Cancelled for Maintenance

On May 6th, a Virgin Atlantic flight bound for New York from London was 40 minutes into their flight before having to turn back due to a “rostering issue” with the flight’s first officer. Many public comments chastise both the first officer and their lines for this egregious oversight, but was the “oops” a lack of awareness or was it the result of making ends meet on an already burnt-out system? ...

Today's episode is by a Patron request, what happened to a KC-10A's boom arm that caused it to detach from the aircraft? A KC-10A was performing routine refueling operations as part of a training mission, when its fuel boom arm loses functionality and detaches itself from the rest of the aircraft! What happened exactly with this scenario and what are some of the lessons we can learn from this mish...

Things happen outside of our control, sometimes it requires us to take a leave of absence.  How exactly do you call out of work, and from both an employee and a manager's view point, how do you deal with it? Do you explain in detail what is going on? Should you come up with solutions to make up for your absence? Is your workplace toxic? There's a multitude of absolute reasons why you should/need t...

​The Aerospace Maintenance Competition (AMC) is held annually in conjunction with Aviation Week Network’s MRO Americas . Teams representing educational institutions, commercial airlines, repair and manufacturing companies, general aviation and space compete in a wide range of events that will highlight their technical prowess in aviation maintenance to find out who's the best of the best. The comp...

Everyone is exhausted. People are coping with collective grief and trauma, especially due to COVID-19. Today, we discuss how leaders and people of influence need to foster healthy coping mechanisms and discourage unhealthy ones; help ward off common mistakes while under pressure; and don’t cause additional issues on top of what people are already dealing with.  Would like to read more about the ar...

Being proactive can mitigate unforeseen risks and aid in optimizing tasks. However, proactivity can be a double-edged sword. Today, we explore how being proactive can actually hurt your productivity and how it can be seen as annoying and obnoxious! Would like to read more about the article we used for this episode? Visit: https://hbr.org/2016/10/proactivity-can-be-a-double-edged-sword Do you like...

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent federal agency that investigates every civil aviation incident in the United States.  The analyze probable cause to incidents and recommend safety actions to prevent mishaps from happening.  It's fair to say when NTSB representatives show up on site, everyone's anxiety level goes up, especially if you are going to be an involved par...

We've talked  a lot about bad leadership and its consequences.  We've also mentioned how leaders can morph into the bad guy because of some toxic employees on their team. How though, do you provide assistance to your team without micromanaging them or come off as micromanaging them? Micromanagement has become a foul word in the workplace in every possible industry.  Why is it such a bad word, and...

We have made jokes in some of our previous episodes about having R2-D2 astromech robots to partner with us and perform aircraft maintenance. While having autonomous machines performing human-level maintenance may seem far away, there are robots in use today that aid in our performance upkeep tasks! From crawling spider bots to quad-copter hull scanners, future is fast becoming the now! Would like...

What goes into an airport, why is it located where it’s at, and why are some airports nicer than others? Today we take a trip and explore 6 of the most luxurious airports in the world.  What sets these airports above the rest and why you should make that part of your travel plans! Want to explore more of the article we used for this episode? Visit: https://www.oxfordsaudia.com/en/blog/luxurious-ai...

On April 24, 2022, Hulu will livestream the Red Bull “Plane Swap” stunt where two seasoned skydivers will set their planes on a 14,000 ft nose-dive, jump out of them, and then swap planes mid-dive. As amazing as this stunt will be, and we surely hope they are able to pull this off, the planning and execution of this stunt is no laughing matter. Today, we explore some of the steps it would take to...

Today, we are co-collaborating with the Leaders of Aviation Podcast, hosted by Jeff Lively! Jeff is a pilot and Apache helicopter mechanic who assists pilots, both aspiring and seasoned, in their training and provides tabbed copies of the FAR/AIM manual for easy reference and effective training. We discuss our backgrounds, the importance of aircraft technicians and pilot training, and the potentia...

