Fighting Fire Down Under

    This winter I was down in Australia with Erickson for the fire season down there. It was a great opportunity to get out and see some of the rest of the world. Operationally it was the same as fighting fire in the states. Just a few differences in dispatch times and personnel.

 My machine was based at Essendon Feilds, just outside of Melbourne. It was a pretty quite summer for the most part. We only flew about 30 hours. The guys on the west coast flew a lot more on the fires near Perth. And that's normal. Its warmer and dryer that direction. Our contract for this winter has come to an end this last week. So soon here my helicopter will be put on a container ship bound for long beach to fight fire once again on our west coast. Last I heard I was going to be based in Salmon ID, but that could change. One of the major this Ive learned from this job is how to be flexible. Destinations and schedules are always changing.

  Sadly I really didn't get to get out and see much of Australia. Other than going into down town Melbourne a couple different evenings, I spent a few days in Mansfeild, just north of Melbourne for a fire and I was able to go over to Ballarat to help another crew with a free turbine change. I would have enjoyed seeing more, but I was was only there for work, and we don't have days off when we are on tour.

  

New Job, New Opportunities

     I know Its been forever since Ive posted on this blog. But allot has changed and to be honest I kinda forgot about it. So Long story short, I took a job as a S-64 field mechanic with Erickson Aviation. This basically means I get chase a giant helicopter all over the world. It has turned out to be a great opportunity and experience. This last summer my my machine (N194AC pic below) was contracted to the forest service for fire abatement. Most time was spent in either Oregon or California. This winter I may be heading to Australia for their fire season. I work a 12 days on, 12 day off schedule when I'm here in the states. When I head over seas it goes to 21 on 21 off. 

    

The S-64, or "Skycrane" is an awesome piece of equipment. Its one of the few helicopters that can lift more than its own weight. This enables us to lift up to 20,000 lbs... strait up. it has two PWJT12 engines delivering 9000 hp.

   So Far this job has been very good, and I plan to stay for the foreseeable future. 

 

Another Move

     Last year I began work as a mechanic for a company in Hayden Idaho. They perform heavy checks on ATR 42/72, Saab 340 and Q400 aircraft. Its been a nice change from the paint shop. Here I perform everything from changing light bulbs to changing engines. Its a much more challenging work place and have enjoyed it.  Ive had the opertunity to use more of my skills and learn what it really takes to be a good mechanic.

   Living in Idaho has been really good for me too. Its a more laid back conservative area, so its been a nice change from Spokane. Im also much closer to hiking and fishing areas, which is something id like to do a lot more of.

Getting Back Into Cycling

     So last summer I got back into cycling. Ive always liked bike, and even had a small bike junkyard as a kid. I would peace one together and ride it till it fell apart and then do it again, just for the enjoyment of building the bike. But now that I am older I wanted to get into the physical benefits and adventure that can come with cycling. So I went out and bought an actual road bike. I couldn't do what I had planed on my heavy mountain bike. Then I set out goals for training, with the ultimate goal of completing a 4 multiple day bike tour into Canada. Long story short I trained hard and got to Canada. My buddy Chuck and I set out one morning and two and a half days later we arrived in Nelson BC. It was a beautiful trip, that was made fairly easy from all the riding I had done in the previous months.

My bike in blue, And chucks in orange. 

My gear all together weighed about 60 lbs. With this weight we where only able to travel on average 16 miles an hour. which really wasn't to bad 

First day, 98 miles to the north side of Sullivan lake 

   Nelson was a fun place to visit. Its a little waterfront tourist spot, with losts of good places to eat. We stayed in a little hostel called the white house, and enjoyed the view.
    Im already planing my next rip, which will most likely not be as long. Maybe just a trip around lake Pend oreille. Im going to also be participating in some local cycling events this year like the Coeur d'fondo,    http://cdagranfondo.com.  And Spokefest, which is a just a short ride in Spokane but has a great turn out.

Much Has Changed

Since I last updated my blog here quite a bit has changed. first of I finished full time classes at Moody Aviation. Im not 100% done yet. I have two more classes that I need to take care of. I would have had them finished this semester but God provide a great new job for me. About two month's ago I got a job woking at an aircraft paint facility called Associated Painters at the international airport. They needed people with mechanics licences to eventually help with line checks and other maintenance needs. So far Ive worked on Boing 737's, De Havilland Twin Otters's, and Bombardier CRJ700's. Working on these big jets is different than what I worked on at Moody. But I welcome the chance to expand my knowledge of aviation. Right now I mainly help prep for paint. This includes striping, sanding and masking. After my three month review they will teach me to paint.

Associated Painters has the contract to paint half of Southwest Airlines 737's. At Spokane's facility we paint six of these airplanes a month. Thats completely finishing a 737 in five days.

These last three weeks Ive been down in Dallas Texas. I attended Southwest Airlines 737 general familiarization class. Basically Associated sent me to Texas, all expenses payed, to learn how a 737 works. It was a very intence three weeks of eight hours of class a day, five days a week. Sending me to this class was to prepare me for working as a mechanic as well as a painter.

