Aircraft mechanic or pilot.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Which profession requires the most knowledge and work skills?


I was both during my career and I found maintaining and fixing them to be the most satisfactory and required more knowledge and skills than flying them.


So what do the rest of you think?

[Colonel]

Apples and oranges.  At the risk of pissing people off ...

Operating heavy equipment is more white collar -
push the paper, push the buttons, get your hair
cut and wear clean clothes.

Maintaining heavy equipment is more blue collar,
and involves more skinned knuckles and back pain,
and grease under your fingernails.

Mind you, there are many different kinds of maintenance.

Some maintenance is pretty mindless - just go through
the checklist.  Large organization.  Mind you, a lot of
that is going overseas.

Some maintenance is pretty challenging - diagnosing
the cause of a problem, which is generally done horribly
and expensively.  Or, working on older stuff which has
developed character over the decades and doesn't have
much in the way of documentation, which spells trouble
for today's AME's who are lost without their thick manuals.

Ask the child that assembled the carburetor for Harry
Ford's PT-22's Kinner carburetor.  The manual didn't
say to use locktite, so he didn't, and it came apart
and stopped flowing gas in flight. 

[img width=500 height=307]http://luckypuppy.net/BLOG/wp-content/u ... 2-Ford.jpg[/img]

Harry Ford is lucky to be alive, and the NTSB said
it was no one's fault, because the manual didn't
say to use locktite on the jets. 

Ahem.  Was that a "learning experience" or a
"good job"?  Did anyone learn that he took a
good carburetor, and after expensive maintenance,
converted it to a bad carburetor that caused a
total write-off accident that could have been fatal?

That's the sort of maintenance that an M2 prima
donna, with his stacks of manuals, would be a
complete duck out of water, trying to attempt.

In large organizations, you can be a prima donna
and have your little sandbox that you take care
off - at least, until they outsource you overseas.

In my world, you'd better be both a good pilot
and a good mechanic, because the only aircraft
I'm interested in flying aren't about to tolerate
a pilot that can't diagnose and fix it, too. 

I like airplanes with character.  Lots of character.
I really hate boring airplanes.  I once flew a Pitts
that had the elevator jam in a vertical downline.
Tricky.  Bought it, of course.  Most pilots don't
like aircraft with character.  Their loss.

And this isn't just about airplanes.  A couple
months back, I saw a guy on the side of the
freeway, with his motorcycle and the chain
was off.  He obviously had let it deteriorate
and had no clue (or just didn't care) that his
chain was toast.  Coincidentally, I cleaned and
lubricated a motorcycle chain this morning.

I simply cannot imagine, going through life
and not giving a shit about the maintenance
of a bicycle, motorcycle, car, boat or airplane
that I am operating.  That's how you get killed.

But many do.  Incredibly, most people have
no clue when the brakes on their cars are
totally worn out, or their bearings are shot,
or when their tires are flat and overheating
badly, about to blow out.

Really?  You're happy with all that stuff failing?

[Chris]

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=3258.msg9217#msg9217 date=1465173292]
Really?  You're happy with all that stuff failing?
[/quote]


I passed a ~'00 Jeep Cherokee on the 401 today and could hear something howling from two lanes over, like a power steering pump full of shrapnel.


"Oh, it just started making that noise this morning!"

[Colonel]

There seem to be plenty of people that want
to drive through those quickie-oil change places
and spend $700 on blinker fluid and muffler
bearings, when they could buy them online
much cheaper:

[url=http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=22]http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=22[/url]

[url=http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=48]http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=48[/url]

[BCPilotguy]

Here's another vote for apples and oranges.

Overall I think that at the most basic level flying requires more breadth of skills and knowledge and wrenching requires more depth. 

In order to fly an airplane, one has to know something about everything.  Weather, law, aerodynamics, navigation, communication, mechanics, health, etc. etc. all play a role in flying but you don't have to be an expert in any one thing in order to safely fly an airplane.

A mechanic has to have more in depth knowledge about a more limited range of subjects.  Just look at the amount of time and training it takes to become a mechanic vice what it takes to become a pilot.  It's harder to aquire that depth of knowledge than the Cole's notes introduction that pilots get to each of the necessary subjects.

Last month I "assisted" my mechanic with my annual inspection for the first time.  I was definitely out of my element, but he patiently instructed me in my tasks and answered all my questions that I'm sure he found to be very simple.  We wound up going flying to troubleshoot a couple minor squawks that only occur in the air.  It was interesting to see the juxtaposition of him being in my world as opposed to me being in his.  In the air it was him asking the simple questions and me patiently answering and explaining things (despite him growing up around and working on airplanes he really hasn't flown very much). 

Flying and wrenching, apples and oranges, equal but different. 

[Big Ears Teddy]

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=3258.msg9219#msg9219 date=1465183271]spend $700 on blinker fluid and muffler bearings, when they could buy them online
much cheaper:
[url=http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=22]http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=22[/url]
[url=http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=48]http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_pa ... ucts_id=48[/url]
[/quote]
Ha ha! Very interesting auto parts store.  Thinking of ordering the pilot wrench. O0