Photo: Boeing South Carolina fabrication specialists Sean Brazil, left, and Trent Hervey install a wall panel on a 787 Dreamliner mock-up. February 2015 39 mock-up, sitting on cushions that read “Boeing Racing.” It wasn’t quite like the famous Talladega or Daytona racetracks, but Everett was just fine with them. They had their own finish line to cross. “This is a necessary tool,” said Mark Hendrix, a Boeing South Carolina team member who has been with the company for nearly three years. “This helps me tremendously with cabin interiors. When I have to do something, I take it apart. Here, I get to see it put together. I know this stuff, but there’s a lot I don’t know.” The Boeing South Carolina interior workers have maintenance specialties. Some perform vinyl repair. Others are mechanics. Yet as the last line of cabin quality control before 787 deliveries are made, each is required to know how to repair everything on the inside, cabins system manager Clint Dunagan said. the academy was opened to airline customers and their maintenance teams, with Qatar Airways the first to send a crew to Everett. The racing analogies keep things simple for everyone. Formula One racing, with similar pit stops, is popular in Europe and Asia. “This airplane is about finesse,” Carlos Ojeda, one of the Pit Crew instructors, told a class. “Slow down, take your time—and it will be faster.” On the intricacies of replacing an inner cabin window, fellow instructor Jeff Kelsey told the class, “It’s sort of like changing a tire.” Kelsey and Ojeda are former 777 mechanics. Boeing South Carolina and Air Canada maintenance workers at times received their briefings in bleachers erected at the rear of the 787 cabin Before joining Boeing three years ago, Ashten Cantonwine worked on Boeing’s B-52 bomber in the military. She climbed through fuel tanks. She made tools. Now she escorts Boeing customers through the Dreamliner cabin as she would a home buyer on final inspection, and performs touch-ups on request. She said the Pit Crew Academy training will make her customer interaction in North Charleston more effective. “If there’s a customer complaint about a scratch, nine times out of 10 I’m happy to fix things on the spot,” Cantonwine said, explaining that some jobs take longer. “This place helps with that a lot.” Air Canada workers previously watched videos or were trained by someone from the airline on cabin maintenance, but without a test run. Their biggest concern was dealing with a complicated issue for the first time with a jet waiting to depart. The Pit Crew Academy removes a lot of uncertainty, said Pierre Nadeau, a 15-year Toronto interiors technician. “The best thing is getting the experience to fix something here as opposed to reading a manual that will take me hours and hours,” Nadeau said. “Just show me once and I’m better at it.” The Boeing South Carolina and Air Canada cabin specialists agreed that the Pit Crew Academy provides a clever and productive approach to training. They gave it a checkered flag, signaling a winner. Yet they understood they still had to separate the straightaway from the runway. “In an actual pit crew, you’re tearing down and building up—that’s what you’re doing here,” said Dean Reavie, a 14-year Air Canada interior technician from Toronto and serious NASCAR fan. “These guys are great. They make it a lot of fun. But at the end of the day, it’s pay attention to this: We are working on an aircraft.” n daniel.w.raley@boeing.com
Frontiers February 2015 Issue
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