Owen Rodgers

Working in a casualty hangar my work varies from day to day providing me a great depth of experience across all aircraft systems. As the work is mostly unplanned leading a team we will assess defects and find suitable courses of action.

Typical work I carry out and supervise includes;

• Component changes up to and including; Engines, APUs, primary flight control components/surfaces and hydraulic pumps.
• Fuel tank entry work
• Detailed troubleshooting of detects
• Structural damage assessment and repair
• Lightning strike inspections/rectification.
• Actioning manufacturer service bulletins.
• Clearing and certifying aircraft work packages.

Though I have been in this role for a short period I have started to build relationships with the various supporting departments of BA engineering; Structures, Powerplant and Cabin TSG. Moreover I have become adept at using BA's computers systems used for aircraft maintenance and ensuring overall aircraft compliance.

This role allowed me to take a small step back from being on the tools and allowed me to develop and grow my leadership skills.

In this role alongside the regular duties I performed as a technician I;

- Lead smaller teams and would accomplish smaller maintenance inputs independently.

- Assist an LAE when coordinating and guiding component replacements such as engines, rudders, thrust reversers, etc.

- Troubleshoot ADDs prior to their expiry

- Perform idle and high power engine ground runs.

- Shadow LAE's and received experienced mentorship in ensuring aircraft compliance.

Carrying on from my nine years spent as a mechanic whilst a technician I continued with all variety of component changes, routine maintenance and structural repair work with now being able to certify my own work within authorisation scope. However with solid experience I would be more involved in the troubleshooting of tasks and coming up with solutions to irregular problems.

Furthermore in this role I was at times more independent and would enjoy being given tasks and routine checks to do myself; daily's, weekly's, brake changes, etc..

As a technician, and since, I have made efforts to mentor and provide guidance to both apprentices and more junior mechanics and have really enjoyed seeing their progression.

My job role as a mechanic mostly involved component changes, routine maintenance and structural repair work in the same way as in my previous and current role. Differing tasks that I carried out whilst in this role however include fuel tank entry work and being part of a team on a modification line to convert a number of aircraft to have in seat power.

During this time period I was also asked to be part of a team that worked with Snap On Tooling. This to support the introduction of automated tool control at British Airways, my role within the team was to provide guidance and knowledge on what tooling would be required in our hangar.

As I was finishing my apprenticeship with Flybe they had recently made redundancies and therefore could not legally offer us full time positions. However they handpicked a few of us to stay on as contractors, which I fulfilled until my job at British Airways.

I was a mechanic working on aircraft going through full B and C checks, so I was involved in full strip downs, inspections, replacing of components where needed and rebuilds.