WEBVTT

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My name is staff Sergeant Michael

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Stella . I am an engine mechanic at the

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180th Fighter Wing . We work on the

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F 100-29 version engine ,

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Which goes into the F- 16 fighter jet

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and it is a one engine aircraft . So

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it's pretty important what we do here .

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The engine shop is basically broken

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down into two sets of maintainers . We

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have our flight line in the back shop ,

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so the flight line is the front line .

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They are the ones that are out there

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checking on the interfaces with the

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aircraft . They're the ones uh , taking

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care of any issues that the pilots have ,

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anything the crew chiefs might find .

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So they are the ones that diagnose and

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fix anything that can be fixed while

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it's in the aircraft . If it's too big

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of a job , they will pull it and they

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can swap another engine in an afternoon

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into that aircraft . And the broke ones

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comes back here for us to fix . Crew

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chief usually calls in and says there's

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something up or after the flight comes

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down . Usually download all the engine

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data from the flight and if code pops

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is what it's called . But if you find a

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code for the engine , you diagnose it

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and if it needs maintenance then you

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either can do the maintenance on the

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aircraft or if it's required to pull

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the engine to bring it into the back

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shop , we can do that as well . Usually

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once we get an engine back into the

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shop we do a full receiving inspection ,

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look over everything we'll know in

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advance kind of what we need to do and

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what's been found to cause the engine

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to come back here . But usually with

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the receiving inspection we can take a

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further dive into what needs to be done

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and we can find , you know , hidden

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things wrong with the engine and

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whatnot in order to fully repair it and

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get it back to functioning shape after

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we go through and do do the work that

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needs to be done . We usually take it

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out to the hush house or a test so and

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run the engine and put it through its

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paces as if it was in the air . But we

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can we can monitor it and we can make

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sure everything's working properly

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before we put it into an aircraft ,

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acts as a safety precaution to make

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sure that it's good to go . It's a very

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satisfying job knowing that what you do

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makes a direct impact on whether or not

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the aircraft fly and there's all of

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them in the air . Usually . No , you

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did a pretty good job .

