Confessions of a New Crew Chief

I’m standing with my back to the wind that forever blows in Great Falls.  It blows so constantly that when locals travel to a place where the wind doesn’t blow at all they have a hard time standing up straight. And good luck finding anyone around here who doesn’t own a windbreaker or two.

            Anyway, as I was saying, I’m standing on the ramp, watching my plane taxi in from landing.  I talk to myself, but internally, so the half dozen or so crew chiefs standing fifty feet away won’t think I’m nervous or anything like that. I’m not nervous, just for the record – I’ve parked a plane before.  I’ve messed it up before, too, and in my gut, I wonder if I’ll mess it up this time, in front of my new coworkers and not to mention my boss who’s sitting in the truck behind me.

            Forget about them, forget about them all.  You can do this, it’s not difficult; just tell him when to stop.  He can follow the yellow taxi line all by himself, you don’t have to direct him a whole lot.  Okay…I glance at the plane slowly make it’s noisy way off the runway and taxi toward parking.  My eyes fall to the spot marked for the nose tire to stop on, a great big yellow rectangle.  Hard to miss.  Then I look at the imaginary spot I’ve chosen to begin my countdown to hitting the brakes.  Gotta count them down so they don’t slam on the brakes too suddenly.  Then I look over at the men gathered by the generator cart, men who were kind enough to come out and help me complete the post-flight inspection that would have taken a few hours by myself.  As grateful as I am for their help, I’d really rather they weren’t here to see me park the plane.

            Easy, you got this.  No need to freak out.  Breathe.  Square your shoulders, here comes your plane.

            7323 turns left off the taxiway and slows as she enters her home ramp.  I keep glancing between my imaginary spot and her shiny black nose, gauging time, distance, and how badly the guys will tease me if I screw this up.  Taylor sitting behind me, I mentally block him out; can’t worry about impressing the boss right now. 

            The pilots can see me, better raise my arms. We’re supposed to have fluorescent wands for marshaling but I have no idea where ours disappeared to months ago.  Oh well.

            I assume the position of a goal post in a football game and start moving my arms in a rhythmic motion above my head to tell the pilot to come towards me.  The plane’s outboard motors are down-sped and they hum at a different pitch to the inboards as she rolls straight to me.

            I glance at my fellow crew chiefs and try not to imagine how they are judging my stance, my movements, even the square foot of tarmac I’ve chosen to marshal from.  Watch the nose wheel.  It’s getting closer…ignore the giant iron beast bearing down as if it will run right over me…focus on that nose wheel.  Almost there, almost there.

            A quick look up to the cock pit, good, he’s actually watching me.  Sometimes they just do whatever the blooming heck they want to do.  One more fleeting glance at the crew chiefs, then back to the plane.  There! 23’s nose wheel rolls over my imaginary spot.

            I drop my arms to signal a coming change, then slowly, very slowly, raise them to form an “X” over my head.  As my arms get closer to each other, the plane slows down.  Slowly, slowly, creeping ever so slowly…

            The nose wheel meets the yellow mark, rolls over it.  But that’s okay.  This spot is weird, they have to park forward of the mark on these new spots or the tie-down chain won’t reach.

            Oh shoot!  That’s too far!

            My arms cross, the plane jerks to a halt.  I drop my arms and stare at the nose wheel.  Well, it’s a little too far forward now.  I hesitate and am fully aware of at least twenty pairs of eyes on me. I can still get the nose chain on there…it’s fine.  Not ideal, but fine.

            I give the thumbs up; the pilot shuts down engines and I walk to my coworkers, shrugging and joking as I come up to them.  If I make jokes about my lousy parking job, maybe they won’t.  At least none of the passengers know the difference, right?

            But I forgot about the extra crews flying home on this one, every last one of them knows exactly where that nose wheel is supposed to be sitting.

            They all file off while we stand around waiting for a chance to start our inspection, and finally the pilot disembarks.  He steps down, greets us, turns and glances at the nose wheel.

            “You looked very hesitant,” he says to me.  I shrug, not sure what to say.  “Next time I blow past it, just have me reverse.  I’d have backed her up for you.”  He’s not giving me a hard time, just trying to help.  And taking some of the blame to boot!

            Note to self: if you have to, make them back up!

            Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to learn things in such a visible way. But hey, the next time I parked 7323, that nose wheel was right on the mark - just a little closer to the forward edge and in the perfect spot to connect a tie-down chain.