Got me a job as an aviation technician!

[drummer4468]

I posted a while back about transferring my skills as a satellite communications tech over to the aviation world. Well, the planets lined up just right and I nailed down a job about a month ago as an electromechanical technician at a regional MRO! Not working on actual aircraft yet, but on testing/refurbishing parts like actuators, hydraulics, etc.

The job has its ups and downs like any other, but the biggest bonus is that I have a bit of freedom to move around the shop and train on different things, logging hours with the eventual goal of becoming an A&P.

Haven't been on here as much lately, since I'm no longer vegetating behind a desk at work every night. Feels good to be working with my hands again, and on different components every day. Not to mention having a real excuse to build up my budding tool collection lol. Now to find the time to finish off my commercial cert....

Thanks to all who offered advice in my previous thread. Any input or words of sage wisdom are appreciated!

 

[Timbeck2]

Congratulations!

 

[geezer]

Best wishes! There is no better work than what you enjoy doing.

 

[Bell206]

Any input or words of sage wisdom are appreciated!

Just a reminder from the previous thread. If you really liked your satcom days, and that experience can be applied to aircraft avionics, a top notch avionics tech with an A&P certificate is the proverbial golden ticket. So if your present job allows you to move around the MRO, keep the avionics side in mind when you work toward your A&P. Good luck and congrats on following your dreams.

 

[Half Fast]

Congratulations! If you enjoy something, chances are you'll work hard at it and become good at it and have a good likelihood of success. WELL DONE!

 

[drummer4468]

Just a reminder from the previous thread. If you really liked your satcom days, and that experience can be applied to aircraft avionics, a top notch avionics tech with an A&P certificate is the proverbial golden ticket. So if your present job allows you to move around the MRO, keep the avionics side in mind when you work toward your A&P. Good luck and congrats on following your dreams.

Yessir, that's the big-picture focus right now. Looking forward to working with more avionics as time goes on. I'm not one to brag about myself (too) often, but it seems I'm already making very good impressions in the electromechanical area. So it already seems like I'll head in the avionics direction pretty quick. But I'm equally as excited about the wrench-turning in between.

I did/do have a love for the satcom I once knew, but in my experience, that field is getting more watered down and stagnated by the year. The fun stuff like in-depth diagnostics, tearing apart equipment, tracing the wiring, and finding/replacing that failing subcomponent has now been largely relegated to "Green light turn red, contract say replace entire magic COTS box with spare and send broken one back to depot/manufacturer...Yay! Red light turn green again!" It may be more economical in their books, but not the kind of thing that stimulates the puzzle-solving part of my brain. And I won't even get into the many other pitfalls and idiosyncrasies of gov't contract work again.

And I gotta say, it's really nice being able to talk openly to my girlfriend and family about what I do now, and not be a security-clearance-bound weirdo who works in a windowless building all night, haha.

Thanks for the kind words, all. Much appreciated!

 

[Bell206]

The fun stuff like in-depth diagnostics, tearing apart equipment, tracing the wiring, and finding/replacing that failing subcomponent has now been largely relegated to "Green light turn red, contract say replace entire magic COTS box with spare and send broken one back to depot/manufacturer...Yay! Red light turn green again!"

And that's the way aviation maintenance has gone as more "black boxes" are used to control things. Actual troubleshooting the cause has started to become an exception vs a norm. So in your case a good avionics tech will still troubleshoot even though the manual says to replace a box. Can't tell you how many warning lights or glitches I've fixed on modern aircraft by simply unplugging the main battery for 5 minutes or checking connectors/wires for proper installation when the book stated to replace a $55k ECU or $10k GCU. The ability to understand how the system work and fix the actual problem trumps everything.