In the aviation industry, some tasks feel very repetitive, tedious, convoluted, and even boring. These very mundane-seeming tasks lead us to get complacent and sometimes skip over their completion because of how superfluous they seem. When complacency sets in, that’s when mishaps occur. Today, we review two released incident reports from the US Air Force, as requested by some of our patrons, and e...

We’ve heard so many stories of successful people beginning with certain careers, then making drastically opposite career changes.  Today, we are joined by Jessica Girard, a former infantry soldier turned aircraft jet mechanic, and now a professional writer! We’ll explore some key reasons why someone would make such a career change, what sort of challenges you may face when doing the change, and so...

We have all seen our share of airframes that made us scratch our heads and ask, “who designed this thing?”.  These airframes, however, have correctable flaws or tolerable flaws. For today’s episode, we explore an article by BBC which covers planes that were so poorly designed, they should have never made it off the drawing board. From nine-winged aircraft to aircraft with engines that rotate aroun...

We continue our discussion about the FAA’s article about forecasting the next 20yrs of aviation.  This of course is considering key assumptions and whether those assumptions hold true for that forecasting period.  What are some of these assumptions and does planning for the future have negative impacts on the present?  **What do you think? Where do you foresee aviation in the next 20 years? Will w...

How often do you hear some individuals say they do not want to perform certain tasks because it is boring, or it is beneath them? No one likes to do the paperwork or do the "not cool" stuff.  For today's episode, we address a topic at a listener's request about what exactly is a good mindset for a mechanic to have.  **What are some tips and ideas you feel every mech should know? Comment on our soc...

The aviation industry saw a massive reduction in all facets in 2020, like most other industries, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Recovery efforts have been slow due to the many shortages (i.e. aircraft technician specialists, revenue, parts and supplies, operational aircraft, and pilots) that the pandemic has caused.  Mental health and technology has also seen a rise during these times.  Today we r...

We continue our exploration on Component maintenance costs (CMC) with assistance by the article by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and dive into repair cycle cost, turnaround time, overhauls, and system obsolescence.  Most aircraft mechanics only deal with the first chain of events regarding off wing support, however understanding how these processes work and we fit into it will...

For today's bonus episode, we reminisce about some bloopers we've done while starting an aviation podcast, explore some of our geekiness for comics and movies, go over some dos and do nots with podcasting, and some future projects we have in the works! Do you like this episode? Follow us on Facebook- @cancelledformaintenance, Instagram- @canxformaintenancepodcast. Twitter- @cxmxpodcast Visit our w...

Component maintenance costs (CMC) make up about 24% of an airline’s direct maintenance costs.  Many factors contribute to the challenges of managing component costs and associated repair and overhaul.  On this episode we explore an article by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and what are some ways we can track cost effectiveness and component maintenance management. Want to read...

Sometimes you’re hurt and you don’t know it, other times you don’t feel hurt enough.  We got together today with Emma and Maddie, the hosts of the Pilot’s Pandemic Podcast, and talk about some of the stigmas, barriers, and challenges we all face in the aviation industry.  The Pilot’s Pandemic Podcast actively strives for mental health awareness and reform for pilots who are secretly (or not so sec...

It has become very apparent since 2020, that online/distance training has become a new staple in our training requirements.  The “Zoom Boom” has penetrated much of our daily lives from our children’s schooling to how we conduct meetings.  With the aviation industry embracing online learning as an affordable solution, what are the positives and negatives for online training? Is there a right approa...

We have all heard the saying, “if you see something, say something”, but is that truly the case?  How often have you seen scenarios where speaking up about an issue or a concern are ground for punishment? This could be a sign of bad company culture.  What causes this and how can it be changed?  **We’d like to hear from you! Listen to the end of the episode and send us your response! We would love...

We received so many listener questions we needed to do a bonus episode to answer more of them!  We love interacting with you and answering your questions on air.  Have some more questions for us? Visit our website or our social media pages and send them our way! Do you like this episode? Follow us on Facebook- @cancelledformaintenance, Instagram- @canxformaintenancepodcast. Twitter- @cxmxpodcast V...