(upbeat music) - Welcome back everyone to the Council for Maintenance podcast. If this is your first time joining us, we're a show that takes a behind the scenes look into the gritty, non-glamorous life of aircraft maintenance. We share some laughs and part some wisdom, all in hopes of giving you that split seconds relief in your day that can hopefully prevent and miss it. I am your co-host six. - I'm MVP. - And our third host, Shoreline, is here again in the back, monitoring our audio, making sure our faces stay fit for radio. So, for this episode, this is coming off the tail end of a very strenuous week as if any week is not strenuous here in aviation life. But there's like stress that's like in combat like this or not in inherent, like it always happens. And then there's stress that just kind of like makes your hair want to fall out like why the shit are we even talking about this? And one of the big ones we've been dealing with this week is calibration. And for some of you who have been on verse or are still kind of learning this stuff, there are certain things on an aircraft that have to be measured to a specific value, has to like examples as like voltage or engine power or torque even, most people understand torque. Or if you're like in the avionics side of the house, like amps, resistance, things, things like that. - Engages, pumps pushing a specific amount of fluid, you know, pressure. - Yes, right, so all of these values, they have to be measured a specific way, right? And it's usually through some type of calibrated equipment. Torque wrenches, test sets, gauges. - Your aircraft scales? - Scales, yep, or calipers, comparators even, you know. Oh, the list goes on and on, right? And what, how these things are measured, and this is kind of going to what our headache was, is every single one of these, they have to have some type of calibration interval, right? Like, you can't just take it out of the box and just assume it's good, right? I mean, there are times like, say with feeler gauges, like when you're measuring thicknesses or gaps. I mean, the condition of these things to begin with is kind of fragile, right? So there's, it's kind of one of those like, once calibrated once, it's not going to change ever until you bend the shit out of it or something like that. But generally speaking-- - Yeah, we could get like a torque wrench, right? We all know that if you drop it, well, you have to consider it out of calibration and send it back to the lab to be retested. - Yes, right. And that's the general of thumb. If you drop it, you have to send it back to get retested. That's a general rule of thumb for pretty much all of aircraft maintenance, right? Auto shops, you may get away with it for a little bit because for the CaliD, it's just not that high. But in general practice, right? If you drop it or you feel it is not reading right or it's been a while since the last time you had it had a calibration check, it's due to the lab. And the reason why these tools have calibration limits is because they don't measure right all the time every time. Like once you set it, there's like a time limit to how long it can hold that measurement to read whatever you wanted to read. And when it comes due for that interval, which is kind of determined by how often you use the tools, torque wrenches have like a higher interval or a shorter interval, shorter, longer, shorter, shorter interval. And these things got to get sent to some kind of a calibration lab. I think this is across the board, regardless of aviation outfit, like general aviation dudes, AOG corporate, military dudes, there always has to be some kind of calibration interval set to your tools, especially if you're using this for flight critical areas, right? I want to say I set that right. But again, the whole reason why these tools need to get checked is because they don't hold their setting for so long. It's kind of like a spring. Like you put tension, you loosen tension, over time it's going to wear, right? And that's kind of like the case with certain torque wrenches, it's spring calibrated. And over time, these things, they lose their tension, they lose their strength. So you have to like tighten it up, loosen it up, wherever the case may be. And all that gets checked in the lab. So our issue, going pretty long with this one, our issue is sometimes these calibration dates or these calibration lab practices aren't up to speed to the demand of what's going on in your outfit, right? Or sometimes you look for like calibration labs that can fit your schedule, your cost and your schedule. And so you send them and it comes back and it looks like they never did anything to it, really. So one of the big reasons why we were having issues is we, again, we couldn't have the calibration lab set the intervals and the schedule that meets our demand. And that normally turns into tools starting to lapse. Or they go a little bit past their interval time. So to give another example, for an item like a torque wrench, for where I work at, the lab likes to set those for 90-day to sometimes 180-day intervals. So every three months or six months, they want you to send it back to the lab to be recalibrated. Well, for certain programs like I work for, that particular wrench might not make it back over to the operating location for three months. Like just poor supply lines and scheduling. And it's a whole, whole big thing. And so, you know, it comes from the CAL app, it comes with paperwork and they put a sticker on it saying, you know, do date this and that. And the lab paperwork will say everything they tested it to and it passed and XYZ things. And then, you know, they'll have their completed by date and everything else. Well, that doesn't work 'cause it's already going to be expired by the time it gets to where it needs to be. And I think that's where 6 was going with it a little bit. So you have to, what was I saying before the show? I, you know, I try to make us operate on the semi-legal side of gray, you know. Well, and to the effect of this example is, going back to my previous statement is like, your work area is kind of determined the intervals of the calibration that needs to be set. And this is determined like how often you use it. What's the workload it's doing, right? Like with torque wrench, it's obviously an easy one. Like, you know, you're putting tension force onto this to tighten stuff. And, you know, you exert enough force that's going to eventually lessen the strength of whatever the equipment is that's maintaining the calibration, whichever the case may be, right? So there's, in this case, or in MVP's example, like the intervals can be deviated to a certain degree depending on the demand and depending on what the customer requirements are, right? And what your actual, I think I said that already here, like delivery time or demand is. But