How to get into line maintenace

[allthatglitters]

As one of the lucky ones to have been properly trained as an engineering apprentice with a very large British airline, from the time of leaving school, working my way up to the Certifying Licensed Engineer, I for one cannot understand the mentality that training costs money. Especially since leaving the large airline for many years I have had to work with staff of varying standards of education, basic training, knowledge and abilities. Which at some places leaves a great deal to the imagination…?

I have worked with staff who wouldn’t even know how to check the engine oil level correctly, and the bottom line is even the engine oil costs.
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How can you rely on a few of your staff carrying the rest of those who just make up the numbers, passable on every day routine tyre kicking, checking the oil and changing the odd wheel or brake unit, passing the time of day with the hostess, hoping for a cup of something warming. But what when a PFR requires something more than that, an engine problem, a flight controls problem or some idiot has just hit the side of your aeroplane and they are screaming at you that there is nothing else to use for that service, who do you turn too, tech services, the man in the MCC, are you sure, your direct line manager.
The tech services, (degree holders, many who have not been near an aeroplane, except for that brief introduction during there induction into the company, the mail boy between you and the manufacturer, or the regulatory authority) What’s the point of taking on a degree holder who has been no where near an aircraft then having to retrain them, what an aeroplane is then when they have enough of that, or the opportunity comes along, leave and move onto another position in another company in a totally unrelated subject.

Or the MCC staff, (full of office staff), many of whom have not been out on the front line for how long???
Your Line manager, the man who has been promoted over you, him, who suckered up to the right people and joined the right social clubs, who didn’t tell the boss to his face what he didn’t want to here. The leopard who has changed his spots over night.


3 to 4 years of basic, good training straight from school, can repay over the 30-40 years you will be productive and move on up the ladder, head held high.