Help needed with AMM presenation

Morning guys,

Just joined this site and seems quite a few people are in the know so need a hand with the history of the AMM trade post 1980 and also a day in the life of an AMM

Cheers in advance for any help

What's this for?

Original post by AlphaTango

What's this for?

A presentation I have to give on my trade Aircraft Maintenance Mechanic Post 1980, I've done the majority of it, I can't find any resources for when Flems became known as AMM, I just need a bit of history of the trade

Reply 3

ryan9900

Original post by Miloe

Can't give you a history, but can give you a life in the day of.

Source: Just completed 14 months as an AMM on a front line Typhoon squadron.

We leave Cosford as brand new AMMs but we also leave with the ability to undertake mechanical AND avionic work experience once on a squadron. The AMM course at Cosford teaches both mechanical and avionic work and principles, no matter what you initially joined up as. This gives you the opportunity to change your mind about your speciality when you go out onto a squadron. I know a couple of guys who joined up as mechs but switched to avionics after doing some work with both trades.

You arrive on a squadron and have about a month of doing arrivals, courses, getting authorised, and training. After this, you need to complete the second half on the NVQ that you started at Cosford. If I remember rightly, you need 3 avionic jobs and 3 mechanical jobs, with different criteria you have to meet on each job. This means your first couple of months as an AMM is the perfect time to decide if you wish to stay as the speciality you joined up as, or switch to the other one.

Being an AMM or 'liney' is obviously your main priority, so you really need to wait to be on the non-flying shift before you can get any trade work done and therefore complete your NVQ. This is probably more specific to Typhoon, as on something like Sentry, you'll have a whole lot of time to complete trade work (Those things hardly fly).

Trade work can literally be anything, from a landing light bulb change (probably the easiest thing to do), to a full-blown engine change which takes a few shifts to complete.

Once all that is done, you get to relax a bit and settle into a routine. It's cliche to say there is no typical day but for Typhoon at least, there really isn't. We try to keep roughly the same flying program all week but inevitably we may face many issues from internal or external sources which means things change and things can go from 'Go and relax in the tea bar' to 'Get all your stuff and get outside because we have jets taxying back in' real quick.

An example of an average day shift would go something like this:

0630 - Wake up
0700 - Leave for work
0715 - In work and ready to start
0730 - Hangar/flight line checks while the morning brief is done
0800 - Back to the line control where you find out what you'll be doing that day

At this point you will be assigned a jet for the day with times for take off and landing, so it's your responsibility to be in the right place at the right time.

0800-1000 - Towing. If any aircraft tows need to be done, you'll do them now. Usually we have to get the right jets onto the flight line and they always seem to be the ones in the back of a hangar with another jet in front of them!!

1000-1200 - This is the usual time for the first wave of jets to take off. Take off time is usually around 1030 or 1100 so we go out before the pilots and prepare the jets for when they arrive. This involved de-blanking the aircraft, setting cockpit switches, removing the earth lead and stuff like that. The pilot arrives and we commence the see-off procedure. The pilot checks the cockpit is safe and gives us clearance to remove ground locks and safety pins. We walk around the jet doing this and the pilot will usually follow us to do his/her walk around. They will tell us the pins are okay and then they head up to the cockpit to start all their procedures. We remove the ladders and wait for signals to come from them. We apply power to the jet and then start dong our checks too. Once all checks are complete and if everything is good to go, the pilot will get clearance from ATC to start engines and will ask if on the ground if it's safe to do so, which 99% of the time it is so we go and monitor the APU & engine start up. After this, we remove power, and wait for the pilot to ask us to do panel and leak checks which are exactly what they sound like. We check the whole aircraft for any fresh leaks, panels open, fasteners loose, or anything that doesn't look quite right. After this, it's a case of taking chocks out and marshalling the jet out when the pilot is ready.

1200 - Lunch time
1230-1400 - We expect the aircraft to land usually about 1.5 - 2 hours after take off if it has not been air to air refuelling. If it has, it can be airborne for 3+ hours which suits us quite nicely. However, if it's coming down in 1.5, we'll get lunch, chill out for a bit, and then start thinking about getting ready for it's return. It will either return to the flight line for a servicing (there are a few types) or it will go to our hot-pit refuel area which is an engines-running refuel. This is our favourite because it takes the least time and least hassle.

1400 - See offs for the second wave
1615 - See ins
1630 - End of shift. We usually end up doing see ins and servicings at shift change, which means we have to wait for AMMs from the other shift to come in and relieve us.

As you can see, day shift is 0730-1630. Night shift is a little different in that you start at 1630 but you have no finish time. If night flying, you can expect the last landing to be at midnight and you can expect to be finishing work and leaving between 0200-0300. If day flying, last landing will usually be around 1800-1900 which means once your jets are all serviced and blanked up, you're done. Depending on your boss, you might finish at me night shift meal time which is 2100. Usually if you're not flying at night though, you'll get quite a few little bits to do and its normal to still be in work at 0000-0100.

There's also swing shift which is 0000-0730. Swing shift is responsible for servicing all the jets before day shift come in. Swing shift is made up of 3 people; the NCO (Cpl), a techie (Av or Mech) and an AMM. techies and AMM do all the servicings and NCOs just stay in the building to sort out paperwork and whatnot. If you've got a good NCO, they will let you go as soon as you've done the sevicings and any other jobs that need doing. I recently did swing and I finished at 0300 most nights. 3 hours work in 24 isn't something to be moaned about, even if the hours are a bit antisocial!

AMMs can also do QRA which is on a rota. In 14 months I did it twice, but you can request it more if you'd like. I enjoyed it. It's essentially a week off work. Granted, you can't leave the building and it does get incredibly boring. But after a really hectic week at work, it's sometimes nice to just chill out and pray the alarm doesn't go off when you're in the shower or something.

Other than that, there's not much more to it. If you have any further questions then feel free to ask!

Reply 4

Jamie1903

Hi there Ryan,

I was just wondering if you are on day shift do you finish work at 16 30 when Night shift comes in or is it later on ?

Reply 5

ryan9900

Original post by Jamie1903

Hi there Ryan,

I was just wondering if you are on day shift do you finish work at 16 30 when Night shift comes in or is it later on ?

If you are one days you will always finish around 16:30 when night shift come in. Some times you might have the boss giving a brief a shift handover which means you might stay an extra 30 or 45 minutes, but 99% of the time, you finish at 16:30 when on days.

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