say like you're in a general aviation outfit or a commercial airline outfit, once it's due it's due. It's like pretty much dead and it's not coming back. But you also got to wait until the factor of like how much is this going to cost to get it there and get it back, right? I think most general aviation dudes, they kind of have like three sets of everything just because they want to ensure that they don't run out of stuff, right? But also with the calibration piece, right? So when you send it off to the, you realize you need to get it done. So you send it off to the lab, right? That's one headache out of the way, shipping and all that other stuff. This is kind of where it gets into the shady realm of things because there are calibration labs, air quotes labs out there that will say they'll do things to the schedule and to the demand, oh, and it entices you too. You're like, oh, it's cheap, it's fast. It does what I wanted to do, right? And then that kind of already should be a red flag to you. And I've been seeing, I've seen like a trend of this at one point in time is they'll send it off, they'll come back and it'll just be, it'll give you a sticker for sure. And then it'll give like this little certificate thing. I guess it's more like a business card almost. And it just has the name of the lab. It'll have the certificate number, the date. And then it'll just say on the side like whatever standard they say they certified it to, like NIST certified or ISO certified and that's it, right? And it's people who didn't know better, they'll just say, okay, whatever it came back from the lab, it's all good to go, there's the sticker, there's the Cal date or the next calibration interval date. Here's the air quotes certificate and we roll it, right? And in some outfits, especially military outfits, they have to do like a torque, they have to do like a calibration verification check. Like they'll have like this little block for torque wrenches though. It's already, it has a predetermined force of like, I don't know, like 40 inch pounds or something like that. I think I think it's set it. And then you're supposed to like just take the wrench and then check it. And it's supposed to break away and stuff like that. Or like say with avionics equipment, you're supposed to kind of test it on a ESD bench, right? And I supposed to read but X amount of amps volts or whatever. Just to ensure that it's working, right? And I know some things like an air data test set, some scanners like especially for your metrology type equipment, you know, they have built-in tests or bit tests. - Yes. - So, you know, as soon as you power on, it starts running through its own pre-use test. Essentially, it's a calibration check of itself prior to being used, you know? - Yes, and I think, or some other big ones, right? Like say test cells for engines or what's another one that does similar to a bit, or like NDI equipment. Like-- - NDI equipment, yep. - You know what I mean? And they have their own set of standards, NDI. Like it has to a bit on its own and you have to have like a sample of whatever the material you're gonna be doing a non-destructive test to, all kinds of craziness. There's like some serious math into this. But for going back to my original thing about these certificates, like if it just looks like it's gonna be like a business card or it just has like NIST certified or ISO certified, whatever, and there's nothing else to it. There's like maybe like four pieces of info. You already know this is trash. - Go ahead and find a different lab and research. - Yeah, you already know this is trash. And the reason why is because like for calibration labs, or calibration anywhere, even if it's your in-house calibration, they have to have certain conditions to test and calibrate these equipment too. And some of them, they're like, they get way intense. And some of you would-- - Yeah, like, yeah, yeah. Usually those directions come from the OEM, right? The people who actually made the tool. And then they're operating to that. But you have to have like certain scales and weights that are like down to the micrograms accurate. - Yes, and that's a general rule of thumb too, for calibration stuff. Any of you guys ever want to test your equipment? Whatever your calibrated equipment is supposed to work at, the stuff that's testing it for calibration needs to be at least two times more sensitive than it. You know what I mean? So say like if it's a torque wrench, it's like 20 to two or 40 to 200 inch pounds, your, the equipment that's gonna be testing the torque needs to be able to go minus, or like minus 20 inch pounds and then plus 40 inch pounds or something like that, from your min to your max. And the reason why we want it to be sensitive is 'cause we want to know just how far it's actually deviating, right? Some of them would go real small, like microgram small or nanometer small, but that's, there's a, there's a set, except and reject criteria as determined by the OEM or the standards that are driving the calibration themselves. So when you actually send it to the lab or whether in-house, third party or whatever, their certificate or their actual test needs to have like a whole slew of information on this stuff. Like, what was it reading when they got it? What was the environment like that it's supposed to be tested at? You know, like certain things like avionics equipment, they have to have like certain humidity, a certain level of resistance, it has to be static free, all kinds of craziness. And then when they actually run the test, whatever they have to like record the machine or whatever the case, that's actually doing the calibration to it. Example, you might see some of this as like, say with watches, like luxury watches. There's a reason why some of these are like upwards of five to 20 some thousand dollars. And you can tell which ones are not too, 'cause with these watches, for instance, it's not just the parts that make it super expensive, it's the stuff that's holding the calibration to it. And then even more so, the machine that's calibrating the watch. And I think that's probably like one of the most expensive things in the world is the, these equipment that calibrates these luxury watches. I think somewhere in the billions, I think it is, I could be wrong, but it will measure down to like freaking when atoms split. You know what I mean? Like, it's that sensitive. So like, and who knows how insanely accurate these things are, but it will go to be flying and watches then. No kidding, right? Right? So they, again, going back to them kind of tailing off, but the equipment that the laboratory use it, it has to be more sensitive than the tools that they're actually calibrating. And some of the things that I'd have been realized were actually calibrated, right? Like going back to my previous example with feeler