Expert Opinion
AINsight: Solving the Mx Tech Shortage without More Techs
Too much aircraft maintenance is done just for the sake of it, not because it is truly necessary, and this ties up valuable mechanic time.
Aircraft mechanic at work

Every 100 hours, it was the same-old, same-old. I could barely keep my eyes open while doing yet another 100-hour inspection on the same trainer I had just inspected a month ago and the month before that and on and on. Each time I did the inspection, I had to play a game where I figured that if I looked hard enough, I’d find something wrong. But in the dozens of times I inspected those airplanes, I never found a broken wing bolt or spar or other major structural damage.

What I did find was that I spent 90 percent of my time looking in inspection holes and checking those bolts and spars and by the time I was nearly done and ready to fix all the discrepancies (squawks) that were on my list, the front desk was desperate for the airplane to get back on the line so it could resume making money.

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Matt Thurber
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