Holding Pattern

It seems my pursuit of A&P certificates is on hold temporarily–I’ll be in temporary training for Boeing for 30-60 days (?) followed by temporary assignment in Moses Lake for about a year.

I’ve already taken two of my three written exams–General and Airframe–and still need to take the Powerplant written. Fortunately, there’s a PSI test location in Moses so I can take that pending exam. That leaves taking the O&P for each, airframe and powerplant. There are two DMEs in Moses so I can see about taking Orals and Practicals for both airframe and powerplant as time allows.

I just hope that I can retain the knowledge long enough to do well on each O&P.

The Continuing Saga of…

I’m still annoyed, but the offer from a prospective employer was sustained, not retracted — they’re still quite happy to have me and, frankly, I’m quite happy to contribute.

In fact, they’ll be happy to have me and a few classmates from the SCC AMT program even without our full certifications* yet.

As my own story continues to unfold into the next chapter in life, here’s how it goes so far:

I met briefly with a recruiter (for about 15 minutes, TBH) for Boeing Aircraft who extended an offer on the spot to for an aircraft maintenance role.

I accepted.

Of course, Boeing management countered with a number of contingencies. Work history, criminal background, credit, education, drug screen, etc.

Contingencies were all met.

And, as of this morning, I can officially tell the world that I’ll be assuming a maintenance and inspection role in Moses Lake after a month of Boeing process training in Seattle.

Oh! I have so many things to get sorted in the next four weeks.

*The role with Boeing Aircraft doesn’t require an A&P certification, but none of us is prepared to forego our certifications. The whole point of putting in the time was to gain our certs.

Highly Annoyed

I’m annoyed with an organization with which I’ve not worked for three years. Apart from the abrupt concealment of our open-source contributions shortly before my departure, it seems they also weren’t entirely forthright with me about my role (I should redact this post). According to the records they had released to TheWorkNumber, the title I had prior to the layoff wasn’t an official title — but was a title that was a few years old.

And why the date discrepancies? Might it be that my resumé only addresses roles held in the past ten years? Are they looking for my complete history back to 1985?

And then there’s a curious issue with my degree from 2002. Granted, the school no longer exists, but HireRight seems to have established contact with DTC, which then reported that they haven’t any history of my attendance.

Okay, here’s a copy of my diploma and, while unofficial, here’s the transcript that I’d received from DeVry/DTC a few years ago.

HireRight, doing a background check, has marked my background with discrepancies, which, no doubt, will result in an abrupt retraction of an offer that an employer had made.

Highly Annoyed

Once More Unto the Breach

Okay, perhaps a bit more dramatic than the comparison with combat and battle than was invoked in Shakespeare’s Henry V.

How about this:

Second verse//Same as the first

I missed out on two weeks of lab time way back at the end of Gen-A, six terms ago, when my wife had Covid. Way back before vaccines were available for it. I had to remain away from the campus to prevent spread and missed out on some critically important lab time because of it.

Fast-forward to now, and I finally have all of my lab time and projects complete and even have time caught up on the Airframe time that I needed to tend do.

So, great news, I’m all caught up.

But sometimes it’s two steps forward and one step back.

We’ve had four people out with a positive Covid tests in our rather small group of 14 — no idea about the 1st year students (about 30) or the other half of the 2nd year (about another 15). The three that were out are, to my understanding, planning on being back tomorrow.

But the administration has shut down our campus for a week.

So, we’ll be back next Thursday. We’ll have the shared frustration of all trying to get bare minimums on time needed to finish this last four weeks of the program.

No, wait… minus a week.

Last three… three weeks of the program.

Sense of Touch and Timing Technique

There’s a reason these are only $11 and semi-disposable.

T118 Timing Pin… compact version for timing around corners.

Why?

Because if they were any more “sturdy”, then you’d be replacing a $2,000 magneto… or, minimally, that magneto’s $400 distributor assembly.

Sure, you’re going to tear it down and inspect it… **sigh** again… but it’s better to replace that $11 tool than the more expensive parts.