Please don't try to work on the Airplane

One time, at band camp, we took about 6 inches off a wing tip landing a piper cub on an Alaskan beach. (blind approach, snag fallen on beach, no go-around option). Thank god for duct tape, and preventative maintenance, else we'd still be out there. I'm assuming prevention of starvation and freezing to death are on the preventive list, or that a reasonable argument could be made for their inclusion in exigent circumstances. I'm firmly of the school that there are rarely "yes" or "no" answers... in aviation, as in life (with the exception of the current US Congress) the answer is usually, "it depends".
If I had a nickle for each time I've had a mechanic say the tires look fine, while I'm holding a pressure gauge that says otherwise, I'd have enough money to get my A&P, avoid the hassle, and properly inflate the tire myowndamnself.
 
On a related note, when you've found yourself a good mechanic, move heaven and earth to keep them. Our guy is top notch, and we've been trying to shield this knowledge from management. So far, so good, but I'm sure sooner or later they're going to notice and either promote or fire him, depending on what the chicken bones say that day.
 
Nick said:
You guys do some weird stuff out there!
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The captain and I weren't really sure what they were trying to do when they asked for the MEL book after we called them out to look at a message that had a consequence of "DO NOT TAKEOFF".
 
Boris Badenov said:
On a related note, when you've found yourself a good mechanic, move heaven and earth to keep them. Our guy is top notch, and we've been trying to shield this knowledge from management. So far, so good, but I'm sure sooner or later they're going to notice and either promote or fire him, depending on what the chicken bones say that day.
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Absofreakinglutely! Couldn't agree more.
 
Boris Badenov said:
On a related note, when you've found yourself a good mechanic, move heaven and earth to keep them. Our guy is top notch, and we've been trying to shield this knowledge from management. So far, so good, but I'm sure sooner or later they're going to notice and either promote or fire him, depending on what the chicken bones say that day.
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Someday I'm gonna get that 91 G-IV and put all this crap behind me. (french speak) say la vee.
 
ChasenSFO said:
I'd trust a random stranger in a Fosters Freeze to work on an airframe.

Reason 269 I left that place.
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AA A & P night job was flying checks in daytime few years ago grounds a Baron in Abilene for power loss in an engine.
Ace mechanic shows up and tightens loose throttle contol cable.
Ouch!
 
As far as Grammar goes, I stick to the "historian" test. Poor grammar or elocution is like Pornography...you know it when you see it. And it will, always and forever, be "an historian", not "a historian". It's like nails on a chalkboard to even type the later. However mightily the forces of "new age" grammar might labor (labour?), there will always be things that are simply, well, "beyond the pale", yes?

Here's what I've always believed to be the Final Word on the subject. DFW, as usual, speaks my heart.

Did you know that probing the seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography reveals ideological strife and controversy and intrigue and nastiness and fervor on a nearly hanging-chad scale? For instance, did you know that some modern dictionaries are notoriously liberal and others notoriously conservative, and that certain conservative dictionaries were actually conceived and designed as corrective responses to the "corruption" and "permissiveness" of certain liberal dictionaries? That the oligarchic device of having a special "Distinguished Usage Panel ... of outstanding professional speakers and writers" is an attempted compromise between the forces of egalitarianism and traditionalism in English, but that most linguistic liberals dismiss the Usage Panel as mere sham-populism? Did you know that U.S. lexicography even had a seamy underbelly?
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It you find that even slightly interesting, it really is worth reading the whole thing.

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html
 
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