gauges, there's actual like calibrated gauges to measure feeler gauges, so like what, what. - We're in that recently too. I was like, I thought the feeler gauge was what you used to make sure something else was in tolerance. - Right, yeah. - Make sure something else was calibrated. - Yeah, right. Or what's a, what's another one that gauge blocks? That's, that's what, that's why I knew them as people might call them something different. I think they call, I can't remember what they call them, but yeah, gauge blocks too, those are calibrated. I did not know that for the longest I did not know that. It's just a block, what's it matter? Like there's a, I'm nerding out a little bit, but for like gauge blocks, for instance, there have to be so flat, and there's actually like some kind of measuring device that would determine just how flat it actually is. And then certain gauge blocks, right? They're like three inches, but wide or two inches tall or something like that. There's an actual like ruler scale that determines just like how far away from two is it really? I know sometimes they'll go down to like the millimeters or micrometers. Did not know that, but that kind of goes into our headache as if what we experienced this week is some places. They'll say like, yeah, we're certified, we're a nist or we're certified by ISO or whatever the case may be. And it won't actually show what they measured it against. And that's a huge no, that's a huge red. - And mainly because when your shop comes and gets audited by the FAA or whatever the aviation authority is in your country. - Hey, let's go to your tool crib. All right, let's pull me up to calibration paperwork for these items. And they're going to see a seed nist certified. They're going to go ahead and tell you just to throw the tool out, you know what I mean? Like, you go ahead and put this in your, lock this up in a cage where nobody has access to it. - Yes, oh, and by the way, where did you get this? - Yeah, what was the place you sent it to? We're going to stop there after we're done here. - Yeah, so by the way, here's your fail. And then we're going to go visit the people you used because fun fact, you can't just blame negligence on the lab or the subcontractor or whatever that you or the sub company that you use to get your stuff. Like, you're supposed to tell them that what your requirements were and then you're all supposed to verify that they can do it. It's kind of like that traceability thing, which is another big thing for most calibration standards. Almost every single one of them has to have some kind of mention of traceability, right? Like, it has to have been used at this point, measured at this point using this kind of equipment, blazzy blazzy, they have to walk the dog, basically. All the way back to the origin of like, why are we using this measurement and why specifically this and how did you measure it all out of the craziness? So, like when said FAA authority or aviation authority, whatever it is, they come knocking, they try to say, they usually say something to see the effect, like, okay, let's verify your traceability. And that usually means documentation control and stuff like that. And then you see something like NIST certifying, hm. I feel there should be a little bit more to it than this. - Is this file missing a sheet of paper or something? - Yeah, is this like your copy? You know what I mean? For your situational awareness, like the actual stuff's in a drawer somewhere, no? - Yeah, this is what you keep in the cage or the tool, but in the office, you have the real paperwork. - No, no? - No? - Oh, well, here's your fail. Who's in charge of this? You, okay, come see us. Oh, by the way, let me see y'all's license. Turn that up and you two tears this one up. You know what, since you're here too, tear that up. You know, yeah, that'd be a quick way to shut stuff down fast, right? So, and this is for like, say... - Yeah, and that's like the most extreme cases. That would be like multiple instances of, you know, repeating the same type of fail, you know, in the FAA's eyes. Like, hey, it's like the third time we've told you and we've identified this and you haven't changed, so we'll change you. - It's sad, but, you know, like the importance of having, making sure that these things are calibrated correctly, that they're traceable to a entity that's actually using the correct standards, that actually knows what the standards are, because there are entities like that. They'll say like, oh, we operate to XYZ standards. Oh, we're not certified, but, you know, we operate to the same level. Like, do you though, right? And that's where like the precaution really does come, especially if you're one of the decision makers to pick some of these things. For commercial airline guys, it may be more towards the lines of the managers or the program people, but for general aviation, that's a huge line of caution, because there's gonna be a lot out there where, hey, I need a multimeter with a calibration sticker, because I have to go to this place, like in the next 12 hours, right? And sometimes you can't actually like do work without that calibration sticker. Well, I guess you could if you really wanted to, but to do it legally, right? And then so you started looking around for all of these different places, that would be able to do it on a rush. And here comes this one that says, "Oh, I operate to the same level standards as whatever." Oh, okay, right? And they give you like the business card certificate, like, okay, it looks legit, roll it, man. And then next thing you know, your torque is like, if I can plus 10 from whatever it is you set it to, which will really screw up to make the machine or whatever. - And you're not sure why? Well, it's only a 40 inch pound torque. - Yeah, man. And especially for general aviation dudes, because let's face it, man, like there's a lot of predators out there for shady shit. - Well, you know, it comes in the form of cost effective, right? That's what they do. It's because, you know, owning a plane isn't cheap. - Right. - And so people look to save where they can. And unfortunately, sometimes that's in the realm of using, you know, with the statement, and I got a friend who can do it cheaper. Oh, okay. - Yes. - You know, and cheaper is cleaning off the tool with some ice approval and a rag and then putting a new sticker on it. - Right. Sadly, yeah. And I've actually have seen some of our listeners who have shared some of their general aviation horror stories. One of them is like, they had, they went to go do a routine, a hundred hour inspection. And they found like the freaking engine cylinder cracked. I'm like, how the hell did this happen? (laughs) You know? And the last main, all the, they did the due diligence look to the maintenance logs and all their logs said, all checked, good. Sign it off. All checked, good. Sign it off. Or whatever, like there's the bare minimum right up, you know, to say that you did your work and signed it off. You're like, there's no way in hell you would have missed this. Like, how do you miss this? And my heart definitely goes out to all those traveling mechanics, IAs and small business mechanic shops. 