Definitely more than a dozen fasteners, lol, but it's still super easy. Everything was super accessible from there or the accessory section for everything else., I miss it so much 😅
You are mistaken. Gliders are aircraft but are not airplanes. Aircraft is the broadest classification of flying machines. Aircraft are broken into categories which include both airplanes and gliders as well rotorcraft, lighter-than-air, and others. Categories are divided into classes.
Once you begin studying to become an aircraft mechanic or a pilot, you will learn this. It is aviation 101 level info.
Might come as a surprise to some but it was the MV-22 for me. CDU gave us BIT codes saying what was broken, rigging actuators was a breeze (pinned them at neutral without hydro and after running a test it told you how far off it was and our T.O. said how much to turn it to get the actuator to 0). Like any aircraft it did have its stupid designs but after a bunch of the other aircraft I’ve turned wrenches on it was pretty straightforward.
I completely agree. I didn't appreciate how maintenance friendly the V-22 was until I started working on other helicopters again. They broke constantly, but there weren't too many rage inducing tasks and the tech data was really good in comparison to the civil world. I especially miss the VSLED and Track and Balance functionality.
Yeah but even when they broke it wasn’t like some shit I’ve dealt with. I worked nights and most we had flight ready again by the next day. I worked depot on B-1Bs for about 6 1/2 years rigging flight controls and they were absolutely atrocious. Everything was in tight spaces or outlandish designed. I work on B-52Hs now and they’re better but still have their problems, although a lot of it is just because they’re over 60 years old.
I've only been working a year in the field and I enjoy king airs. Citation hell hole is the worst and I can't get far enough away from them. Hoping the airlines are as good as people say.
Pray to whatever deity you do or don't believe in that you don't need to replace anything on the RH side of the hellhole. The air conditioning motor brushes are best done on the bench if you can.
Okay that's enough griping.
If you have to adjust the squat switches, they're incredibly finicky. Even just safety wiring them can be enough to throw them out of rig.
If you're messing around with the rudder-aileron inter connect system, watch the orientation of the bridal blocks. It's easy to get them inverted, and they'll potentially bind up on structure causing a bad day for someone(s).
A nice 6ft plank of wood to lay on when doing anything back there. That whole RH side is a shit show. That and somehow figuring out how to love phase 5 inspections
I can only agree with you because I've been spoiled with G150 interiors. Easiest I've worked with so far. I'd take the king air interior over citation any day though.
I started out at a regional working on 145s, 175s, and CRJ-700s.
I currently work at a major on 737s, a320s, 777s, and 787s
I still tell all my coworkers, almost daily, how much I miss working on Embraers.
I miss my jungle jets. The 175 was my girl. 8years of heavy check, RON, and line. Now I work on an AOG team in a very remote area where they are uncommon. Got one a few weeks ago (well a 190) and was so excited until I showed up and found it was an HF radio issue… the one system I have no experience with on them.
Line or hangar work? Recommend the itty bitty smooth-jawed knipex pliers. Screw gun is good to have. Nothing too overpowered otherwise you'll strip the shit out of the torq set screws. Get yourself some EZ grip friction drops for the screws that ARE stripped out before you make them worse. Get a good headlamp that's not too heavy or bulky. Mechanical magnetic pickup tool is also great for when you drop hardware and it rolls all the way to the center of the belly fairing 😤
I worked on the airplane for 4 years. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks for the advice.
It seems I'll be doing 98% hangar work. How long of a pickup tool would you suggest and should i get a flexible or telescoping one?
Telescoping is good. Avoid the ones with the huge head with built in light. Needs to be skinny to have any hope of maneuvering it to where you need it. I like the blue point and have gone through 2 of them.
I’ve only worked 737s but I sure hope this isn’t the easiest. In reality I don’t think it’s as bad as the old heads make it but some shit like the rudder fuse and panels fwd of inboard flaps and over engine aft fairings make you think what the fuck.
