Engineer's Opinions

[JSaeroengineer]

:hmm:Hi All,
As i am just an apprentice aircraft engineer, i was just wondering what the general opinion of pilots is, i.e my tutors use the saying 'you can teach a monkey to ride a bike, but you cant teach it to fix a puncture!'

Any other opinions of pilots would be welcome, as personally i think they are a little up themselves :hmm:
If you dont like that, sue me!:ok:

[ericferret]

Pilots are no different from the rest of society, there are the good, the bad and the indifferent.

The type of pilot I like is the one who brings in a u/s aircraft and then makes sure that he gives a full verbal debrief, often having to wait at the end of a long day to do so.

The opposite is the pilot who writes a line of incomplete rubbish in the tech log and clears off before anyone can get to the aircraft.

[BeeBopp]

Hi JS
'you can teach a monkey to ride a bike, but you cant teach it to fix a puncture!'
I have heard this spouted in many forms over the years usually by people who have limited experience of line engineering & dealing with crew. It is not a fair comparison as although both engineer and pilot have a vast technical knowledge of their aircraft, their respective training, knowledge & experience are focused in very different ways.
Example,
XXXX system has failed
An Engineer will think - How can I isolate or eliminate the fault - How am I going to fix it ?
A Pilot will think - What functions have I lost, How does it interact with other systems - How am I going to manage without it ?
As Eric said pilots are no different to anyone else - they command the respect they deserve & they acquire this by the manner in which they deal with situations and people - most are sound, some are exceptional and very occasionally you meet one who clearly has no aptitude for the job, in the air or on the ground. The same applies to engineering really.

[brett s]

What about those of us that are both? Had 6 years of helicopter maintenance experience before I started driving them & continued to do both for several more years...

There are good & bad pilots, just like there are good & bad engineers - I've worked with plenty of each :ok:

[Techman]

both engineer and pilot have a vast technical knowledge of their aircraft I beg to differ. The average pilot, i.e. the vast majority, have a technical knowledge of their aircraft, that can be compared to the knowledge a driver has of his/her car. The level of their technical manual is also comparable to a car's instruction manual. Relatively speaking of course.

Most pilots are also only interested in how to work it, not how it works.

[17thhour]

Most pilots are also only interested in how to work it, not how it works.

and with good reason:

pilots job is to know how to work the aircraft

engineers job is to know how the aircraft works

also...
beebopp has summed it up well in his post above aswell.

[mavrik1]

Where I work currently, I am dealing with pilots that have all been promoted early due to lack of pilots and growing fleets, these aircraft are now flying around with no SO's as before.
They are now all FO's and FO's are now Capt's. In comparason with the airline I used work for, which was a pleasure deal pilots and was very much a enviroment where everyone put in to get a aircraft of the ground. These guys unlike are becoming tougher and tougher to deal with.
They think the airline is their's and everyone else that works there is put solely there for them. I used to feel I worked for team before I came here, the pilots got great service and trusted our decisions and still extremely professional. Now I feel like I am being treated like a bag of
S!@t. These guys are requesting the most ridiculous things, and there is nothing we can do, try explain, get nowhere, so we except and carry out such tasks. The problem is that most these drivers are young for their positions and the culture is growing, these guys arn't going anywhere to quickly so I can only see it getting worse, especially when the new guys come along and are trained to treat people in the same manner.
I surpose thats what you call a so called flying club.

[stevef]

Engineers get to meet the occasional awkward/supercilious pilots just as aircrew get to meet the odd grunting/waffling engineer. There'll always be horror stories from both spheres because they make good telling in the bar but I don't think you can generalise.
The hackneyed monkey/bike/puncture saying is nonsense imo: how many engineers could carry out a one-engine inop 737 landing at night time in a howling snowstorm... Or even a landing in perfect weather!

[Piper19]

I'm doing both (engineer as job, flying as hobby). I think being engineer needs more knowledge than being pilot, as piloting is somewhat repetitive. You're doing the same actions and checklist over again. Base maintenance is about the same. Line maintenance however can be unpredictive, as any system can go wrong, and you need to solve it in time.
However, flying an airplane with big problems also needs skill.
To put it together, engineers and pilots all need to have quality and responsability in their job. The paytrates are not the same, but then again, pilots pay more to have the license in the first place.

[17thhour]

/\/\ exactly...

what engineer could land a 747 in a gale force crosswind? not many
and in the mean time, what pilot could replace a 747's engine with the pressure of it flying the next day? not many

They are both jobs that require skill, rivalry between them is inevitable- just like rivarly between the drivers in F1 and their engineers are. Its not just aviation that has rivalry between those who fix and those who use the machine.

[Rigga]

To explain the theory of pilots knowledge of aircraft systems..
Many pilots think that because he/she presses button A, Indicator D will Light up and the pertinent actions will have taken place.
Many pilots will not know the sequence of events that actually take place as they have learnt them from the operators manuals not the manufacturers maintenance manuals.
The Difference?...
Maintenance System descriptions will cover all aspects of that system in toto. Operator Manuals cover the effects of actions taken - not normally the sequence of operations before that effect.
e.g.
Pilot actions are taught as:
Button A is pressed, opens valve C to open allowing pressure to be felt at Valve E opening Fuel in Tank 3 to feed the APU and bypass fuel from Tank 4
Engineers are taught that:
Button A is pressed, causing power from Bus G Relay B to switch over, allowing Bus H power to switch Relay I opening valve C - ect, ect.[/INDENT]
As I said - Many pilots are that way - not all.