'Cause you would have to bring you, when you guys have to do your inspection, you know, to keep your business up and going. And then you see freaking nightmares like that. Like, oh my God. (laughs) Like, get this thing out of here. (laughs) I feel like I'm cursed now. Like, I feel like I'm gonna get into an accident because just how cursed this thing is. (laughs) - We were talking even a little bit beforehand with that. It's like, when you see a bird like that come into the shop and you're like, oh, yeah, I was here for this thing, but I found all these other things. So you call the owner and you say, hey, look, it's gonna, I know we said this price, but it's really gonna cost this because we found all these other issues that have to be fixed. You know, and they're said, I'll decline maintenance. I'll do it myself or I got a friend who can do it cheaper. And you're like, I highly recommend you let us fix this. So this can fly safely. We legally can't release this thing for flight in its current condition. And you're gonna get owners who are gonna go to hell with you. I'm doing what I want, I own this thing. And at some point you go, okay, but you gotta sign this release of liabilities stating we pointed out all these things in you. And we, time and again, told you it's not safe for flight and you chose to disregard all and take this. So please sign here, you know. And then tell those people to not come back. - All right. And then that kind of goes against them, right? 'Cause like you're trying to maintain a business, be, you know, keep your business rolling. And you try as much as possible to stay within the regs of whatever civil authority you're under. And then here comes this thing that really tests your abilities, right? Like, oh man, I don't know. And then you wanna do right by your customers, but at the end of the day, you still have to protect your business and your license and certifications. So, you know, again, you try to get that customer service in there and say, oh, you know, this, that and the other. And it's a little price. And you say, okay, hey, I can work you a deal on this. I can shave off some, I won't charge you the labor for this particular job or something like that. But again, at the end of the day, if that thing goes out there and tanks it in, augers into the ground, you know, you gotta have yourself protected because you're gonna be looked at pretty in depth. - Yeah. And I'm gonna attest to this as someone who does, who's doing audits and doing inspections. One of the first things I look at is let me see your documentation, let me see your calibration equipment, let me see your calibration, traceability, all kinds of stuff. And like, 'cause those are the easy hits, right? 'Cause no matter how tight you think your documentation control is, no matter how tight you think your tool traceability is, there's always gonna be some type of screw up. And it's easy to get caught, right? Or easy to just kind of be, I'm not trying to say complacent, but it's easy to fall into that trap. And what I mean is this, 'cause like say like you're in a high speed, high demand type of environment, like say line maintenance or manufacturing, you're on the clock, man, shit needs to go. Like the aircraft or the work piece comes through, you have X amount of minutes to get it through and get it going. Sure, you're gonna do it safely, obviously, because who, what person does it? But you know, like when you're up against a clock, you know, your brain starts taking shortcuts, right? Like you naturally just want to like, take the most expedient, most efficient route as possible. And sometimes we've seen this happen where individuals will memorize the calibration equipment, serial number or whatever the case may be, their model number, just to make things go faster. And sometimes they will do it about realizing it. They'll memorize the number, the serial or the model or whatever the case may be. And it's not even the one they're using, you know, right? Or they're just so used to doing it this way, they don't realize that the calibration date lapsed. And so they just keep using it, using it and using it. And then say an incident or a surprise audit comes through and they say, hey, let me see your paperwork and they look through it, they match it up, they realize that all the stuff that you used was either not in use because it was out for calibration or it was well-passed calibration or something like that. And then next thing you know, they start freaking quizzing you into oblivion. Like, how the hell did you use this when it was at the Cal Lab? Or why did you use this when it was like X amount of days, weeks, months passed its calibration? And you're just like, oh, shit. And then we've seen it happen, we've done it before. And majority of the time is because of, like, time is of the essence. Like, a sense of urgency is it is demanded, right? Now, we've been in certain environments where the situation meant any means necessary, and that's typically like bullets are flying over your face kind of thing. And in those situations, shit, man. Like, get it, get it in the air and get it going, right? As long as it's, as long as all the critical items are hit and all the mandatory safety items are hit, fair game, man. And, and again, like, that's extreme situations. We've, we've, we've been there. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who've been there too. Like, when, when this is a life or death situation, like a literal life or death situation is things change, right? Like, forget the fact that you, you could have dropped that torque wrench however many times it could have went months past Cal, but if this has to go, it has to go. - Yeah, it's, it is what it is. - Yeah, guerrilla torque it. Good move on, right? But those are like very extreme situations and we get it. We've been there, but also like there are some situations where like you can't directly affect the, what's going on, like say, like if it's one of those like high speed programs, right? That's similar to the military stuff. And, and they have a very specific requirement, like very specific. And, and it's one of those like, you can't just have anybody in with it. Then, then, then that's understandable. But if it's like general aviation stuff or commercial airline stuff or like just run of the mail, manufacturing stuff, all the way, you better, your thing needs to be airtight. (laughing) And again. - For sure, you know, you mentioned the, the high speed realm. So, so, I'll give a, an