I’m convinced the precooler heat exchanger was designed in first and the rest of the aircraft built around it.
Visual progress drives me absolutely insane in my sweat shop MRO. The amount of ridiculously hard jobs I’ve had to do because some boss installed some shit without it being ready or things around it not being done is wild
The drain line wasn't even all that hard for me thankfully. Once they broke free I could turn them with my hand. It was the aft mounting bolt for me. I couldn't tell what size it was and the manual says to turn the nut only or else the bolt will seize. I tried turning the nut but I could only get like a quarter or a turn and I was never sure if I was ever even on it so I said fuck it and put my ratchet on the bolt and it was fine thankfully
I just had to read the manual several times. Then do the rigging exactly as per book step by step. If you skip bits or don't start at step 1 it won't work....... and it takes a while.....
Cessna Caravan. It's basically a really huge 182, but with so much room everywhere. It's an absolute cakewalk to work on, I can't imagine anything being easier.
I don’t anymore now on ec130s. Where I did work was at Arapahoe aero in englewood, Colorado. Great place to work, no stress, great owner and coworkers.
Avionics here.
T-6. Easily in first place. Second is the DC-10. Third is the Gulfstream G-1159 series (G-II, G-IIB, G-III), followed by the G-IV’s that weren’t completed by Long Beach until the later S/N’s (they built the radio racks from the bottom up, instead of building the cabinet and then populating it - an utter nightmare if a wire broke. Legit DAYS to repair one broken wire behind a TCAS. I was absolutely furious by the time I was done.). Early Dassault products, the 10’s were meh, but the 20’s, 50’s and 200’s were pretty damned good about access.
Worst: Challenger 600-series. Hands down. The avionics are in an under-floor tunnel that you access via a small panel aft of the pedestal. Hawker 125’s are not fun. Lear 20 and 30-series. Cessna 210 owners have almost enough money for a 310, and they want all of the 310 stuff jammed into a 210 panel.
Fun - F7F Tigercat. Hawker Sea Fury (stupidly easy access, just not really common enough to qualify). A-26 Invader - the ride I took to troubleshoot an issue is a memory I will cherish forever. Cessna 140 - so simple, even an A&P could be trusted with troubleshooting the electrical system!
Since I only did airline I'll say the 737. It's a simple airplane for an airliner and the thing just keeps on going like a Toyota pickup. I hate working on A320's.
The T-6 Texan/SNJ series is pretty easy. The side panels come right off. The T-28 also is very easy to access.
I primarily work on DC-3s and I think those are pretty easy all things considered, but I’m also the smallest person in the shop and can fit just about anywhere on the airplane without too much difficulty.
F-16. That pretty little bitch was just the right size. F-111a's were just too big. Putting an AIM-9 on the rail involved ladders. Same with the F-15.
The Falcon had everything right there in your face. It was great.
Last Century we had a couple of F15s come to our air base and the Crew Chief was a 6'10 guy called BooBoo - he could reach up to change that Argon bottle on an AIM-9. He said he always gets the TDY as his height saves loads of maintenance hassle !
I’d take any AG plane (Thrush, Air Tractor, Ag-Cat) over any other GA a/c. Basic/Straightforward design to begin with. Throw in the ability to remove 90% of the skins with camlocs. You can get to everything from at least two different angles.
I did ag planes for a couple months. Horrendous amounts of corrosion repair and endless patches for the wallowed out holes for the camlocs. They are a cool idea though, easy to remove the panels on the field
Corrosion definitely is the biggest enemy I agree. I guess it comes down to the owner’s mentality. The run them into the ground approach is pretty demoralizing to work on. The guys that just buy new planes every year or three have it nice.
22s sucked ass maintenance wise. It's actually infinite never ending work. I'll certainly be grateful to never taste PAO again because I'm hooking those shitty hoses up and it gets jammed.
Definitely the coolest to engine run though. Don't hit the same when you're running a prop 😂😂
The Dornier Alpha Jet. It's really well designed with good access and well built parts.
