For billymade-where I work

[nissan_crawler]

I didn't want to hijack the original thread.

nissan_crawler, I would love to see some shots of the shop you work at and some of the crazy confined areas you guys have to work in! Maybe would shed some light on your unique working situation; some shots of planes torn apart would be cool too!

Sorry, no can do. If you saw the pictures of my toolbox in the "show your toolbox" thread, you might have noticed it was inside a small storage room. There's a reason for that, taking pictures on the hangar floor = instant firing.

Here's the planes I work on:
http://citation.cessna.com/

This is the best I can do:

The top picture is the front of the building, all those windows are actually the center of the building.

The lower left picture is a shot of one of the 5 hangars in the building.

The lower right picture is the back of the building, looking in the same direction as the top picture.



"WICHITA CITATION SERVICE CENTER FACT SHEET


Wichita, Kansas, December 9, 2004 – Cost: $61 Million

Size: 443,000 square feet

Length: 1600 feet. This is equivalent to 2 ½ city blocks or 5 ½ football fields. The building is longer than Chicago’s 110-story Sears Tower is tall.

Location: A 150-acre site leased to Cessna by the Wichita Airport Authority located north of Cessna’s current Mid-Continent campus.

Visitors to Wichita: The facility will service approximately 100 aircraft a day. Typically, a minimum of two people are on every airplane, which means Wichita will host 175 to 200 Cessna Citation Service Center customers on any given day.

Facility: The total building is made up of seven sub-buildings/hangars. Of these seven sub-buildings/hangars, three are 60,000 square foot maintenance hangars, one is a 40,000 square foot maintenance facility, and one is a 27,000 square foot hangar that is dedicated to detail and paint. The facility also includes 104,000 square feet of office space. Plus, numerous customer areas such as a restaurant, coffee bar, workstations, flight planning area, conference rooms, showers, etc.

Employment/Jobs:
· Today, Cessna employs approximately 10,500 worldwide and 8,500 in Wichita. Of these, approximately 600 work in the current Wichita Citation Service Center and will be relocated to the new Wichita Citation Service Center in late December 2004.
· Approximately 500-600 construction jobs were added during the construction of the new Citation Service Center.
· Approximately 500 additional jobs will be added to the Wichita Citation Service Center over the next 3-5 years."

I'll try to find some more pictures of it.

 

[Nealcrenshaw]

Hey Nissan, That is a very impressive operation there.It must be tons of fun working there. Hopefully if i'm ever in the area i'll definitely take a tour of that place.

 

[Merkava_4]

At least we know WHERE the place is at now.

 

[nissan_crawler]

Here's more, maybe somebody good with photoshop can make the bottom pictures into one:

 

[firebird 97]

Nissian you on the srevice side or manufacture side? I had a buddy get out of the navy back in the late 90's to go work on the manufacturing plant side as an airframer.

 

[billymade]

Looks like a cool place to work at; thanks for taking the time to tell us about it!

 

[paramudduck]

It's too bad you can't show people some of the cracks you guy's have to work in.

I've seen some of the room tech's have in older planes. I always pictured some of them as having monkey arms to be able to reach stuff.

 

[nissan_crawler]

Nissian you on the srevice side or manufacture side? I had a buddy get out of the navy back in the late 90's to go work on the manufacturing plant side as an airframer.

Service, I would shoot myself with the drone of rivet guns and the monotony on the factory side.

It's too bad you can't show people some of the cracks you guy's have to work in.

I've seen some of the room tech's have in older planes. I always pictured some of them as having monkey arms to be able to reach stuff.

Yeah...now imagine FADEC controlled engines (think fuel injection for a basic description), all the avionics systems, creature comforts, bathrooms, sinks, etc. It's the proverbial 10 pounds of sh!t in a 5 lb bag.

 

[billymade]

I've seen some "in progress" restoration of WW II warbirds (in this case was a P51 Mustang, engine compartment) and was amazing how many hoses and stuff goes into those planes; I can't even imagine the new stuff must be crazy spaghetti insanity!