example of kind of what I've dealt with in the past. And that was, okay, we're, you know, operating in a war time environment and doing kind of what you said, whatever it takes to meet mission. You know, you got people to support, who, you know, boots in the ground, you got to support. So, we had an issue where, you know, supply lines are unreliable, delayed. Hey, they're coming this day, just kidding, no, they're not. You know, it just, and, and it's a never-ending cycle. And months and months and months go by. And, and it's just this back and forth of, hey, supply, supply is coming, you know, birds coming in with supplies, all the stuff you need to send back, have it palatized and ready to go. So, we had an issue where, okay, you know, we're going months of this and we had calibrated tools and equipment come and do for their, their recalibration cycle. And so, you know, the support group goes out and they pull, pull all the stuff that's now out of calibration and they go and palatize it. But, we didn't have any replacement tools to put back in their spot. And so, you go to the toolbox, the toolcage, whatever, and you open up and you're like, where the hell is all the torque wrenches? Where's the, where's the air data tests at? Where's the scales, you know, and you're looking around and you go find them on a pallet. And you're like, why the hell would they pull? And then they go, you know, maintenance goes out and takes it all off the pallets and takes it back in the hangar to start using it. So, you know, support comes back out and they're screaming, what are you doing? You can't use this stuff. And you're like, you took it from us. We need it to do our job. You're like, yeah, well, you're doing your job illegally. This stuff's out of calibration. And you're like, yeah, but it's all we got. I don't have anything else. And it kind of operating under the, dirty oil is better than no oil, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - So, so we continue to operate that way, but we knew it wasn't the right way, but again, we had no other options. So, moving forward, trying to come up with a game plan of how we can, you know, kind of track and maintain and minimize the amount of items we have to send back and forth from these forward operating locations. You know, 'cause the Cal Labs are in the States, right? And we're clearly on the other side of the globe. So, we, you know, we set down a kind of part of heads of like, what can we do to minimize this time? Like, okay, the lab calibrated the tool on this date, but it didn't arrive here until 45 days later. We've already lost 45 days off of the 90 day requirement. Like, why the hell did they set it for 90? Okay, so we had to put stuff together and go, okay, hey, lab, don't make anything less than 52 weeks. That's a year for, if you're not aware. And they're like, well, but, you know, this documentation says we do it every 90 days. Well, I'm here to tell you, that doesn't work for our operation. And you're like, well, okay, fine. You know, just put something in writing of what you're gonna do and we'll test that 'cause we just need something to show that we're testing to your specific requirements. We're like, oh, okay. So this generated a whole conversations about how we want to track, test certain things. And so what we did is we tried to take all of our calibrated tools and equipment and divide them into flight critical versus non-flight critical. Right. Right. So an example, we'll say flight critical was, you know, your scales, your torque wrenches and your air data test sets. Non-flight critical, you know, micrometers. Micrometers, what was the other thing we had? Like dial calipers. Feeler gauges. Feeler gauges. Yeah, those kinds of things. Yeah. So like things that are air quotes calibrated, but you know, I mean, like they always get bent out of shape, you know, or it's close enough, right? Yeah, close enough for, you know, horseshoes and hand grenades. Yeah. So we, you know, we divide those into those two categories. And so you might be thinking to yourself, well, okay, clearly the flight critical stuff is what they're gonna send back. Not always the case. So we put a whole package together of some test equipment that we can use in the field. So you're torque testers, right? For your torque wrenches, some special gauge blocks, certain weights and things. You know, I won't bore you with all those details, but pretty much we put together some stuff that we ordered, that we could send to the field because the cost of those was gonna be vastly cheaper than the cost of trying to ship these things back and forth and lost time and schedules and loss of tools and all this kind of stuff. It's okay, we get that list divided out. Now we're coming down to the determining, okay, well, we have the 52 week requirement. Cool, great. So every year you have to send stuff back. Yeah, certain things, yes. Like the air data test set, we'll send that one back. That one's pretty critical. And that requires a whole lot of equipment to recalibrate. And we don't have that kind of environment setup in the field because it also has to be a controlled environment. We don't really have that over here. You know, scales require like weights from 10 pounds to 2,000 pounds and they're like hyper-machined cylinders that they sit on these scales to recalibrate. Look, I'm not dragging 25 tons of weights around from site to site just to recalibrate scales. Fine, we'll send those back, you know? - Right. - But for everything else, okay. And so now we're getting into, cool, we have this torque tester. Let's use the torque wrench for the example. We have this torque tester, great. Prior to each use, or at least once a day, you have to actually, well, it was as before the first use of each day, you have to put it on the torque tester, right? So you put it up there, click, oh, it passed, cool. And so we ran that calibration lifecycle isn't definite. So test to the point of failure. - Right. - Once it fails, throw it out, send it back, get a new one, throw it in the box, you know, whatever. So with those kind of, that kind of testing and requirements we put on ourselves in place, we're not sending all these things we use all the time across the globe to be recalibrated and sent back, we can just keep those there. And then now we're only concerned about maybe three or four items that we have to send back once a year, right? And we have, we have two sets of each and we stagger them six months apart for calibration. So there's plenty of lead time to send it back, have it tested and make it back, you know, in the ideal situation. - Yeah, and again, you know, these ones, these are like life and death critical kind of things, right? Like if this thing, if the aircraft in question doesn't fly, then that means mission time loss, that means compromised objectives, that means people