Here are just a few pictures of Southwests facilities in Dallas.

Attending this class was a great opportunity for me to learn, and I'm glad I had the chance to go.

The Fun Stuff

For the last few weeks the maintenance specialist class has been assembling an IO520F that we dissembled and sent out for inspection before the 185 paint project. This project has had quite a few bumps in the road. Most of our problems have been caused by the actual parts suppliers. So its been a slow and frustrating, but still a great learning tool. We have learned tons about inspecting and reassembly, and the big picture of what all it takes to take overhaul an engine. This is also a real engine that when completed will go on a shelf ready to replace any of our 206 engines in the aging fleet. This is definitely the part of maintenance I live the most. Repairing engines is something I would feel comfortable doing for a long time.





On a more day to day note. Now that Im finishing up my maintenance training, Im on the hunt for a Job. I have to work on airplanes, or I risk the chance of loosing my license, and we cant have that. So im dusting off the old resume and sprucing it up with some nice reference letters from my instructors in hopes I can find work and get some experience. My maintenance training will be officially concluded at the end of June. and my final Bible classes wont start till the end of August. Im ready for a bit of a break.

It has been great to see how God has brought me through yet another year here at Moody. Thank the Lord!

AHHH! 4.00 per gallon!

With the coming of spring, comes the warm weather, the BBQ's, T- shirts... and yes, $4.00 for a gallon of gas. And thats if they decide to have mercy on us. So I decided to start a new spring tradition. When the warm weather hits, I give my truck a vacation.
I sold my Honda CB750 motorcycle that I had had for a few years. And bought this little Yamaha XT250. The Old CB only got 30 mpg and didn't have any fenders and was loud and fast I had it basically for the cool factor. But, this little guy will get 60-70 mpg and I wont be tempted to go 120 anymore... I had no trouble selling the old CB. I had put allot of work into making it run well and look good. A young guy ended up buying it for the cool factor. Imagine that. So in the end I got a summer vehicle that will get 6 times better gas mileage than the ol' truck. Complete with fenders for those rainy days. And I must say, The little Yamaha still has a cool factor.

Meet 185CX

This week the we finished putting CX back together. Since the annual inspection was due at the end of the month. We went ahead and did the inspection now. It was allot easier to do since we had all the inspection panels off already and we were performing allot of the inspection items while we where putting the aircraft back together. To finish off the inspection we went through the wheels breaks and engine. Its been really to see this project coming to a close. Its been a long haul and Im glad to see it finished. Its been an amazing opportunity to use what we have learned on a real aircraft.

Painting the red stripes was a real challenge. The hardest part was Lying out the lines. When we got the airplane the stripes weren't strait. So when we laid out the lines we had to start from scratch to make sure they all looked good. Another problem we had, is the number stencil we bought. They only sent us the negative side, so we used it as a guide and had to fill in all the numbers with tape. It was really time consuming. All the lines ended coming out looking really good. and we ended up using every second of the time we where allot to use the booth.
Next are just a few pictures of the red paint going on and the assembly at the main hanger.




We fueled the airplane to perform the final weight and balance. First thing Monday well get the RTS (test Flight) done, and kick this bird out the door.

Monday we are starting our avionics classes, and Im glad to be starting something new.

Change In The Wind...

The weather has finally made up its mind to start making its way towards to the warm side. Its been a little frustrating the last month. One day it will 40 and sunny, a nice day to brake out the motorcycle. But beware... the next day there will be 2 inches of snow. During the summer month's Im on either my motorcycle or bicycle. Fuel gets way to expensive to warrant the use of the truck. So Im ready for those nice sunny days.
At school we have made good progress on the 185 project. We are almost 75% with the paint. We have learned tons from this project, Much more than we could learn from just reading the information from a book. The four of us in the maintenance specialist class are doing all the work. The planning, ordering of parts and materials, an actually driving the rivets and spraying the paint. Its been daunting at times but in the end we will be able to stand back and say, "yes, we did that".We are borrowing a different shops paint facility to spray in. It would be impossible to get a good finish if we tried to spray out side or in an empty hangar. The only downside is that the area is a little cramped. We have to be creative to be able to get all the parts moved around in between spray batches.The paint we are using is a two part polyurethane by Jetglow. Its a really nice product. It took us a little while to figure it out. It shoots allot different that the single stage automotive products that I was used to. for instants the primer is supposed to go on so thin that you can still see through it.The paint goes on in two coats and we where able to get a really good shine.

After the white cures for a few days we are able to tape it of and spray the red. The end product came out really well. Red is the hardest color to get right. We actually ended up spraying three coats of red to finally get the nice deep finish we where looking for.
These fresh colors are really going to make this bird shine.


Coming soon... Spraying the fuselage
To see some of the project up to this point look at the pages in the side bar...