Midnight Shift

A bit of a busy night at work yesterday. My airplane (the overnight airplane that I`m responsible to ensure is serviceable for the next morning) came in as scheduled at 1:20 am. There were three items to take care of, a two day check, a weekly check, and a snag. I also do maintenance on the in flight entertainment system, which, although it`s not required, seems to help.

The two day check looks at tires, brakes, fluid levels (oil, hydraulics, oxygen), an external inspection, a cabin and cockpit check, and a check of the log books.

The weekly check looks at interior and exterior lights, escape slides nitrogen pressure, generator oil levels, and a couple of quick function checks.

During the walk around, I found one tire that was worn out, so that had to be added to the list of items. Fortunately, there were two other AMEs available, who did most of the tire change for me.

My snag was a damaged cabin window blind. It refused to stay put, and would immediately retract when released. Making the job both easier and harder, the blind was the one in the emergency exit. So I would have to remove the emergency exit, remove the exit liner, and then replace the blind.

I met the airplane as usual, did my walk around, and then went on the airplane. I offered the flight attendants a chance to remove the exit, because I know most of them have never removed an exit for real - they have a cabin mock up that they use for training. However, it was the end of a long day for them, and they declined - also, they seemed overly concerned about the possibility of blowing the escape slide.

The first step is to put a safety pin in the overwing slide bottle, which is located in the aft cargo compartment. That takes a moment. Then, I went into the cabin, to the forward emergency exit, removed the handle cover, and disarmed the exit. At that point, the exit can be removed without any chance that the slide will inflate. I placed the exit on the seats, and removed the ten screws that hold the liner onto the exit. This is actually the most time consuming part of the job, due to the poor placement of the screws.

Installing the screws on the window blind

With the liner off, it was a quick process to replace the blind, three screws, although annoyingly, two different types of screws. Putting it all back together went quickly, and I re-installed the exit in its cut out.

Installing an overwing exit is a critical function, since it is both part of the escape system and part of the pressure vessel. This means that a second signature is required, so one of the other AMEs came out to double check. He also had to check that I had removed the safety pin from the inflation bottle, as this is also considered a critical function - if the pin is left in, the slide will not inflate in an emergency.

After the exit was finished, I had a light bulb to replace (which can be seen in the image, the dark area just to my right). The upper sidewall panel, which I know as a cove panel, is removed, the florescent tube is replaced, and the panel re-installed. You have to take care to ensure that the panel is properly installed, so that it won`t drop in a hard landing - or a regular landing. That would probably unnerve the passengers.

I spent most of an hour doing the paperwork and computer entries that comes with all of that work, finishing just in time to start waking up the airplanes in preparation for the day`s flying.