10
Vent: That one Tuesday shift where everything hydraulic decided to quit on me
Back in 2019 I was working nights on a 737 in Memphis and within 4 hours I got hit with three separate hydraulic leaks. First one was a slow drip from a nose gear actuator, then a burst line on the right main, and finally a jammed valve on the cargo door. By 2 AM I had puddles of Skydrol all over the hangar floor and my coveralls were soaked. I spent the next two days flushing and re-testing systems. Has anyone else had a night where the plane just fought back like that?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
rileyprice6d ago
Man that Tuesday sounds like the plane was personally offended by something you did. I swear Skydrol has some kind of evil intelligence, it knows exactly which crack in the floor tile to run into and hide under. One time I had a 757 where the main gear retract line blew right as I was doing the post-flight walkaround, sprayed a perfect arc of that purple stuff across the whole hangar door. Took three days to get the smell out of my clothes.
5
Is it just me or does Skydrol have some weird supernatural ability to find the deepest darkest corner of anything? I swear that stuff is more determined than water finding a leak in a roof. But honestly this whole thing reminds me of how everything seems to go wrong at once in life, like the universe decides it's time for a stress test or something. One little thing breaks and then suddenly your whole day cascades into a mess of failed parts and bad timing. It's like the plane, or whatever you're dealing with, knows exactly when you're already running on empty and decides to pile on.
4
morgan.jason6d ago
You ever stop to think maybe that Skydrol is actually trying to tell us something about how we're living our lives? Like maybe the universe knows we're so used to pushing through the chaos that it throws a bigger mess at us just to see if we'll finally stop and pay attention. I've had days where a truck tire blows out on the highway, then I get back to the shop and find a hydraulic leak in the bucket truck, and I just stand there wondering what I did to tick off the cosmos. But maybe that's the point - maybe we're supposed to learn that the only way through it is to slow down, take a breath, and accept that some stuff is just out of our control. You ever just let the mess happen and see what comes of it instead of fighting it?
1