are in higher risk, you know, the cost of kind of working, having that kind of work around is significantly lower than losing lives, right? And that's the realm that that situation is working in, which is understandable, right? - But now, and now here, I will say this, I did take some verbiage from calibrated document, calibrated tools, documentation for like a production environment. - Yep. - And they had what's called deferred maintenance and preventative maintenance. - Mm-hmm. - And the preventative maintenance is like, you know, I twisted the verbiage to say, you know, you just have to do these one or two things and then, you know, it's good, it's good until basically, this thing has to look like it got hit by a bomb before it's could be, you know, have to be scrapped under this preventative maintenance section. The deferred maintenance, the deferred maintenance, right? So I use that one. So for those items, like the scales, the air data test sets, certain gauges and all those things, I modified the deferred maintenance verbiage to basically state, you know, these items can only be deferred if losing them from the site drastically reduces operational capability. Meaning, okay, you can continue to use them because they're so necessary to what's happening right now, but the minute that the paste lessons, okay, then pull it from service and recalibrate it, right? So I use that kind of verbiage to sort of, again, keep us on the semi-legal side of gray, right? Getting good with the legal ease in our documentation. I'm just rodeo of clowning and smoke and mirrors and, you know, being the smoke and mirrors for anybody who would come looking. The good news is it's not really a whole lot of people can come looking, which is also how you can sort of operate in these gray environments because of the nature of those programs, but to protect the maintainers and everybody working in those locations, you know, benefited then by setting up these new processes, you know, these new testing requirements and backing that testing requirements with a release doctrine. - Yes. - So, you know, protect it. Okay, yeah, hey, this has to be sent back. Yeah, but, you know, we're a super, super, our mission schedule is absolutely balls to the wall right now. Okay, well, how long is it gonna be balls to all for? At least the next two months? Mm, the tool's gonna be, you know, it's gonna be out of cow in that point. Yeah, yeah, and we'll just get under that piece of equipment in the logbook and we'll type it up under a deferred write-up. And so we can protect ourselves that way. So, yeah, some of you probably are listening and going, oh my God, you hack, you know. (laughing) But again, but it probably have never operated in that kind of environment. So you haven't had to try to figure out things on the fly, but that's what I've done to continue to be able to use calibrated equipment even though well beyond its recalibration date. So, and to me, you know, as long as the built-in test functions keep passing and as long as those pre-test checks with a piece of, you know, your calibrated check equipment, like a torque tester, as long as those keep passing, you know, you run it indefinitely, so. Right, and again, you know, like these are like, the environments that they're working in, it's one of those must happen kind of things, right? Like literally must happen. It's not like, oh, must happen because this is a high dollar value. Like this must happen or people will start dying kind of thing, right? And the good part about all this is they turned it into some policy, right? Or some kind of doctrine to back it up. It's not like we're just like, oh, we're just going to say fuck the law, we're going to do whatever we want, right? Because we're in the middle of like a war zone, totally different because like the justification was is we created a justification, right? As long as the cut. - As Adam Savage from one of the hosts from "Miss Buster" said, the difference between science and goofing around is writing it down. - Yes. - And that's exactly what your SOPs, your standard offer rating procedures are. It is doing work on the very fringes of what's considered safe in aviation and making it legal, being written down on your SOP, you know? And obviously, you know, we're not doing anything crazy. You might be thinking like, oh, so you guys are just, you know, MVP, you're just out there. You're just avoiding any and all, you know, litigation of safe aircraft maintenance. Not so, still the pre-test, still bit checks, still preventative maintenance actions. We're just extending the usable life of these tools so we can continue to use them in locations that are otherwise very remote and very difficult to get equipment and items in and out of. - Yeah, not to mention hostile too. - Yeah, not to mention hostile too. So, you know, Six mentioned, you know, life or death situations. And yeah, you might hate me for this. And not all those situations, I use that in more life or death. Many times they were used strictly because location, you know, geographical location was just difficult. Might not have been overly dangerous, but it was just difficult to get in and out of. So. - Yeah, I get it. - That's how it is, you know? - I get it. And again, these are like the critical situation. I say critical not so much as like life or death as well, but also like in the situation, like, you know, we're not afforded the luxury of doing a lot of the things that we normally do in a controlled environment, right? As much as we would like to think that general aviation is the Wild Wild West, it does have a lot of control, right? Or at least a higher chance of oversight, right? Like the issue with the general aviation side of the house is that you get a lot of cowboys who feel they can circumvent the rules just because like, I own this bitch, this is mine. I do whatever the hell I want, you know? That's vastly different from being in a situation where you're basically left no better choice, right? It's either do it or nothing or nothing happens, you know? - And in some of those cases, you know, you'll have customers who are like, I don't care what you do with this thing. As long as it meets my schedule and does what I want it to do when I want it to do it, I don't care what happens in the downtime. Yeah, I don't care what you do over there, as long as it meets that, do that. And so you can hide behind that banner of that customer and claim it as customer-specific requirements. - And that kind of goes-- - It is, it is legalese to the max, you know? - Yep, and then it kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier is like, as long as the customer signs off on it. You know what I mean? That's on there. - And you're right, and those particular customers will have no problem signing waivers all day. - Yep. - But again, it's just how it