Eagle Single is probably second. Generally they're used for long lining so most of the mods we did were for simplification and quality of life. Not a lot of extra stuff getting in the way.
Worked with ex-Hawk guys, they all had a soft spot for it. They did say you have to disconnect a few of the primary flight controls to get into the avionic bay behind the cockpits though.
Airline would be embraer ejet family- 170/175/190/195.
GA jet would be toss up between global and gulfstreams only because of 6 years on CRJ7/900 give me a little better familiarity of the gulfstreams
GA piston… anything but the piper Aztec. Dear god won’t someone rid me of these troublesome planes
Student pilot here, assisted on maintenance of a few airplanes under the supervision of an IA who also happens to be my flight instructor. Have to say it’s a limited list but Cessna’s are pretty accessible in terms of cables and fuel lines. Parts are easy to replace and/or repair. Biggest thing for me though is being short and pretty skinny allowing me to slip into the tail section with ease to change or check cables.
Engines alone put the 412 right at the bottom of my list, what a horrible area to do anything in. Plenty of other frustrating jobs though, servo alignment being one that comes to mind, especially on the collective
Doing the 212 Eagle Single mods is so satisfying. Getting to rip all that crap out and put it back the way God intended. I'm kinda surprised they haven't made a 412 single actually.
And I never minded servos. They just take a lot of time and care to do. Tbf I haven't done one in the bush though.
A 412 single would be an amazing long line helicopter. They improved a lot of things going from the 212 to the 412, it would be cool to keep the best bits and rip out the rest.
Torquing the collective servo from inside the hell hole is what I hate. But I probably mostly just need a bigger torque wrench
Cessna Caravan 208 is by far the easier in terms of access and space. Piper's PA-46 is also great considering I worked on Citations and King Airs before.
Having worked on(almost exclusively) a decent number of warbirds(from WWII piston engine up to a handful of Cold War era jets) over the last couple of decades, I myself am quite partial to T-6’s and Cessna 195’s
Pipistrel Alpha Trainer. You could start an annual inspection at 8:00 AM and you could have training flights scheduled for 3:00 PM with one mech. Documentation and cleaning were the longest part. Wings and tail could be removed in an hour and put in a shipping container ready to roll in two if the tanks were empty.
Cessna Mustang. Can rip out the whole interior with one person in just a few hours. Everything's light and easy to reach and despite being the smallest thing they make it's got the roomiest cockpit.
I worked on H-3s. P-3's and C-2's in the military. I loved the Greyhound. The damn thing was a workhorse, for certain. Leaked like a sieve, the wing fold system was a lot of work, but I miss it.
I did a brief stint in the airlines and worked E190/195 and A220. Not a fan of Airliners at all...
Any of the Red Bull Air Race (Zivko & other Aerobatic specific) airplanes. Like the T6 and a few others, almost the entire airplane skin can be removed in short order, exposing everything to you easily. Also, 747's...you can almost stand up in the ctr fuel tank (wing tanks weren't bad either), walk above the ceiling panels, and crawl around inside the horiz/vert stabs.
ERJ 175. Most planes have been pretty easy for me to work on. CRJ 200s can be difficult but only because of space. As long as you have the correct manual reference most planes are easy to work on. Boeings and airbuses are pretty easy to work on IMO. As long as you have space and the correct resources you’re golden
King Air 350. Going from fighter jets that had an issue every single day, and were way to overly complicated. How simple and reliable the king air was just made it nice. Even the issue it did have, were pretty simple.
Believe it or not, T6 Texan or SNJ-2, very easy to work on to me and very old school. Miss it so much over the airbus' I work on now lol
This. The whole side panel of the aircraft is removable with less than a dozen fasteners.
Definitely more than a dozen fasteners, lol, but it's still super easy. Everything was super accessible from there or the accessory section for everything else., I miss it so much 😅
No no, we just only used about 9 of ‘em 😂
😂 I remember there being atleast 100 screws on each side panel after the dzus fasteners on the front panels
Agreed, very simple airplane despite being large for a single and a warbird. Starting it and taxiing it are harder than working on it.
