Quote:
Originally Posted by woode
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) 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.
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Sounds about right, it's like musical chairs figuring out who does what maintenance wise sometimes here, it's a headache. Our back shop (crew chief) is still dedicated to 130's specifically. I wish we had welding under our belts. But that's fabrication flight. Who shares a work area with sheet metal.. so when you walk in there you have to figure out who you're talking to first.. nightmare... Although the wheel and tire we do as a side job we cover all aircraft on base, and our crash recovery extends to every and any airframe - even a local jurisdiction to help with civilian aircraft. If we had another airframe that required AR here the personnel would probably share a shop with us, but only work on their airframe.
I like meeting other services maintainers and sharing complaints about all the things we do wrong, and wishing we had some of eachothers structure. I worked with a Marine (I would say prior but once a Marine always a Marine), she was a lockheed contractor here and she'd tell us about how stupid some of the things we have to do are. And then tell us how awesome we had it for other stuff.