Playing the Game
By Bill Brinkley AP/IA/AME
A long, long time ago, back in the days of iron men and wooden airplanes, a ritual began. It occurs when a pilot approaches a mechanic to report some difficulty with his aircraft. All mechanics are aware of it, which leads to the conclusion that it’s included somewhere in their training, and most are diligent in practicing it.
New pilots are largely ignorant of the ritual because it’s neither included in their training nor handed down to them by older pilots. Older pilots feel that the pain of learning everything the hard way was so exquisite that they shouldn’t deny anyone the pleasure. Besides, some things can only be learned and retained when they are learned up close and personal. Sometimes second-hand knowledge is just not good enough.
Some pilots refuse to recognize this time-honored ritual as a serious professional event no matter how many times they are forced to perform it, and they are often driven to distraction by it. Some take it personally. They get red in the face and verbally question the integrity, ancestry and heritage of the mechanic (more than they normally do). Some pilots try to treat it as a joke, but it’s always dead serious. Pilots eventually learn that they can’t change it, so sooner or later they accept it and try to practice it with some grace.
The ritual begins before any work is actually done on the aircraft. It has five parts, and goes something like this:
1. The pilot casually reports the problem. The mechanic replies, “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
2. The pilot repeats the complaint. The mechanic replies, “It’s the indicator.”
3. The pilot repeats the complaint again, in more detail this time. The mechanic responds, “They’re all like that.”
4. The pilot repeats the complaint again, adding even more detail and emphasizing the significance of the problem with sound effects and appropriate (and perhaps a few inappropriate) hand gestures. The mechanic responds with, “Are you sure it went like that?”
5. The pilot, quite a bit more animated now, explains the problem again, going into what he feels is a ridiculous amount of detail and making line drawings on his notepad in addition to the sound effects and hand gestures. The mechanic states, “It sounds like an operator error, but I’ll take a look at it.”
Only after this script has been played through in its entirety does serious discussion begin. The problem is usually solved quickly after that.
This scenario serves a number of purposes. It’s most important function is that it is a good basic diagnostic technique. Making the pilot explain the symptoms of the problem several times in increasing detail not only saves troubleshooting time, but it gives the mechanic insight into the pilot’s knowledge of how the machine works, and to his or her state of mind. Sort of the way the police do interrogations on TV ... ask the same questions over and over and the answers will change over time. Sooner or later, you will get to the ‘real’ story, but you have to play the game first.
Mechanics learned long ago that if the last flight was performed at night or in bad weather, some of the problems pilots report are imagined, some exaggerated and a few are real. Likewise, a pilot’s personal problems, especially romantic or financial (but including simple fatigue or even the loss of a favorite pair of aviator sunglasses) affects the pilot’s perception of every little rattle and thump. There are also chronic whiners and complainers to be weeded out and dealt with.
Although it sometimes seems like it, not all pilots are whiners and complainers. Most, perhaps, but not all. Mechanics have to figure out when a pilot is just whining and complaining and when they have a real, potentially safety-of-flight problem with the aircraft. While that sounds easy, some pilots are quite good at confusing the two.
One method of making this whole operation much easier is for a pilot to actually get to know a mechanic. Spend some time learning a bit about what he or she does and why he or she does it. Get him or her to explain your aircraft to you, because you will be quite surprised by how little you actually know about the aircraft you fly every day.
If you really want to impress a mechanic, clean an aircraft. Get out a hose or bucket, a broom and some rags, and at some strange time of day (like early morning or when you would normally take your afternoon nap), start cleaning that aircraft from top to bottom, inside and out. This is guaranteed to knock even the sourest old mechanic off balance. He or she will be suspicious, but he or she will be attracted to this strange behavior like a passing motorist to a roadside accident. The mechanic may even join in to make sure you don’t break anything. Before you know it, you’ll be talking to each other about the aircraft while you’re getting a more intimate knowledge of it.
Do a thorough pre-flight. Most mechanics are willing to admit that they might make a mistake, and since a lot of their work must be done at night or in a hurry, a good mechanic likes to have his or her work checked. Of course, he or she would rather have another mechanic do the checking, but a pilot is a bit better than nothing. Mechanics have nightmares about forgetting to torque a nut or leaving tools in inlets and drive shaft tunnels, even if he or she figures the pilot will overlook something big someday and the whole thing will end up in a smoking pile of rubble anyway.
Don’t abuse the machinery. Mechanics see pilots come and go, so you won’t impress one mechanic in 1,000 with what you can make the aircraft do. They all know she’ll lift more than max gross and will do a hammerhead with half roll. While the pilot is confident that the engine and frame members will take it, the mechanic knows that it’s the seals, bearings, gears and rivets deep in the guts of the machine that fail from abuse. Mechanics aren’t looking for pilots with fancy expensive clothes, flashy spouses, tricky maneuvers and lots of juicy stories about Vietnam. They’re looking for one who’ll fly the aircraft so that all the components make their full service life. They also know that high maintenance costs are a good excuse to keep salaries low, and that Hollywood flying raises maintenance costs.
Do a post-flight inspection. Nothing makes a pilot feel more dashing than to end the day by stepping down from the aircraft and walking off into the sunset while the prop slowly turns down. It’s the stuff that beer commercials are made of. The trouble is that it leaves the pilot ignorant of how the aircraft has fared after a hard days work, and it leaves the mechanic doing a slow burn because he or she has no first-hand information. The mechanic is an engineer and needs some fresh information on the aircraft’s performance if he or she is to have it ready to go the next day. A little end-of-the-day conference also gives you a chance to tell him or her the thing flew great. It’s been known to make mechanics faint dead away.
What it boils down to is that if a pilot performs even a few of these things, it will make life a bit better for both the pilots and mechanics. They already have a strange and strained relationship. It’s a partnership because one’s job depends on the other, but it’s an adversary situation, too, since one’s job is to provide the aircraft with loving care and the other’s is to provide wear and tear. Pilots will probably always regard mechanics as lazy, lecherous, intemperate grease monkeys who couldn’t make it through flight school. Mechanics will probably always be convinced that pilots are an unreliable piece of test equipment with ego problems, a big watch and fancy sunglasses. Both points of view are vicious and slanderous, of course, and only partly true.
Bill Brinkley holds an FAA Airframe and Powerplant certifications as well as an Inspection Authorization and FCC ratings. He is among the first in the nation to receive the PAMA/SAE Aviation Maintenance Engineer rating.
Brinkley has an extensive background in both fixed-wing and rotor maintenance and processes, including the areas of reliability, quality, configuration management, human factors and maintenance planning. He is a columnist for three nationally-published maintenance magazines, and has been a featured speaker at numerous maintenance and reliability seminars.