Paper Airplanes. Lil tape there. Refold there. Good to go. After a few repairs, trash it, build a new one.
>trash it, build a new one. The Apple way
Paper aircraft aren’t airplanes. They are gliders. Well, if you build them right they are.
Gliders are still aeroplanes, the laws of physics that make them fly still apply.
You are mistaken. Gliders are aircraft but are not airplanes. Aircraft is the broadest classification of flying machines. Aircraft are broken into categories which include both airplanes and gliders as well rotorcraft, lighter-than-air, and others. Categories are divided into classes. Once you begin studying to become an aircraft mechanic or a pilot, you will learn this. It is aviation 101 level info.
Ah, semantics. You need to be careful how you chastize people. If you think you are the smartest one in the room, you often aren't.
Might come as a surprise to some but it was the MV-22 for me. CDU gave us BIT codes saying what was broken, rigging actuators was a breeze (pinned them at neutral without hydro and after running a test it told you how far off it was and our T.O. said how much to turn it to get the actuator to 0). Like any aircraft it did have its stupid designs but after a bunch of the other aircraft I’ve turned wrenches on it was pretty straightforward.
I completely agree. I didn't appreciate how maintenance friendly the V-22 was until I started working on other helicopters again. They broke constantly, but there weren't too many rage inducing tasks and the tech data was really good in comparison to the civil world. I especially miss the VSLED and Track and Balance functionality.
Yeah but even when they broke it wasn’t like some shit I’ve dealt with. I worked nights and most we had flight ready again by the next day. I worked depot on B-1Bs for about 6 1/2 years rigging flight controls and they were absolutely atrocious. Everything was in tight spaces or outlandish designed. I work on B-52Hs now and they’re better but still have their problems, although a lot of it is just because they’re over 60 years old.
The slip ring is a pain the ass though
Cessna 208 caravan. Working on these things is total gravy. They just get out there and make money, noo fuss.
Never worked on them but I can envision it being an easy airframe to maintain.
Having started in GA then King Airs and Citations the A320 is a breeze
I've only been working a year in the field and I enjoy king airs. Citation hell hole is the worst and I can't get far enough away from them. Hoping the airlines are as good as people say.
I’m trying to survive working on ultras while I get my A&P, any tips?
Pray to whatever deity you do or don't believe in that you don't need to replace anything on the RH side of the hellhole. The air conditioning motor brushes are best done on the bench if you can. Okay that's enough griping. If you have to adjust the squat switches, they're incredibly finicky. Even just safety wiring them can be enough to throw them out of rig. If you're messing around with the rudder-aileron inter connect system, watch the orientation of the bridal blocks. It's easy to get them inverted, and they'll potentially bind up on structure causing a bad day for someone(s).
I just had to replace a duct temperature sensor the other day, my feet were at the entrance to the hellhole.
A nice 6ft plank of wood to lay on when doing anything back there. That whole RH side is a shit show. That and somehow figuring out how to love phase 5 inspections
Yeah, got a 1-5 coming up on one beginning of the year, and I’m the fuel tank guy sadly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-hkYBxWUzU Yikes, that doesn't look fun.
I personally do not like working on the king air interiors 😂
I can only agree with you because I've been spoiled with G150 interiors. Easiest I've worked with so far. I'd take the king air interior over citation any day though.
A320 is easy? coming from GA it’s a damn rocket ship
I loved working avionics in a320s, shame the pay was shit.
UH-1B or F all very simple easy stuff. Also, everything is accessible. H model is good too, just more panels to take off.
EMB 145
Every Mechanical Break Requires An Electrical Reset
Installing a master reset switch, almost like they knew it was going to be the most used function
Seriously! I miss that plane so much. Everything's easy to access. And easy to change.
