Chapter XII

I dragged my butt into work on Monday.

I normally look forward to work.

With AOG you never know what you are going to be doing once you get there. We are like the Special Forces, and need to be ready to go anywhere in the world at any time day or night 365 days a year. At the moment we were retrofitting the lightplates on the P18 circuit Breaker panel for UPS package Freighter 757s.

What a fiasco that was.

We had delivered about 100 Package freighters to UPS, and then there was a gap in production of about 18 months.

UPS had a unique lighting system for the P18. The plastic in the lightplates was electroluminescent, that is, it glowed when you applied electricity to it. They were the only customer that used this syste, and there was only one supplier.

It seems that the buyer had failed to secure a long term contract with the supplier, and when we went to buy the lightplates from the vendor they said "Sorry, but we don’t make that product any more".

No amount of pressure or promises would enduce them to start up again. Production had been one endless stream of troubles, and they were delighted to get out of the business of producing lightplates. We could not find another vendor. Finally Bell Labs agreed to try to make them, no guarantees. We would cover any development costs and they would not be penalized if they failed.

The first production airplane of the new order was proceeding down the line as the vendor attempted to make the first set of plates.

We took a full size copy of the drawing and cut it out and scotch taped it in place so we could tell which circuit breaker controlled which circuit, and so we could do functional test.

At last the lighplates came in, and we came in on Saturday to put them in place.

We threw the Power Switch.

FZZZZ, Snap, crackle and pop. The new lightplates shorted out in rather spectacular fashion. Sparks jumped from one place to the other while the plastic started melting and dripping down on the mechanics and into the flight controls.

The upshot was that we had to retrofit the entire fleet of Package Freighters. UPS had had problems for years keeping the lightplates working, and I am sure that they were greatly relieved to have us foot the expense of replacing them on the entire fleet.

One by one they were bringing the aircraft back to Seattle where it took a full day for us to do the retrofit. It was not a real hard job or anything, I was just not used to doing the same thing over and over. They were always in a hurry to get the aircraft back in the air. I heard once that it costs the Airlines $10,000.00 an hour for the plane to sit on the ground.

It was probably one of the most stable times in my adult life. I knew what I would be doing for the next several weeks in a row. Star and I had a kind of understanding. It was not a full time thing, but neither one of us was seeing anyone else. We had not committed to exclusividity or anything, but there was an understood relationship. We were kinda waiting to see what would happen, because something always had. We had a feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Drop it did.

I came home from work one day and the answering machine was blinking away. That in itself was not at all unusual. I had made it clear to Star that I didn’t want to be disturbed at work, unless it was a genuine emergency. I mean, the Company was paying me $35.00/hr. for my expertise, and I would feel guilty for taking pay if I was on the phone for personal reasons. So Star often left me little messages on the answering machine. Just "Miss you, see you tonight" or "You want to go to Jazz Alley this weekend?".

When I picked it up, it was Star all right, but it wasn’t good news. Her dad had not improved and she was going to stay in Spokane with her mom. She wanted me to call as soon as I got the message.

I called but there was no answer. That could either be good or bad. If it had been not bad, he would still be in the hospital for 24 hour observation. If it was bad he would be in intensive care. I had no real alternative but to keep calling.

The Hospital wouldn’t put me through or give me his condition because I wasn’t a relative. I mean, what was I going to say "I may be Stars boyfriend, but I’m not really sure."
I was sleeping fitfully when the phone rang.

I am used to getting calls at any time day or night. We members of the AOG team are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We had clearance to get the job done any way possible. We have been known to go into the factory and "Borrow" parts right off the airplane. It was all accepted, as long as we left documentation to show what we had taken and why.

"Hi Pat, this is John in dispatch. You have a flight to Grand Cayman leaving Sea-Tac in two hours. Shake a leg and be there. The other guys on the survey team will meet you there."

I had a kit all packed and ready to go. It sits in the closet by the front door on the top shelf. It contains everything I need for a three day stay anywhere in the world. Passport, clothes, camera and cash. I have pared it down over the years.

The lead Engineer brings the laptop. We are the first people on the ground following an incident. I don’t mean a "somebody flew a 757 into the side of a mountain" type of incident. Something less spectacular. We go in and take pictures, assess the damage, describe it and send the description back to Boeing.

They have a special crew that puts together all the parts, plan and drawings necessary to do the repair. When we get the OK from the carrier and Insurance Company, we head off wherever the Airplane is and do the repairs on the spot. It can be pretty primitive. Although the destination might be exotic, we are not there on vacation, we are there to work.