Classes start in less than 2 weeks for me at K-State Salina. The summer has flown by but the excitement of this new venture has been on my mind since spring. I enrolled I have been reading, studying, watching YouTube videos and collecting tools for use at school. I want to share with you some resources I have collected over the summer that any aviation student may find useful.
My student advisor started me off by directing me to faa.gov to pick up three manuals in PDF form that are used to develop the oral, written and practical exams for the aircraft and powerplant certification exams:
FAA Aircraft Handbooks and Manuals – is library of interest to both mechanic and pilot students. The mechanic students should download FAA-H-8038-30, –31, and –32.
I acquired the free Adobe Reader ready or my iPad for the app store, opened these manuals in that specific reader and the reader saved them to my iPad. You can do the same with a laptop or desktop machine.
An industry resource I found was in the iPad Newsstand, a magazine called Aviation Maintenance. This is a free bi-monthly magazine that reports on the heartbeat of aviation maintenance around the world. They report on what's hot, new ideas and how to improve business and productivity. The issues can be downloaded for free to your iPad/laptop. The editors put together an annual collection called Repair Center Directory which to me, is an extensive list of potential employers. The list includes US and international repair stations and aviation service providers. Its not all inclusive, but it it extensive.
Another free, iPad available magazine, is Avionics Magazine who’s website is Aviation Today.com reports specifically on the avionics industry with emphasis on military, UAV and avionics development programs. Today the jobs board included over 1200 postings in the aerospace industry for non-pilot positions.
Taleo jobs database includes many aviation maintenance related military and government positions that are available. The link is into a secure server so click the “All Jobs” tab, then the “Basic Search” tab to view listings.
YouTube is a wealth of interesting, time killing nonsense. There are also some magnificent independent video producers creating informative and useful training videos. I want to share some of my favorites that I follow. These will be of interest to both maintainers and pilots:
kstatesalina – Who wouldn’t like a peak at what’s going on at the best aviation school in the country! The AVM aircraft assembly video superb.
mjlorton – specializes in teaching basic electricity, electronics, multimeter use, circuit design, ohm’s law with mathematic tutoring
mzeroaflighttraining – A certified flight instructor creates short videos of flight training with fantastic multi camera photography and his website includes an online ground school.
riveteer – University of the Fraser Valley aviation maintenance school individual has created a few videos relating to sheet metal work and their school.
textsa – This user has one video that is of interest, it is an hour and a half long video of the oral private pilots exam. It highlights many areas to concentrate preparation.
undaerocast – The University of North Dakota’s aviation department has created a collection of videos primarily directed to student pilots. These are safety, instructional and recruiting videos.
There are many tool resources, you mechanics are going to need them. I picked up a nice chest toolbox from Harbor Freight for a few hundred dollars. I spent some time in an actual shop and realized the tall cabinets sometimes hold more but have two distinct disadvantages, 1) you can’t see in the top drawers unless your 6 1/2 feet tall; 2) when I roll my chest style tool box up to an aircraft in a large hangar bay it provides me with a work bench with which to place parts, screws, tool etc that I am using on the project to I don’t have to leave them laying on, in or under an airplane between operations. Do yourself a favor and get a large chest style box to start with, you’ll thank me later.
For hand tools, if you are starting out I found Lowe’s has most of what I need, they are guaranteed forever, cost a fraction of what Snap-on and Matco tools and will do the same job. If your Snap-on tool breaks, you have to wait a week for the local supplier to come around and replace it, if you got it at Lowe’s you can replace it the same day. The expensive tools are good tools, and yes will want them eventually, I have bought a few specialty tools (because I was working in the real world on real airplanes) and they make life easier. Getting started I recommend saving your money until you are working in the real world and can justify the expense.
If you have any other favorite websites, YouTube producers or info to share feel free to comment.
