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.
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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?