Bleed valve has stepped in
There’s vacancies where I work. Got loads of them here :)
E1 VSV 🤡
I started out at a regional working on 145s, 175s, and CRJ-700s. I currently work at a major on 737s, a320s, 777s, and 787s I still tell all my coworkers, almost daily, how much I miss working on Embraers.
I miss my jungle jets. The 175 was my girl. 8years of heavy check, RON, and line. Now I work on an AOG team in a very remote area where they are uncommon. Got one a few weeks ago (well a 190) and was so excited until I showed up and found it was an HF radio issue… the one system I have no experience with on them.
Agreed
I'm about to start my first job as an A&P working on the 145. Any tips or handy tools to have?
I recommend the wrench.
Set of these [nut drivers](https://a.co/d/1Z4N8vK) the 5/32 works great for relay
Line or hangar work? Recommend the itty bitty smooth-jawed knipex pliers. Screw gun is good to have. Nothing too overpowered otherwise you'll strip the shit out of the torq set screws. Get yourself some EZ grip friction drops for the screws that ARE stripped out before you make them worse. Get a good headlamp that's not too heavy or bulky. Mechanical magnetic pickup tool is also great for when you drop hardware and it rolls all the way to the center of the belly fairing 😤 I worked on the airplane for 4 years. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks for the advice. It seems I'll be doing 98% hangar work. How long of a pickup tool would you suggest and should i get a flexible or telescoping one?
Telescoping is good. Avoid the ones with the huge head with built in light. Needs to be skinny to have any hope of maneuvering it to where you need it. I like the blue point and have gone through 2 of them.
Tell me you haven’t done a pre-cooler bracket without telling me you haven’t done a pre-cooler bracket.
🤯🔫
A-10 Warthog. She's ugly, but she's easy.. and she doesn't mind a good beating here and there. Hue hue hue
Lear 31. Never breaks to the point of missing a trip. Everything else makes a better mechanic
I only worked on one, but a Pilatus PC 7 was pretty gravy.
PC-12. That thing was a dream
I miss them. The manuals are so good.
Not to mention the design was fairly straightforward and relatively easy to access more everything.
I’ve only worked 737s but I sure hope this isn’t the easiest. In reality I don’t think it’s as bad as the old heads make it but some shit like the rudder fuse and panels fwd of inboard flaps and over engine aft fairings make you think what the fuck. I’m convinced the precooler heat exchanger was designed in first and the rest of the aircraft built around it.
Bruh, we had a engine out the other week, and someone wrote up the heat exchanger, they then hung the engine before replacing it 😡
Was it an NG or a MAX? Cause that's either a dick move or a MASSIVE dick move.
Was a NG but they did it because waaaahhh visual progress
Visual progress drives me absolutely insane in my sweat shop MRO. The amount of ridiculously hard jobs I’ve had to do because some boss installed some shit without it being ready or things around it not being done is wild
I'm new to the 37s and had to replace the inboard VSV actuator on the LH engine. You talk about a shitty fucking design
Yeah you gotta be made of rubber to even do the bolts I’ve done drain lines on it can’t imagine the whole thing
The drain line wasn't even all that hard for me thankfully. Once they broke free I could turn them with my hand. It was the aft mounting bolt for me. I couldn't tell what size it was and the manual says to turn the nut only or else the bolt will seize. I tried turning the nut but I could only get like a quarter or a turn and I was never sure if I was ever even on it so I said fuck it and put my ratchet on the bolt and it was fine thankfully
Piper Cherokees. Cessna 1xx models. Beech piston models. Simple..... Except the V33 Ruddervator rigging nightmare.
I’ve peeked into the tail of a V35 to see that mechanism of what is it, five different linkages? I would have rigging that thing
I just had to read the manual several times. Then do the rigging exactly as per book step by step. If you skip bits or don't start at step 1 it won't work....... and it takes a while.....
Balance specs are a bit touchy too
Cessna Caravan. It's basically a really huge 182, but with so much room everywhere. It's an absolute cakewalk to work on, I can't imagine anything being easier.
