Aviation Today, Yesterday & Tomorrow

100 years of aviation

By Emily Refermat

You, the men and women who repair or alter aircraft in aviation go by many names, A&Ps, AMTs, aircraft mechanics, etc. And the problems you face today run deeper than the slow economy and fluctuating aircraft industry, instead stemming from a precedence of under appreciation starting from the first aircraft mechanic almost 100 years ago.

It seems that for AMTs, the environment in hangars today is one of pressure. Pressure to complete repairs and sign off alterations without having the right tools (including training), making tasks harder and even dangerous. Managers and other higher-ups push output, turnover, and the bottom line. Mechanics take more and more liability risks with every logbook entry. No inter-company job mobility means wages are inconsistent and you must start at the bottom of the wage ladder when moving to a different company. All this stems from a lack of general respect for the men and women who keep the world flying. It's been a melancholy journey from the start since many of these problems existed from the day the first aircraft mechanic, called a mechanician in those days, made the first airplane engine.

The first
You undoubtedly know Charles Taylor as the "invisible man" behind the Wright Brother's success. As a reliable and hardworking man, he was given the task of building an engine from the tools at the Wright Brothers' bicycle repair shop. The engine requirements were simple; it needed to produce 8 horsepower and weigh less than 180 pounds. With only rough sketches, but an ingenious mind, Taylor took up the task.

He made a crankshaft out of a slab of high-carbon steel by drawing an outline and drilling holes with a drill press until he could knock it out with hammer and chisel, hardly how it would be done today. He knew he needed to have horizontal cylinders in order to work on the engine with the shop's lathe, so he sent the crankcase out to be cast with that specification. Once he got it back, he bored out cylinder wells with his 14-inch lathe adapted with riser blocks. The cast pistons needed grooves for oil-scrape rings, so he made them. He drilled alignment holes and thread holes in the cylinders and the most precise machining went into where the cylinder barrels fit into the wells. All this without electricity, only a gas-powered four-stroke-cycle ignition engine. He measured with a scribe, a metal ruler, and possibly a micrometer, but nothing else was available. And his bottom line was not production or costs, but that the aircraft engine simply had to work.

Taylor was left to run the bicycle shop when his engine provided the means for the first powered flight and he continued to machine parts, make repairs, and was an aircraft hangar manager for the Wright Brothers until his adventures took him elsewhere. Taylor was a modest man who didn't claim the limelight. His actions show him as most happy when working and he would talk about his friends' achievements more than his own. Times got tough for Taylor in later years, as he changed jobs his pay fluctuated and the depression didn't help. Hardships (as well as a few kindred spirits) surrounded him until his death on Jan. 30, 1956.

The future
Did Charles Taylor set a precedent for the aircraft mechanic to be a quiet background collaborator with occasional references and news briefs, but unknown and unappreciated by the general public? Well, if he did, it's time for a change. As you begin to demand the appreciation you deserve, the world will listen. The management's bottom line will probably continue to be cost and production, but training, safety, human factors, job conditions, etc. are all coming into the arena. These topics demand attention from the world and the smaller the world becomes, the more important they become. Communication will be the first step to appreciation, which is what it will take for an A&P to gain a work environment to be proud of. In preparation for that day, let's remember to support each other.