Motherhood Moments #19

Sometimes motherhood looks like this...

 A folded wash cloth. The cloth on the left is mine and the one on the right was and attempt to fold by little girl.

Sometimes motherhood looks like a bigger mess than you anticipated. Making tortillas is MUCH harder with 6 hands.

And sometimes motherhood is a beauty of cooperation when washing and rinsing dishes.

Hangar Happenings #3

What a busy week we've had at the hangar! In the first blog about Hangar Happenings I talked about the Caravan inspection that is going on. What I didn't mention was that the inspection was an inspection based on calendar time. Since the calendar inspection was completed, the airplane has flown 15 hours in the last 3 days. That means the caravan is now due for inspections based upon flight hours. This inspection is mostly focused on the engine.

Things are getting busier for me as well. There is an audit coming up the beginning of February. A third party auditor will come in to inspect everything in the hangar - from parts to planes. They want to make sure that we hold ourselves to international aviation standards. This is good because it ensures that we stay on top of things and forces us to evaluate ourselves and change if need be. But for me, there is much work that needs to be done in the parts room. I am now going to go into the hangar three times a week - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until the inspection is complete and I have been assigned temporary assistants!

Nancy working hard on the hardware.

Fidele working hard to label all the O-Rings.

Do you remember the construction from last week? Well it continued this week. While Leopold placed bricks in the bathroom (more photos to come later), Kevin and Matt did some demolition. One morning I was in the office staring at a wall and within an hour, the wall was gone. The room I am in is going to be the new parts room and the old parts room will become the new office.

The wall that forms the office for the moment.

 

Thor...ahem...Kevin at work.

I still managed to do some work even with the distraction.

Matt made sure all the wires discovered weren't active.

All of this was done in an hour! 

Kevin told me that today all of the top part and side came down, and all of the rubble was cleaned out. Also, the new two stall bathroom is almost done. All the tile is in, and the toilets will be installed on Monday. I will get to see the final product soon. And so will you!

Motherhood Moments #18

Sometimes motherhood looks like this...

 amazing fun with friends! We did balloon races and it was a blast.

 Half the kids gathered on one side to release an inflated balloon that was taped to a string.

 The air inside it propelled it across the distance to the kids standing on chairs waiting to declare their team a winner.

Hangar Happenings #2

The last Hangar Happenings talked about the inspection on the Caravan. Well, now I am going to talk about construction! Right now, MAF has an administration office all the way at the other side of the city from the hangar where the pilots and mechanics work. This year, one of the many goals is to focus on improving team building. An easy (and also cost saving on rent and transportation) method is to combine the two offices. After much talks, planning, drawing, erasing, quoting, and staring, the decision has been made official!

The project began with cleaning up the "attic" space which will become the new offices. The next step was to fix up the bathroom. They tore up the old tiles that will be replaced and cut concrete for new pipes. They placed new pipes and new walls all to make two separate bathrooms. At the moment, one toilet was able to handle all the biological needs of the workers. But with all the administrative staff joining the staff at the hanger, an additional toilet was needed. Also, with the changing of a few walls, we will be able to recuperate some space for a more effective work flow in the maintenance and pilots offices. THEN, we will be able to build the offices in the attic. All of these things so far have be accomplished with our hanger employees (or our husbands).

I am super excited to see all the changes and improvements that are coming our way and I hope to share with you all the excitement!

Letting the dust settle after breaking up tiles

Matt in action, cutting concrete for new pipes

Wane (Juan-eh) cleaning up the tiles he busted up

Wane breaking concrete with a hammer
and chisel for new pipelines 

Digging out the old pipes and placing new.

Two pipes for two toilets

Matt getting all his anger out...

New doorway for the remodeled bathrooms

Matt and Leopold cementing the wall

He is a hard worker! This was all in one day.

Motherhood Moments #17

It's been a while since my last Motherhood Moments blog. So I thought I would start back up again. Sometimes motherhood looks like this...

Hand, foot, and mouth disease. Poor baby boy had not been feeling well a while back and the lymph nodes on both sides of his neck swelled up. After starting a course of antibiotics, they began to go down. But the lymph nodes had been fighting HFMD and when the swelling dropped, the symptoms popped up. Poor kiddo! Luckily he was a trooper and got through it quickly and it did not spread around in our family.

Hangar Happenings

Right now, the caravan is having a 12-month, 200, 400 and 1600 flight hour inspection all at once. Since I work at the hangar as a parts room specialist (not a real title, but it's catchy!), I get to help in my own way(s) - searching for parts, ordering more parts, keeping inventory on things used, and looking up information for anyone asking. I feel so useful right now! So in my eagerness to express how I get to be a part of my first "inspection," I took some photos of the guys working this week. Enjoy!

Kevin just finished replacing some worn spacers on the Caravans flap

Garth is waist deep inspecting the landing gear

Brett is upgrading the brake system

Kevin tightening something before re-installing the flap

Matt installing an access panel after the flap has been installed.

The inspection continues

Lovely!

Check out one of Kevin's custom built maintenance stands

Hangar Time

1…2…3…4…5. Okay, I have 5 o-rings, part number MS28775-278. What does the computer say? Hmmm…looks like the part was put in inventory but then issued to the hangar floor and not into inventory. I must fix this since they are going in a cabinet.

Counting, organizing, sorting, re-organizing, cleaning, moving, and counting some more - these are all beautiful tasks to me. I love doing inventory. It was a job I once applied for years ago and ended up leaving the company for a different job. Now, I am doing inventory for the parts room at the hangar. In preparation for the new aviation maintenance software (Kevin went to India a few months ago for training on this system), the parts room is in need of a makeover. After begging Kevin for weeks to let me go help, I am now officially a part-time worker. I go to the hangar with Kevin on Tuesdays and Thursdays and do many different tasks.

For now, I have a mix of duties – I have been ordering parts and receiving them into inventory when they come in and also issuing the parts to an airplane and its work order as the guys need them. I know how to track parts in our system to find batch numbers, how old the part is, where it came from, and correct part information in the system or update its information. I have also become the Maintenance Manager's (who just happens to be my husband) unofficial office assistant where I can do tasks that need to be done but the guys don’t have time to do (or can't explain in sufficient detail in French to another hanger employee).

I spent one day prettying up on old dry erase board into a fancy airplane maintenance tracker board so the guys can keep track of their upcoming tasks.

I put together some cabinets to help organize all the specialized tools.

I went through the entire parts room to find all the o-rings and put them in one cabinet. In that cabinet, I put them all in numerical order and labeled the cabinet. I also went through each part and made sure the inventory count was correct. I even had time to search for cross-referenced parts and link them together so ordering would be easier. For instance, the Pilatus uses their own part numbers for o-rings that are typically referred to by a different numbering system for most other aircraft manufacturers. We could be ordering 10 o-rings for the Pilatus, and then order 10 o-rings for the caravan, with different part numbers, but actually end up with 20 of the same thing!

One morning, I spent the time going through old manuals, searching for duplicates to throw out, checking for validity, and then reorganizing the manuals with new file tabs and tables of contents.

Some days I do mindless tasks, like bag up rivets that have broken through their much used bags or moving items around in the inventory room to help the flow. It may seem mundane, but it is a task that needs to be done to keep things neat and tidy.  With a limited number of technicians, this is just another example of stuff that they literally don't have time to do if they want to keep the airplanes in working order (a very VERY high priority).

And then some days I spend hours searching for updated information and updating the system. I enjoy the mix and I enjoy the work. It is a good feeling to spend time working with my (dirty) hands and helping out with the ministry of MAF!