aircraft maintenance

I was just thinking about a trip to Toronto I took a few years back. Flying is a pain in the ass and some of the people that work for the airlines couldn't make french fries at McDonalds. Flying up there was pretty much uneventful, it was the return trip that went south right out of the gate.

It was an early flight, we were getting ready to back out of the gate at about 6:30 am. The pilot came over the intercom and said we had a mechanical problem but not to worry, he had some technitions headed out to take care of it.

I was traveling with the maintenance manager (we'll call him Tim) from the plant where I work. We were seated right in front of the wing and while we waited, we discussed what could be wrong with the plane and wondered if they'd put us on another plane or not. Tim looked out the window and said that the light was out on the very tip of the wing, maybe they had to fix it before we could fly. We figured it couldn't take too long to replace a bulb.

I looked at my watch and realized we could be in trouble. I told Tim "It's 6:45 now, if shift change is at 7, we won't see a maintenance guy til about 7:15." The guys getting off at 7 aint gonna come out in the snow 15 minutes before going home time and the guys that start at 7 will have to get coveralls and coffee and all that before they ever show up.

I was about right, at 7:20 Earl and his brother Earl showed up. They looked at the light and cocked their heads like a couple of dogs hearing a high pitched sound. I finally told Tim "Watch, one of them is fixing to beat on the light with something." Almost as if he heard me say it, Earl reached up and whacked the light 4 or 5 times with his fist. He hit it hard enough that we could feel the plane move. The light of course still didn't work so Earl and Earl went to the cockpit to talk to the pilot. After about 5 minutes discussion, they headed back to the light on the wing.

It's completely daylight now, so we can see really well what they're doing out there to repair the light. They were taking screws out from around the light fixture. This makes sense to the maintenance manager and a production supervisor that used to do maintenance work. Take the cover off, replace the bulb and we can leave. It's an airplane after all, everything has got to be right. Well, there's a butt-load of screws in the cover of a light on an airplane, it took'em forever to get it off. As they were working, I told Tim "Look at what they're using as a screw driver." He looked and said "My god, we'll be here until after lunch time. They got 300 screws to take off and put back and they're using a Leatherman pocket tool!"

Eventually the light was hanging by the wires and Earl and Earl could then get a good look at it. Now it's back to the cockpit to talk to the pilot (or more likely to warm up, it's about 10 degrees and snowing). They finally head back to the light, fiddle with it a while and start to put it back in place. By the time they get all them screws back in, it's 8:00 and no way we'll make all our connecting flights but at least we're headed out.

Oh yea, the light still don't work but it don't matter now, it's daylight so don't guess we need it anyhow.