is. - It is, it is. - Like I said, they come back and say, you know, many times they'll come to you and say, well, do you have any concerns with it? No, I'm confident it will make this mission and the next one and the next one and the next one. You know, no problems. - Yep. - Okay, great. Well, as long as you're comfortable, I'll, you know, then boom, we'll sign it and I'll take the, take the, you know, release the liability to myself as the customer and I'm on my way. So. - Yep, and to the flip side of this, right? Like for commercial guys, especially, all you guys are under a microscope all day every day. I feel terrible for you guys. The guys that work on commercial aircraft, because any given moment at any given time, someone or something can just pop in and be like, hey, let me take a look at your shit, right? What, right? Could be the FAA, could be your own company, could be some kind of third party audit. If it could be Congress even, you know, they'll just show up and like, hey, let me see your shit. Oh, what? Right? I don't know what's the full legal ease of Congress. This I see what I'm just saying, shit. But what I mean is for like, for you guys on commercial, especially with given the history of recent events, you guys are under a hard core microscope. And I feel for y'all. - Yeah, I do too, 'cause that's got to be nerve-wracking all day now. Now I will say, if I want any part of aviation to be uber strict on the standards, it's the commercial. Because I'm riding on those tin cans too, you know? - Yes. - I want those to be, I want those to be upheld to the highest, but you guys, I don't know that side of the industry super well, but I assume you have the luxury of either one, probably having your own calibration lab at some home station where you can send your tools to, and then you just have an overabundance of tools. So when one goes out on Cal, there's three more to take its place. - Right. - And or two, and or two, somewhere right next to your airfield is going to be a calibration lab, such as like a precision tool. I think AVL does some, I believe Duncan Aviation does some, and then I'm sure there's a grip others out there. But your company probably does have a contract with them in that area. So you'll take your, you know, one of your supporters supply personnel is gonna, you know, once a week, grab the shop van, load it up with tools that just went out of Cal, drive it across the airfield, dump it off there, grab the stuff they dropped off from the week prior and bring it back, you know, it's just a cycle like that. So you're fortunate you have all those resources available to use. 'Cause I mean, if you have the, you know, operating in the gray, yes, it does streamline things and really makes life a lot easier. But it shouldn't be in a home station situation. That's the gray should not be where you're operating. If you have the resources available to you, use them because that in the end is the correct way. - Yep. And then, you know, it also, it establishes the trends, you know, like it establishes the habits the right way. Kind of going back to that tribal knowledge piece that we talked about 'cause if you practice like the gray stuff in the situation matters kind of thing, it farms a lot of bad habits in home stations. And I mean real bad. Case in point is like with those fake or those not fully complete calibration certificates or just not being calibrated at all, right? I'm like, this should not be happening, right? When you were talking about like those offsite or onsite calibration labs, they also had me thinking because in my previous life, whenever any of our tools went out for calibration and we had none in our areas, we would do like a line hopping. We would go to other, other hangers and be like, hey, do you guys got this torque wrench or you guys have this equipment? They'll give a shit about it for sure. But that would be like, yeah, I just do like this whole custody thing with our tool control or whatever. You guys always like a six pack or some shit and then we'll, they'll put it on loan for us for like however many till we need it again. Or we'll just swap, we'll just do like a custody swap between ours and our theirs once it does come back from Cal. But I remember having to do those, especially on second shifts or a swing shift, like something would always be broken or missing or out for Cal and it would just be the one of and we'd have to go hopping down the two other hangers to see if they have one. I wonder if they were. - I mean, we call those borrow paybacks. - Yes, that's it. - Like, hey, I ain't got this 'cause mine's broken. I sent it out to the lab or to the OEM and it's not coming back when I need it to be. But you guys have a spare one sitting out there who can not have that spare. You know, and they say, sometimes we'll say no depending on what their schedule is, but many, many cases that yeah, cool. And you'll sign the taking ownership paperwork and then it becomes yours and use it for your ops. But in the meantime, you've already submitted an order to have a replacement machine purchased and once that arrives and you have to hand that new machine back to them. - You know, I wonder if commercial airliners have something similar to that effect. I mean, what I mean is like say like, let's throw a name, like say Southwest Airlines, they need like a hydraulic jack or some weight and balance scales and there's all out for count. They just walk over to like AA or United and be like, hey, can we borrow your scales, you know? Like, I wonder if there's some kind of procedure for them to take custody of it or else they'll even allow them to like get wrecked, man. This is our shit. - Well, so when I worked AOG maintenance, because I was always on the road, I didn't really have the luxury of bringing jack stands with me all the time. Now, if I knew the job I was going to, you know, was specifically going to need the jacks and yeah, I loaded up the box truck and took that instead of one of the smaller vans. But if I'm already out on the road and I've been on the road for three or four days and I've been working a whole bunch of other stuff and then a call comes through and it says, hey, you know, we're having an issue with the nose, nose steering alignment, you know, auto aligned happening when we retract here, then okay, what I've gone and done is find about whatever maintenance group is, that's their home station, that airfield, knock on the door to have them so and so with whatever outfit, you know, I need jacks stands for this job. Can you please, can I please borrow yours? And sometimes, yeah, yeah, it's cool, man. You know, go ahead and take them. Sometimes they're jerks 'cause they're like, they're upset that a jet broke on their airfield and they weren't called to fix it. So sometimes they'll say, no, sometimes I've had to, you know, use the