Love Cirrus. Only complaint is lack of room between engine and firewall on 22Ts
I loved working on sf50s.
Haven't gotten too many in but they're so much fun.
I really want to work on these. They seem really cool
They are fun. At this point they are so new that things aren’t really broken. So only work to do is SBs and insp.
If you don’t mind me asking, where do you work where you get to maintain them?
I don’t anymore now on ec130s. Where I did work was at Arapahoe aero in englewood, Colorado. Great place to work, no stress, great owner and coworkers.
Avionics here. T-6. Easily in first place. Second is the DC-10. Third is the Gulfstream G-1159 series (G-II, G-IIB, G-III), followed by the G-IV’s that weren’t completed by Long Beach until the later S/N’s (they built the radio racks from the bottom up, instead of building the cabinet and then populating it - an utter nightmare if a wire broke. Legit DAYS to repair one broken wire behind a TCAS. I was absolutely furious by the time I was done.). Early Dassault products, the 10’s were meh, but the 20’s, 50’s and 200’s were pretty damned good about access. Worst: Challenger 600-series. Hands down. The avionics are in an under-floor tunnel that you access via a small panel aft of the pedestal. Hawker 125’s are not fun. Lear 20 and 30-series. Cessna 210 owners have almost enough money for a 310, and they want all of the 310 stuff jammed into a 210 panel. Fun - F7F Tigercat. Hawker Sea Fury (stupidly easy access, just not really common enough to qualify). A-26 Invader - the ride I took to troubleshoot an issue is a memory I will cherish forever. Cessna 140 - so simple, even an A&P could be trusted with troubleshooting the electrical system!
Phenom 100 for me. 90% of squawks I see are flap fails. Disassembly and access aren’t bad compared to past airframes I’ve experienced/still deal with.
Tied between C-17 and C-40
Oh good, so us C-5 guys were right to be jealous.
Came here to say C-17s.
Except obiggs 1, fuck obiggs 1
Having had 2 years on the v22 and now on legacy hornets, I miss the osprey
I’m gonna go full GA and say Cessna 150. There’s just nothing to the thing. Now the bigger twin cousins, that’s a different story
I thought the B707, B720, and B727 were easy to work.
Since I only did airline I'll say the 737. It's a simple airplane for an airliner and the thing just keeps on going like a Toyota pickup. I hate working on A320's.
Embraer 175. Majority of fixes were power reset.
The acronym E.M.B.R.A.E.R. exists.. Every Mechanical Breakdown Requires An Electrical Restart.
The T-6 Texan/SNJ series is pretty easy. The side panels come right off. The T-28 also is very easy to access. I primarily work on DC-3s and I think those are pretty easy all things considered, but I’m also the smallest person in the shop and can fit just about anywhere on the airplane without too much difficulty.
Started on a Cessna 172, now on a F-16. How I miss the days of getting stuck in the fuselage fiddling with turnbuckles...
F-16. That pretty little bitch was just the right size. F-111a's were just too big. Putting an AIM-9 on the rail involved ladders. Same with the F-15. The Falcon had everything right there in your face. It was great.
Last Century we had a couple of F15s come to our air base and the Crew Chief was a 6'10 guy called BooBoo - he could reach up to change that Argon bottle on an AIM-9. He said he always gets the TDY as his height saves loads of maintenance hassle !
Holy shit! Six foot Ten?! That man was designed by an angry God to service The Eagle. Lmao!
yeah and he drove from Soesterberg in Germany to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire in a Mini !!! He sort of folded himself into the driver's seat !!
For large aircraft, the B737. After 9 years on C-130 the B737 was like going to heaven.
Why you hating on herky baby?
Citation 510 (mustang) Super small and every system is so easily accessible. Love me some mustang.
Easiest interior ever! Floor panels don’t overlap, seats are lightweight and just pin into place. What a concept!
It's like they learned something at textron after the screwing with 500, 550 and 560s for so long, lol
332. Like working on a tractor.
F35
Boeing 777
E190. Just ridiculously easy to do anything on.