 

[paramudduck]

Yep the ones I saw were from the 80's and early 90's. I imagine it's even worse now then it was then.

I remember wondering then how you could get to some of the stuff with out taking the plane completely apart.

 

[nissan_crawler]

Yep the ones I saw were from the 80's and early 90's. I imagine it's even worse now then it was then.

I remember wondering then how you could get to some of the stuff with out taking the plane completely apart.

It is worse...and...sometimes you do exactly that, tear the plane completely apart. I've seen 5 days of work to get to a wire, 5 minutes to repair it, and 6 days to put it back together.

 

[eschoendorff]

It is worse...and...sometimes you do exactly that, tear the plane completely apart. I've seen 5 days of work to get to a wire, 5 minutes to repair it, and 6 days to put it back together.

That would kill me. Literally.

 

[nissan_crawler]

That would kill me. Literally.

That part isn't so bad...the repairs are where it gets old. I've spent 6 MONTHS on the same thing, uggh. There are several I've been on for 2-3 months straight. I don't have to do that much anymore, thank god.

 

[eschoendorff]

That part isn't so bad...the repairs are where it gets old. I've spent 6 MONTHS on the same thing, uggh. There are several I've been on for 2-3 months straight. I don't have to do that much anymore, thank god.

I swear I would gnaw my own arm off. And then beat someone with it.

 

[paramudduck]

Then you have the fun stuff where the FAA wants all the wire ties facing a certain way. And you guys have to tear them apart to see.

My uncle claimed they had one plane that was down for over a year because of them changing rules before the first fix could be completed.

 

[nissan_crawler]

Then you have the fun stuff where the FAA wants all the wire ties facing a certain way. And you guys have to tear them apart to see.

My uncle claimed they had one plane that was down for over a year because of them changing rules before the first fix could be completed.

We don't have to deal with that, since we're the manufacturer. The FAA gave a pass on engineering approving repairs. Trust me, they definitely err WAY on the cautious side, though. Nobody wants to get their pee-pee slapped by the FAA.

 

[billymade]

Do you have to do allot of retrofits when they find something out later after manufacturing that was an issue; the same reto fit over/over again? Is this the kind of work that you were mentioning before; that drove you nuts? Repetition can get frustrating after awhile; you have to have allot of patience... I would assume..

 

[nissan_crawler]

Do you have to do allot of retrofits when they find something out later after manufacturing that was an issue; the same reto fit over/over again? Is this the kind of work that you were mentioning before; that drove you nuts? Repetition can get frustrating after awhile; you have to have allot of patience... I would assume..

Service letters/bulletins, same as a tsb for a car, basically. Some optional, some recommended, some mandatory. I used to do a lot more of that.

I'm on the "drop in" crew now. That means a plane diverted in air with a problem, wants it fixed, and wants to be gone NOW. Much more troubleshooting, much less repetitive ****. It's not for everybody though, it'll break some people.

 

[toolfreak]

I imagine it's similar to being a field mechanic with heavy equipment, when something breaks down they want it fixed yesterday. I love that pace since it makes the day go buy fast but like you said, some people just can't handle it.

 

[89MustangGX]

I don't think I've talked about where I work, but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Everett_Factory

(For size reference, each one of the six big doors with a mural painted on it is large enough to bring a jumbo jet through.)

I'm currently doing functional testing on the new 787. I had spent most of my time with the company working on the 747 program before this.

As you can imagine, lots of FAA presence and we have to be very careful not to get our "pee-pee slapped by the FAA" either.

As for the original questions, I can't take any pictures either, but if you search the web there are some out there. I've never worked small aircraft, but even on these big birds there are a huge amount of confined areas and tight spots to get into. It's definitely an art and requires an array of different (and sometimes custom) shaped tools to work these areas. Even in the tightest spots that are near impossible to see, work is checked and the areas are always cleaned and checked multiple times to ensure there are no tools or debris left behind. Even the slightest amount of metal shavings or even just dust from shoes has to be removed.

I'd be happy to answer any questions on the build of these aircraft if anyone has any.

Adam