Fred Robel
27 Years Experience
Au Gres, MI
Male, 49
I'm a licensed Aircraft Mechanic & Inspector with twenty five-plus years in the field. I've had a varied career so far, with time spent in the sheetmetal, mechanic, and inspection specialties. Most of my time is on heavy Boeing and McDonnell Douglas aircraft, of the passenger, cargo, and experimental type. This career isn't for everyone, but I enjoy it.
Please do NOT ask me to troubleshoot problems with your airplane, that is not what this Q&A is for.
In my experience, having the gear get stuck is a pretty rare occurance. A more frequent problem would be an indication failure of some kind. In which case most planes have little sight windows in the floors, where the crew can physically look at the gear to see if it is down and locked safely. Usually, if the gear gets stuck in the 'up' position. The manual extension mechanism is used successfully to lower the gear. If that all fails, and the gear is stuck 'up'; then the options are about like you'd expect: Look for the best place to land. Somewhere large and flat if preferable. An airport is best, as they have the emergency equipment... Read More +
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My typical workday, currently as an inspector, consists of showing up on time; getting a basic turnover on the hot projects of the evening; checking in with all the work crews to show my face and let them know where I'll be if they need me; and then spending most of the night with the most important project that I find. Sometimes it's a "shakedown" of an aircraft fresh into our Repair Station, to find any issues with the areas that are on our inspection task cards. Other times, it will be working with our maintenance people on their ongoing projects, making sure everything is going together as it should be, proper techniques and materials... Read More +
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To be honest, I’m not sure. I haven’t worked in any ex-Soviet countries. The few people I’ve met from them, that were aviation people, seemed very competent at their craft. Above average actually in my opinion, simply because they were used to doing so much with so little in the way of equipment and supplies. I’m not sure why the older Soviet airliners had such a bad safety reputation. I know the build quality wasn’t up to Western standards. their jet engines had to be overhauled three times as often as an equivalent engine from the West. Maybe it was the materials used, the engineering. I am not sure. I do know that their stuff... Read More +
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The best part of my job, to me, is when you get the chance to take an old airplane out of desert storage, clean it, fix it, repurpose it, and roll it out to send it off flying, looking and performing like a brand new airplane. Kind of like that Overhaulin’ television show. The worst part is hard to pin down. There are lots of parts of this job that aren’t the best. Though they are the parts that tend to morph into the best stories later on. Dealing with any part of the hydraulic systems where you get fluid all over the place, and yourself, is pretty bad. Skydrol hydraulic fluid is wicked nasty stuff to play with. It has a drying chemical... Read More +
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Birthday Party Clown
OK seriously, how DOES the clown car thing work?
Bartender
Which customers are the worst tippers?
Auto Mechanic
Are mechanics more likely to take advantage of female customers than males?
This is common on small to medium sized airplanes, when they are not very full flights. Mostly for weight and balance purposes. Airplanes are happiest when most of the weight is near the center of gravity, which is usually near the midpoint of the wing, going fore and aft. Smaller airplanes are more sensitive to this than large ones.
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I think the new Mitsubishi Regional Jet is going to be a pretty fun aircraft. Most of it's manufacturing tech is fairly standard, but the powerplants will be the first commercial use of the new Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan engines, the PW1000G series. I have little experience with Mitsubishi aircraft, excepting some light line maintenance on some MU-2 models. And for what it's worth, I though those were very well made aircraft. And good looking to boot! As far as competing against Boeing and Airbus: From what I'm seeing as far as specs, it is supposed to be a 70 to 90 seat aircraft, which puts it below the market for the smallest... Read More +
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Obviously, these are problems that Boeing needs to figure out. With the new type of batteries in use on the 787 and it’s accompanying all electrical systems, I would have thought that overheating and battery fires of this nature wouldn’t be happening. If I were Boeing, I’d root out the cause of each of these incidents, and (rightfully) expect the media to share the results with the same zeal that they’ve shown in reporting the initial headline incidents. It is my hope, that these issues are the result of people interacting and maintaining the systems incorrectly, due to the newness of them. I rather hope it isn’t any inherent flaws... Read More +
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