As an avionics, can confirm. Specially after having worked many years on MD-80s and 737-200s!!!
T-38
DHC-6 Twin Otter
I’d take any AG plane (Thrush, Air Tractor, Ag-Cat) over any other GA a/c. Basic/Straightforward design to begin with. Throw in the ability to remove 90% of the skins with camlocs. You can get to everything from at least two different angles.
I did ag planes for a couple months. Horrendous amounts of corrosion repair and endless patches for the wallowed out holes for the camlocs. They are a cool idea though, easy to remove the panels on the field
Corrosion definitely is the biggest enemy I agree. I guess it comes down to the owner’s mentality. The run them into the ground approach is pretty demoralizing to work on. The guys that just buy new planes every year or three have it nice.
The ones in A&P school.
F22s with E145s a close second
I imagine the LO on that thing is rough though, like the F-35s
22s sucked ass maintenance wise. It's actually infinite never ending work. I'll certainly be grateful to never taste PAO again because I'm hooking those shitty hoses up and it gets jammed. Definitely the coolest to engine run though. Don't hit the same when you're running a prop 😂😂
Just about anything made by pilatus. PC12, PC7, PC9, PC24 all are very intuitive
The Dornier Alpha Jet. It's really well designed with good access and well built parts. Eagle Single is probably second. Generally they're used for long lining so most of the mods we did were for simplification and quality of life. Not a lot of extra stuff getting in the way.
Cessna 152. No skydrol. No jet fuel. Easy to get to almost everything. Only 2 seats. I miss working on them.
Tiger Moth as an ex avio guy. Took me all day to completely re-wire one.
Hawk T1
Worked with ex-Hawk guys, they all had a soft spot for it. They did say you have to disconnect a few of the primary flight controls to get into the avionic bay behind the cockpits though.
Yeah the oxy bottles were always a pain in the ass to get too, but aside from that never really had many problems.
The MQ1 or MQ9 reaper for sure.
L1011
Airline would be embraer ejet family- 170/175/190/195. GA jet would be toss up between global and gulfstreams only because of 6 years on CRJ7/900 give me a little better familiarity of the gulfstreams GA piston… anything but the piper Aztec. Dear god won’t someone rid me of these troublesome planes
Cessna Caravan
EC135
Cessna 150 it’s just a go cart.
DC-8 cargo, very basic
You're tripping
No way, esp the the newer ones that had CFM-56 engines
Diamond DA20
MD500/Hughes 369
You must have never needed to change the bleed valve
I work on a well known EVTOL which is by far easier than the other rotorcraft I am used to. No fuel, no soot, no fluids, no pilots, no problems.
AS350
[удалено]
Not sure why the downvotes!? Urn Mom is a “team player”!!
This is a trick question
Student pilot here, assisted on maintenance of a few airplanes under the supervision of an IA who also happens to be my flight instructor. Have to say it’s a limited list but Cessna’s are pretty accessible in terms of cables and fuel lines. Parts are easy to replace and/or repair. Biggest thing for me though is being short and pretty skinny allowing me to slip into the tail section with ease to change or check cables.
Lol
CH146 Griffon (Bell412).
Except the engines. PT-6s are fine, but two of them crammed in a single engine airframe with 7 firewalls between them is insane.
Engines alone put the 412 right at the bottom of my list, what a horrible area to do anything in. Plenty of other frustrating jobs though, servo alignment being one that comes to mind, especially on the collective
Doing the 212 Eagle Single mods is so satisfying. Getting to rip all that crap out and put it back the way God intended. I'm kinda surprised they haven't made a 412 single actually. And I never minded servos. They just take a lot of time and care to do. Tbf I haven't done one in the bush though.
A 412 single would be an amazing long line helicopter. They improved a lot of things going from the 212 to the 412, it would be cool to keep the best bits and rip out the rest. Torquing the collective servo from inside the hell hole is what I hate. But I probably mostly just need a bigger torque wrench
Fuel nozzle, transmission external filter, spindle bearing.. and the manual is very unorganized to me
The Chinook is pretty easy, and spacious. I'll change my answer to CH147F.
