when we turned her on the light was off! "Kick the brakes off and set them again" said Tactical. I did and it all worked according to design.

Now you might think "that's great! let's pack it up and go home", but it's not that easy. We knew that the plane had a long history of this stupid  light coming on so we have a responsibility to try and see what is going on. In some ways this is the hardest type of write up you can get as an aircraft mechanic. The problem comes up and by the time you get there the damn thing works great. As a true mechanic you still have to troubleshoot and try to find out what is going on. As I say we have to try to break it to figure out what's wrong.

As it turned out for Tactical and I we could not get the thing to break again. A few hours into it and we had to contact MX Control to let them know what was going on. We spent about 3-4 hours trying to figure out what the problem was and could not get the stupid anti-skid light to come on when we set the parking brake. After talking to the MX Controller we decided to change the parking brake valve as a precaution and let her ride. Another hour and a half later we were crossing our fingers as we tested the system after changing the parking brake valve and it all still worked. Believe me when I tell you there are times when you change the part and the damn thing is still broke or another thing is busted!

The point of the story is that there are times when you can not get the plane to act in the way that the flight crew did and therefore can not duplicate the problem. That does not mean that you can stop and sign it off. You are still a mechanic and you still should try and get the thing to fault. I'm not saying that there won't be times when you use the old "could not duplicate" for your sign off. The title "mechanic" comes with certain responsibilities and the one I'm talking about now is the responsibility to you. Take your job seriously and use every chance to learn and expand your art.

Success In The Industry

I have recently read some articles that have tried to establish ways to be successful in our industry. It's interesting to me that our choice of career has a lot in common with and is a lot different than most jobs. Like most folks we decide what we want to do for a living, we to go to school and pursue the challenge of getting our A&P license. We graduate or test out and are on our way. I think that for a lot of people that is where the dream ends. When they realise that the fresh out of school mechanic will have to take a really low paying job doing things like assembly work, overhaul work, throwing bags, or fueling just to get their foot in the door it tends to lean the ranks of the fresh recruits. Add to that the fact that most of the places that hire A&P mechanics without the coveted "EXPERIENCE" are overhaul places in out of the way places like Alabama, Indianapolis, Everett and Dallas and the New York based kid with a new A&P ticket has a big decision to make.

The other way that kid can go is to try and get on with a contract maintenance company at a local airport. While this could provide invaluable experience it is also a "thrown to the lions" way of learning the trade. Contract work is Line Maintenance and it is a type of maintenance that not every one excels at. When I was out of school I got real lucky and was hired by an airline to do overhaul in Atlanta GA. It was a big decision, I am a New Yorker and I was going to school in Florida. While it may not seem like a big move it was a big move for me. My only other employment opportunity involved stocking shelves or pushing a broom at the time so I was not going to pass it up. I think that the big move is what blocks a lot of people from being successful.

 But success is not just getting the job. Success should also include how well you perform in the job, progression, performance and satisfaction. In order to not become a simple parts changer (any one can do that) in order to become a true mechanic there are certain things you should do.

1.     Keep your passion alive. It works in marriage and it works in maintenance. The reason we became mechanics is because we love airplanes (hopefully). I still airplane watch and now with sites like Airliners.net I can do it even at home or when the weather sucks outside.

2.     Never stop learning. Every job I have been at offered training classes. Take advantage of these classes. If there are factory classes offered take them. When I first started working the line I was given some simple advice: when the work is all done for the night go up to one of the planes, turn on the IRUs and play with the BITE checks in the FMC. This alone helped me to figure out how to navigate through the menus and pages that can seem a bit confusing to a new comer. There is no way to mess up the plane by going through the BITE systems so don't be afraid.

3. Never stop asking questions. This is something we all try to teach our kids but once we get into a work situation we tend not to follow this simple advice. No one can be expected to remember everything that they learn. If you can't remember something or don't know how to do something just ask. You ask the guys at my job and they will tell you that Goat asks (sometimes) lots of questions. For me it's a time thing, I have, usually, about 20 minutes to work an issue. To get as much input as I can for a problem I ask over the radio if anyone has had the problem before or if any one knows a shortcut in the BITE.

4.    Be nice. It's simple but you would be surprised at the amount of a-holes you meet in this industry. I am amazed at some of the behavior that grown men will display at work. Also being nice is not just important when you are dealing with mechanics but also for the flight crews. These guys are your customers and as crazy as it sounds being nice to these guys and gals goes a long way. They know that if they tell me about an issue I will work on it and in turn I know that they respect me and the work I do.

5.     Don't be a know it all. Nobody likes that.

6.     Make friends. This is a small industry. I work with a guy I will call GUN. Gun and I worked together at Delta Airlines. One day while I was on probation in walks Gun, the newest mechanic (at the time). Several of the guys at work actually worked together at other airlines and several of the people who were scheduled to be interviewed were nixed due to their reputations at other airlines preceding them. Also on this note I will say that I have friends that I have made at SWA that I know will last a lifetime.

7.     Have fun. This is a SWA thing to the core. We get together for BBQs and other events. These things are not for us the mechanics but rather for our families. We spend a third of our waking life at our jobs, remember to thank your family for their support by taking them to the BBQ or Christmas party. This is a very important thing.

8.     Reward yourself. I am a toolaholic. I like my tools and I like nice new tools. Every now and then it's ok to get yourself a nice tool as a reward. It's a happy coincidence that it also helps you do your job better.

9.     Teach your kids about aviation. My kids know more about planes than almost every kid their age. All their lives they have been flying and will soon start taking flight lessons (my wife and father in law are flight instructors). We need to teach our kids everything we know while they are young.  You never know when the knowledge of how to use a pair of safety wire pliers or simple electronics, soldering,welding, basic pneumatics, engine work, hydraulics may come in handy. What if you knew all these things since before you entered high school? How much easier would your schooling have been. Even if they do not enter the industry these skills will set them above other people when they are at a job seeking age.

10.   Last and one of the most important: Keep reading my Blog!!.......please.

Qantas eyes maintenance job cuts

ABC News Australia reports that Quantas is thinking about cutting maintenance jobs. More wrenches out on the street! Check the article; I think they are talking about mechanics, they call us engineers in most other countries but our own. It also looks like Quantas has been oredered to check wing cracks in the wings of all the A380s they run. One would wonder why they would think its a good time to let mechanics go when they have these inspections looming??

Another Airline Gone!

Air Australia closed it's doors today. Looks like they left a bunch of folks stranded.
Sunday Morning Herald of Australia reports the company was selling tickets yesterday and closed it's doors today.

Our Newest Baby!

Just wanted to drop the first pics of our first 737-800 as it was unloaded from the train and into the factory up in Seattle.

Ours is the one riding the crane. Some guys think that the other two are SWA as well but there is no confirmation of that yet.

This is the cleanest we will ever see her! The fun begins in less that 30 days (those Boeing guys are good). A few of the guys have gone to the Differences Training and from what I'm gathering there is not a lot that has changed with the exception of the Air conditioning system. One of the fellas shared the schematic of the -800 system with me and I like what I see. No more coallesor bags to change! Someone in the know said that the system resembles that of the 757 so that's pretty cool.

Big things are coming for us at SWA but I'm sure we can handle it.