Advice needed for a "Soon to be Mechanic"
 

Hi all,

I've posted on here before and I've had some great advice from the community so I'm going to try again.

I'm approaching the end of a 2 year apprenticeship (finishes in November) that will give me an A Licence and hopefully I'll be offered a mechanics position at my current company, but I have been informed that this is not a certainty. I've been advised to start looking and applying for other roles in the coming months to ensure I'm not caught between jobs. I've recently started my search and if I'm honest it is quite daunting for someone new to the industry.

Basically I want to get into an organisation that carries out heavier maintenance than what I've experienced in the last year, so that I can improve and expand my skills as quickly as possible. The maintenance I have been performing I would class as light to moderate i.e. overnight phase checks, component replacement, defect rectification and general servicing. The "heaviest" job I have experienced now is probably an engine change. Unfortunately the company I work within do not carry out many sheet metal work related tasks, which is an area that I find very interesting due to my lack of experience in it.

I'm just wondering if you guys can suggest what would be a good next move, perhaps recommend a few companies that might be worth contacting. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and if anyone wishes to PM me about anything I will happily reply.

Thank you for reading all of this and I look forward to your messages.

Hi there.


The companies I can think of, off the top of my head, is British Airways Maintenance Cardiff and British Airways Maintenance Glasgow, which are heavy maintenance facilities (C & D check types plus occasional modification work) at the respective airports.


If I remember correctly they were recruiting mechanics quite recently. Otherwise BA down at Heathrow is an option but not for heavy maintenance, the heaviest that's done down here is a B check. There is a single 767 heavy maintenance line however with the fleet reducing in size not sure how long term its future is. Plus most people who've joined as mechanics haven't gone to there so you could risk ending up somewhere you don't want to be like cabin maintenance or A check line overnight.


KLM in Norwich, Flybe in Exeter and Monarch (I'm pretty sure) do heavy checks too if that's what you are looking for.
Heavy maintenance is an excellent way to get to know aircraft and in depth problem solving and develop your hand skills in your early career, however it's not a fast paced environment (well...from my experience) so depends what kind of environment you enjoy.


Safe flying.
Tech_log.