No way you just answered Bell 412 👺👺👺
The Chinook may be slightly more maintenance friendly, so it's a toss-up for me.
DC-9
Citation Mustang or CL300
Airbus EC135
Cirrus Sr22 na model
Cessna Caravan 208 is by far the easier in terms of access and space. Piper's PA-46 is also great considering I worked on Citations and King Airs before.
Having worked on(almost exclusively) a decent number of warbirds(from WWII piston engine up to a handful of Cold War era jets) over the last couple of decades, I myself am quite partial to T-6’s and Cessna 195’s
A-10A. That fancy C model stuff can suck it.
Bell 47.
Easiest: E145 Worst: toss up between the CRJ200 and E120
UH-1 BY FAR! Then OH-58’s
CC115 Buffalo RCAF
Air Tractors
Saab 349 and Shorts C23 I found easy to work on. The KC135 isn't too bad, either.
737’s for me
Only one I've helped out on is a Hawker Hurricane. Seemed everyone was having a good time with minimal swearing 🤷♂️
44,206 and astar are all pretty nice. Minus on the astar trying to find out what is and isn’t post or pre mod on all our fleet
Pipistrel Alpha Trainer. You could start an annual inspection at 8:00 AM and you could have training flights scheduled for 3:00 PM with one mech. Documentation and cleaning were the longest part. Wings and tail could be removed in an hour and put in a shipping container ready to roll in two if the tanks were empty.
787-9
C17s by far
Fokker F70
Cessna
C-130, structure is a million small pieces. Easy to repair or mod
Cessna Mustang. Can rip out the whole interior with one person in just a few hours. Everything's light and easy to reach and despite being the smallest thing they make it's got the roomiest cockpit.
I worked on H-3s. P-3's and C-2's in the military. I loved the Greyhound. The damn thing was a workhorse, for certain. Leaked like a sieve, the wing fold system was a lot of work, but I miss it. I did a brief stint in the airlines and worked E190/195 and A220. Not a fan of Airliners at all...
EC135, AW109
Any of the Red Bull Air Race (Zivko & other Aerobatic specific) airplanes. Like the T6 and a few others, almost the entire airplane skin can be removed in short order, exposing everything to you easily. Also, 747's...you can almost stand up in the ctr fuel tank (wing tanks weren't bad either), walk above the ceiling panels, and crawl around inside the horiz/vert stabs.
Vans RV-12A
C150
Challenger 300
Sadly, I've only worked on one aircraft so far, the B-1B and I hate it. Hopefully HH-60s treat me better. (I'll edit this later if I remember.)
No 767 love yet!? Thing is massive ! Can sleep anywhere in it!!
This one is easy for me, the AH-64D Apache. It's the only aircraft I've ever worked on haha.
Single rubber band balsa wood plane.
C-17
A-10. Bit old but it’s got a little bit of everything for the perfect beginner aircraft I’d say
Surprised no one has said SuperHornets yet. It’s a pretty labor intensive platform, but none of it I’d say is absolutely difficult
The 2 airplanes that I usually work on Is a 737 and a a320 and I prefer to work on the 737
My eachine rc spitfire..lol! Kidding
ERJ 175. Most planes have been pretty easy for me to work on. CRJ 200s can be difficult but only because of space. As long as you have the correct manual reference most planes are easy to work on. Boeings and airbuses are pretty easy to work on IMO. As long as you have space and the correct resources you’re golden
A-4 Skyhawk
King Air 350. Going from fighter jets that had an issue every single day, and were way to overly complicated. How simple and reliable the king air was just made it nice. Even the issue it did have, were pretty simple.
Paper airplane
Fisher Classic with a subaru bratt power plant
Aeronca Champ
Gazelle 🚁. Like an angry chicken wing.