Tools, Tests and Tricks: Between Don at Coast Aircraft and my Dad, I got talked into testing for the A&P, a license I was reluctant to get being one who obviously avoided responsibility. If you work under someone else’s signature, you’re not responsible; the FAA can’t touch you, and neither can the legal system. But, as I had just turned thirty, I reckoned it was time to man-up a little bit, and so I studied Dad’s old Zweng manuals and made many trips to the San Diego Public Library to check out books on basic electricity, hydraulics, welding and the like. I studied at night in my van—still preferring to camp on Shelter Island beneath the fragrant eucalyptus trees—and worked at Coast during the day.

I traded the Honda 90 to another aircraft mechanic, who was upgrading to all Mac and Snap-On tools, for a complete set of Craftsman tools, along with a top-box; not great tools for aircraft, but better than what I had, which was nothing. Still, I went in hoc to the Mac Man, buying ¼” drive sockets, swivel sockets, ratchets, palm ratchets, and extensions. Those swivel sockets were expensive, but as thin as they were, you still had to grind them thinner to fit on Continental and Lycoming exhaust nuts, which, of course, voided the warranty. You had to do what you had to do. The Craftsman wrenches were great for building special tools, grinding them down, heating them up with a torch and bending them, so that you had weird looking wrenches in your box, each with but one purpose in life.

Some tools were inexpensive, like the words of encouragement stuck on my top box and the wad of grey putty used to affix a tiny nut to a fingertip and thereby be able to reach up behind the instrument panel, position it on the threads of an instrument screw, post light, or what-have-you, and start it with the adjacent fingertip, all in the blind, all by feel. On newer aircraft, avionics and instruments can be loosened and slid out from the front of the panel; on older aircraft, they were installed from the back. That latter was a challenge resulting in the mechanic being upside down on the pilot or co-pilot seat with his head resting on the rudder pedals, fishing around back there to install an instrument, canon plug, vacuum or static line, tachometer cable, fuel or oil pressure line, and so on. A few years later, borrowing the title from Robert Pirsig’s book, I wrote a poem about that business, and it was published in the Coe College Review out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Here tis:

Zen and the Art of Aircraft Mechanics

They like it behind the panel:
Cerebral problems leading to
embarrassing physical positions
not even sex could justify,
the unreadable wiring,
those clipped and hanging
(God alone knows where they went),
future problems encountered,
sealed brains, de-ice timers, so on,
the imposing black backs of instruments
with their fat plugs, multi-wired
bridge between realities,
the dexterity of the fingers,
the agility of the arm,
the endurance of the neck and back:
They like it behind the panel.


(From: Coe Review, Coe College, Issue 16, 1986)


Along with the brain power it takes to diagnose and fix problems, mechanics must learn the tricks, develop the dexterity and, more importantly, the determination. You might wonder, “Gee, how would you get a torque wrench on some of those lines?” Short answer: you wouldn’t, not unless you disassembled the aircraft surrounding it, or rigged up some kind of extension for the torque wrench consisting of a dozen extensions with a dozen universal joints leading to a crow’s foot on the end for which you’d need a very complicated conversion chart to convert the torque value. No, you just got it snug, and then a bit more, but not like some mechanics who followed the more-is-better principle of “Smoke tight and a quarter turn.”

In part, such tricky work can be blamed on engineers who never considered maintenance down the road. On the Piper Aerostar, they allowed so little room between the engine and the firewall, that to remove an aft cylinder, you had to remove the engine. Another example would be the bladder type fuel cells that, in time, developed leaks and had to be replaced. At the aircraft factory, they installed the cells and then the surrounding wing skins, but provided access via removable panels about the size of teacup saucers. To use Dad’s analogy of another human activity, it was like putting a marshmallow in a piggy bank, and, conversely, removing the marshmallow. Then, of course, you had the snaps, pipes, hose clamps, wet pumps, and so on to contend with. Beefy mechanics, like my buddy Sluggo in Little Rock, never had to do fuel cells—his arms were too big to fit in the holes.

A word more about dexterity. Later, working in Hot Springs, I had a couple customers from Little Rock. They were friends, each owned a Travel Air, a twin-engine Beechcraft with four cylinder Lycoming engines. They were orthopedic surgeons and liked to tinker on their airplane, so they liked to stay and “help” me. What amazed me about those guys was their lack of dexterity, their inability to work in difficult situations and start a nut or screw without getting it cross-threaded, for which I razzed them, saying, “Jeeze, and you guys are surgeons?” and suggested that maybe aircraft maintenance was the more difficult occupation, until one got his feelings hurt, and said, “Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? Well, try changing spark plugs with the engine running!”

It was a valid point, and I have to give them kudos for their efforts toward maintenance; although sometimes they really screwed up the works. One of them had his plane in my shop, and I got into the nose baggage compartment to check the battery, took the panel off the battery compartment, and, holy cow, what a mess. Everything was wet with battery acid and there was corrosion everywhere. I figured the battery case must be cracked, but I removed the caps and the acid level was way high. I yelled, “Hey, Doc, did you add water to the battery?” He called back, “Yeah, and I’ve been meaning to mention that. I think there’s something wrong. I keep filling it up, but every time I check, it’s low.”

The worst thing about owners doing preventive maintenance, which they are allowed to do, is that most never make the required logbook entry. So that if something goes bad, an accident or violation, and the Feds step in, they look for the last name in the book. If it’s yours, and especially if you signed the 100 Hour or Annual Inspection, basically meaning that you’ve bought the whole kit and kaboodle, you find yourself sitting across the desk from an FAA Inspector. And while you may wear your best Clinton Deposition face and say, “I’m telling you, I did not do that,” the inspector’s expression, so very disappointed, says, “Lawd, Lawd, the cross I bear. Why do these people insist on blowing smoke up the FAA’s skirts?”

Here are pictures of Dad’s Kennedy Kit top box he used from his days at Douglas (the white patch says, “Testing Division, Douglas Aircraft, Co. Inc.”); a drawer full of tools from another time, but still useful; and my top box still with putty and quotes.

Tool Box (1).jpg

Tool Box (5).jpg

Tool Box (4).jpg