Quote:
Originally Posted by VacantSky
Nice! The (ch)air force has way too many aircraft maintenance career fields in my opinion, I wish they cut more things out to the crew chief (Aerospace Maintenance - the official title). But at the same time, our back shops - sheet metal - metals tech - hydraulics... blah blah blah can all jump around bases to different airframes without retraining so that makes them more useful for our large array of different aircraft. I can get cut trained on other maintenance career fields, but it's always a secondary and is never taken into consideration for anything more than just "bitch work" so to speak. So unless we're pursuing aerospace jobs on the outside most of us stay away from it lol.
As a flightline crew chief we get engine run qual'd and the like, but the back shop where I am at is a lot more intricate with mainly the flight controls and landing gear and all the cables and crap that makes it all happen. It's very interesting, do you ever get to dive that far into it, rigging etc? Just wait until you get on a J model, the flight deck is like something out of star trek compared to the legacy 130's! I work on the AC-130H's here too now that I'm backshop. Going between the 2 models it's crazy how far this airframe has come
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The 'J' models are pretty fuckin sweet! I have been on a few Marine J models.
We do all the rigging for the flight controls, throttles, props, flaps, brakes, etc. We get ground turn qual'd, which is what you guys call engine run I guess.
In the Navy we have 3 maintenance levels [operational, intermediate, depot]. I'm at operational right now, in the past I was at intermediate level - which is simliar to your guys' backshop.. except a little more distanced. It's not actually attached to the squadron and generally supports all the squadrons on base (multiple platforms), I was a welder there mostly. Also dealt with NDT inspections, broke into hydraulics more (rebuilt pumps, struts, etc), etc. We have more broad jobs due to the nature of the Navy - on a ship you are limited to the number of people you can have so "do more with less" is essentially how it goes. Although, C-130s don't exactly go on carriers so it's kind of a moot point there.
I remember going to get some hyd tubing from the Air Force once; you guys always have so much more crap and dealing with supply in the Navy is worse than getting your teeth pulled (no offense @
solus, I see you're a supply officer
) and I went to the hydraulics shop only to find out that you guys have a seperate sheet metal shop that deals with the tubing.. I was like "wtf?" I am used to just one set of guys doing most everything.. not it being divied up between 10+ different shops, lol.