Night moves
Friday was a long day.
It started of as a regular shift at work, doing the regular boring things. Doing overhaul on airplanes gets to be almost production line-ish at times. There is usually only one or two days of fun when the plane is getting ready to leave, and you get to run around outside with engines running and the bosses freaking out and stuff like that. But, normally, it's a little mundane. So, Friday night, it got a little interesting.
I finished my regular shift, went home, showered, and lied down for a couple of hours. Didn't sleep, but I wish I had. Then, got up, grabbed some food for later, and ran off back to work. From there, we did the hour drive out to YVR to go and do an "A" Check on a 757 out on the line. This is a big difference from working on the "dead" airplanes in our hanger. This bird was live, and we had six hours to check it all over, change a few filters, flush out the water system, and boroscope one of the engines. There was a lot to do.
I was handed all the APU cards to work on. The APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) is a little turbine engine that sits in the back of the plane and produces electricity and is an air source for starting the main engines. So, I jumped at it with a lot of enthusiasm, mostly because I had a short time to do it all, and also, I really like working on APU's. I managed to get it all done in a couple of hours, and then went off to inspect the wings.
We did the check in the BCIT hanger, so we had a herd of students following us around. It is amazing to realize how much more info I have crammed into the sponge in my head than these guys that are still in school. I guess that I do know what I am doing!! I had a lot of fun teaching the students about different things, getting them to help, and telling them about working out in the "real world" of aviation.
Some time into the check, one of the guys changing a filter on the IDG (Integrated Drive Generator) found a whole bunch of metal in there. Lot's of metal. Seems that this is a fairly common (albeit expensive) problem for these generators. So, we had to change it. Luckily, they always keep a spare handy. I don't think that I have ever seen one changed as fast as those guys did it.
So, by 8:00AM, the plane was pretty much ready to go again, with only the engine and APU runs to complete. Most of us got to go home to bed, and a few of the guys stuck around to make sure that everything was good. By 11:00AM, the plane was loading with passengers to fly to Hawaii.
I was (as well as a few others) awake for over 24 hours in all that, but I have never seen such a concerted team effort like that before. It was a lot of fun, and I think that we all learned lot's from it. I will probably say yes again next week if they do it again. Even though I had to sleep through a beautiful Saturday. Well worth it!
It started of as a regular shift at work, doing the regular boring things. Doing overhaul on airplanes gets to be almost production line-ish at times. There is usually only one or two days of fun when the plane is getting ready to leave, and you get to run around outside with engines running and the bosses freaking out and stuff like that. But, normally, it's a little mundane. So, Friday night, it got a little interesting.
I finished my regular shift, went home, showered, and lied down for a couple of hours. Didn't sleep, but I wish I had. Then, got up, grabbed some food for later, and ran off back to work. From there, we did the hour drive out to YVR to go and do an "A" Check on a 757 out on the line. This is a big difference from working on the "dead" airplanes in our hanger. This bird was live, and we had six hours to check it all over, change a few filters, flush out the water system, and boroscope one of the engines. There was a lot to do.
I was handed all the APU cards to work on. The APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) is a little turbine engine that sits in the back of the plane and produces electricity and is an air source for starting the main engines. So, I jumped at it with a lot of enthusiasm, mostly because I had a short time to do it all, and also, I really like working on APU's. I managed to get it all done in a couple of hours, and then went off to inspect the wings.
We did the check in the BCIT hanger, so we had a herd of students following us around. It is amazing to realize how much more info I have crammed into the sponge in my head than these guys that are still in school. I guess that I do know what I am doing!! I had a lot of fun teaching the students about different things, getting them to help, and telling them about working out in the "real world" of aviation.
Some time into the check, one of the guys changing a filter on the IDG (Integrated Drive Generator) found a whole bunch of metal in there. Lot's of metal. Seems that this is a fairly common (albeit expensive) problem for these generators. So, we had to change it. Luckily, they always keep a spare handy. I don't think that I have ever seen one changed as fast as those guys did it.
So, by 8:00AM, the plane was pretty much ready to go again, with only the engine and APU runs to complete. Most of us got to go home to bed, and a few of the guys stuck around to make sure that everything was good. By 11:00AM, the plane was loading with passengers to fly to Hawaii.
I was (as well as a few others) awake for over 24 hours in all that, but I have never seen such a concerted team effort like that before. It was a lot of fun, and I think that we all learned lot's from it. I will probably say yes again next week if they do it again. Even though I had to sleep through a beautiful Saturday. Well worth it!
posted by Travelcedric at 09:46
2 Comments:
You may have slept all day Saturday, but you surely did give the people on that plane their best chance to enjoy that same Saturday. Good on you!
You may have slept all day Saturday, but you surely did give the people on that plane their best chance to enjoy that same Saturday. Good on you!
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