Flexibility is the key to airpower.

There I was…pulling into the parking lot at work with a plan for the weekend.  I knew I’d have to work this weekend and that it was going to be busy.  That was part of the plan.  Ya see, the bugmashers I work on have to be looked at regularly and one of them is coming due for that check.  It’s not a hard thing to do, just time-consuming.  There’s no telling how long a check will take because you don’t know exactly what you’ll find when you start looking.  This one should be fairly benign; I’ve been looking at the airframe pretty much daily for six months and it’s been flying fine. 

So I walk into the office and find out that instead of getting the plane into maintenance at 1 PM like we planned, the powers what be added an extra flight this afternoon.  So the plane wasn’t even available to me until after 5.  They managed to take half a day away from me.  And oh, by the way, instead of giving me a couple of days at the beginning of next week as a cushion, they want the thing flyable by Tuesday morning.  Normally I plan a full week to do this inspection; I now have 3 days. 

Fortunately, I’ll have some good help this weekend and Monday.  Guys who are good at what they do and are willing to step up to the pump and help.  We should be okay but it still irks me.