company card and purchase you know, not purchase, but basically rent the jacks by hour. - Okay, that might have answered my question right there. Oh, I don't know, if any commercial guys, please let us know, like, do you guys have like some kind of buyback program? If you're going from one company to the next, you know, like say Southwest goes to United or American Airlines goes to Delta or something like that, I don't know. - I'm sure there's an account somewhere that each business has, you know, there's an account number. So you come over, it might not be in exchange of a company card into a machine or exchange of physical dollars between companies. I'm sure it's one of those come over, hey. Oh, hey, Sticks with Southwest, I see you're back here with us at an American need to borrow whatever. Yeah, can I borrow this? Yeah, no worries. And then that person, after they issue you, the tool you came to get or sport when you came to get, you're, they're just going to auto charge that count, whatever probably flat rate it is. It might be a daily rate or something. - Maybe, and then to add to this, like, you got to make sure their calibration shit is good too, right? Or when was the last, when does it do? And it doesn't fit the schedule you're on because I've had that happen too where the calibration is good. And then it goes onto the plane and you're doing your thing and then it sits there and it expires with the aircraft on it and there's no replacement. Example is like jack stands, right? 'Cause jack stands have to get calibrated or serviced, right? And then it goes up, the wheels come off. Now it's bearing all the weight of the plane. It, the interval expires and then now you got to put it down but it's not in any position to get taken off the jack. So I'm like, well shit, (laughs) I've seen that happen too. (laughs) Case in point everybody's gonna make sure your documentation straight, right? Man, so with calibration, we went pretty deep into the weeds. A lot of it is like some experiences people never see, right? And some they see far too often. The biggest one, especially if we're calibrated equipment is you got to make sure that your documentation is straight, that you're actually getting the right documentation. And then all of it is traceable to some kind of international standard. Whatever, or national or international standard. National is great, international is better. Don't, why it is, that's a whole other story. (laughs) It really is, man. Like if you really wanted to play the trump card and international standards always wins because that's the unit of measure they all agree on for some of the factual statement. Yep. Any final thoughts on anything calibrated related to MVP? I'd be curious to know what you guys think of my experience in the calibration process I set up for, you know, forward operations. You know, see if any of you have ever experienced that realm or if you haven't and your mind just got blown, I'd like to hear what your thoughts and concerns are. And you might be, you might point out some loopholes in my thought process that didn't really cross my mind. So then just be curious to know your all thoughts. Yeah, and especially with that in mind, like what are some of your thoughts? And is there any kind of feedback that we could use so say the situation ever happens again or a similar one happens, like, okay, this is the route we should take, right? One of those like learning experience kind of things, right? 'Cause the worst time to learn something is when you're in the middle of it. (laughing) - Definitely, unfortunately, an aviation feels like that's the only way we learn. - Sadly, yeah, sadly, yeah. (laughing) - Trial by ignorance, you know what I mean? (laughing) - Has anybody else ever dealt with this? Nah, man, we're all going through it for the first time together. - Yes, not novel experience, you know. Well, write it down, man. That's the only way to learn is to write it down. - Right, write it again, yeah. Whatever you do, again, the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down. - Yep, you'll be amazed how much you learn when you just write it down. Like, shit, even bodybuilders and athletes do it. They write down their progress, then they contract to see where they need to adjust. It works, it looks done, but it works. Diaries are a thing. But hey, let us know what you guys think. What do you guys think about experiences? What sort of issues and concerns have you ran into with calibrated equipment, calibration labs or anything of that fact? Let us know in the comments, our social medias, emails, whichever is the easiest way for you. The absolute best way to have a conversation like this with us and be in communication with us is through our Discord channel via Patreon. We have, again, all sorts of conversations like this with our patrons. Sometimes they spark a question and it kind of leads into an episode like this where they just throw a nugget of information and it makes our brains explode, and then we also have routine hangouts with them, or at least we're attempting to make a better schedule of routine hangouts. So you want to have stuff like this, hangouts more nerd out and have all kinds of geeky stuff, be it from aviation to comics, that Discord is the place to be. On that note, we appreciate you all for listening and we'll see you all on the next one. Goodbye, everybody. - Bye, everyone. - We would like to take this time to thank our patrons for supporting our show and allowing us to make episodes, maintain our gear and create merch for all of our listeners. With special thanks to Eric Kalaman, Chris Hawkins, Eric Shaw, Dan Schubert, Ryan Fruschauer, Kyle Keir, Mike Sherwood, Caleb Stockhill, and Jennifer Brofer. Thank you all so much for your support and patronage. If you like our show, please support us on Patreon. You'll receive awesome perks like access to our private Discord, discounts and early access to our merch, first glimpse of our comics and other projects, and so much more. You can further support us and show off your prowess as an aircraft specialist by visiting our shop at councilfermainas.com. If you like classy or rugged watches, visit our affiliate RockwellTime.com. Use the code CX, the number four MX, to save 10% off your total order. If you have suggestions for the show or you'd like to be a guest on the show, send us a line on our contact us section at councilfermainas.com, and we'll do what we can to get both your ideas and yourself on the show. Please support us on social media, like Facebook @cancelfermainas, Instagram @CA and X for maintenance podcast, or Twitter @CXMX podcast. Please check out our new comics series on the tapas app. Like, share, subscribe, and comment on our comics. Let us know what you think. Thank you all so much for your support and listenership, and we will catch you all next time.
