My name is Tim Hoffman. I am the director of quality for Maverick Helicopters and we're here
just talking a little bit about maintenance and our department. To give you some details on what
it takes to get here, how we do our processes, and what processes we need to accomplish.
Our facility is approximately 15 000 square feet that provides us
enough room to work on six aircraft at the same time without having any
interference between them. It's a facility that's well lit, it's heated, it's cooled,
so that we provide an optimal environment for our technicians to work within.
Across all of our locations, we have about 40 personnel, that include support personnel,
to try to maintain our fleet of aircraft. My job entails several things one of them
is to keep our maintenance program up to date. I try to develop and maintain systems, policies,
procedures, standards and training programs to make sure that the level of quality here is as
high as it can possibly be so the maintenance goes out the door is 100 percent every time.
We can carry seven people and the pilot all at one time in this helicopter. It also has
a slightly elevated seating in the back so it gives it more of a stadium feel and there's a
lot of transparent panels. One of the main reasons that we do operate is because it's a wider cabin
so it affords more space for the passengers that are riding within it. So it's just a
really good aircraft for trying to do sightseeing or flight scene tours as we do here at maverick.
There's a lot of preventative maintenance and inspections that are required.
Usually on an hourly basis for us, but there's also some calendar components
and some cycle limited inspections as well, to go along with the components that also
need to be replaced on certain intervals or a routine basis. We often take all the parts off
the aircraft that won't normally be intervened upon so we really strip it down and get a good
inspection on all areas that might not otherwise be required to be looked at.
Well we're fortunate here to have a good relationship between both our maintenance group
and our pilot group which is something that you don't find at every operation
that helps us be even better at each one of our jobs effectively.
If something's going on with an aircraft the pilot identifies an issue that needs to be addressed,
it will communicate it to us directly and tell us what's happening so that we can address
any kind of fix that might be required. With that information, we can do troubleshooting if we need
to get into the maintenance manuals to find out if something is within or outside of the allowable
limits and then take action on replacement of that component or do any kind of electrical
troubleshooting that might be required to get the process remedyed and get the aircraft back flying.
We have a great safety record here and that's not by accident, no pun intended, but really,
you have to work towards it it doesn't happen on its own. So by everybody striving individually
to do a great job at their job and be accurate 100 and strive for that high level of safety
and quality and maintain that standard, we are going to be successful.Being able to be very
good at what we do and not cut corners, take the time necessary, which i think is something
that sets us apart as well. We rely on the pilots to do their job uh to a very
high level and do it right every time just like they rely on us to do our jobs right every time.
To be a technician here you have to have an airframe and power plant certificate
issued by the FAA. You can come by this certificate in a few different
ways one of them most often an individual will go to a school
that is somewhere around two years long that's specific to aviation. Then that authorizes them
to go take a certain set of written tests and some oral and practical examinations as well.
Other ways of getting this certification is going to be through an apprenticeship.
So you can apprentice with a willing company that's going to afford you that opportunity for
about three years to get both parts of the license the airframe and the power plant. You get that
sign-off letter to go to the faa, they authorize you to go take the test both written and the oral
and the practical still need to be accomplished regardless of the route, you get to that point,
that's what you need to do to have that certificate or the A&P to work here at Maverick.
Always strive to be better every day, pay attention to the little things.
Try to do them all right and correctly and it's going to take care of itself after that,
but if you're trying to improve yourself at all times I think that
lends itself to hard work and work ethic I think is important to be able to be successful
The faa diamond award of excellence. We've gotten this award for 10 years in a row soon
to be 11. What it is is it tries to recognize the maintenance department or maintenance technicians
for continuing education which is something that is usually kind of an afterthought for a lot of
companies but for us you know the ownership and management has really provided and nurtured this
program. Every year we have 100 percent of our technicians that are eligible that will
have anywhere from 12 to sometimes over 100 hours of training in any one calendar year.
With that over the years we've averaged somewhere about 3 000 training hours every year just in our
department to try to attain that level and get that award qualified for. And we've been
successful in that endeavor. It's something that takes a lot of effort it doesn't happen by itself.
We have a commitment from ownership to get it done and we've gotten that done
for the past decade and we will continue to do it every year hereafter and you need to get better
every day you know and this is part of it this shows it.
you