Tugs & Forklifts

Today, thanks to some of the other SoCal CAF members who are more involved with the mechanical and greasy side of the operation, I got to get some first-step cross-training on some of the heavier equipment that’s used around the hangers.

My gig is “finance officer,” which means that I keep track of the money. It’s what I’ve done as a paying job for decades, and it makes sense for us to do what we do best in order to help out the most. On the other hand, accounting, finance, and computer tech support are just…well, accounting, finance, and computer tech support. They’re not always (and by “not always” I mean “NEVER”) a lot of fun, they’re just necessary and I do them reasonably well.

But, having gotten my pilot’s license, I know my way around a plane, at least a bit, and would like to do more “hands on” activities. It’s the old “one man’s work is another man’s play” thing, or something like that. Anyway, I’ve let it be known that, time & schedule permitting, I would be open to learning a bit about getting things done outside of the office.

Today some of the guys who run the hanger and maintenance side of things were giving lessons to some of the new cadets on driving the forklift, the tugs, and using the tugs with a tow bar. I was asked if I wanted to participate, and despite being up to my ass in alligators right now with some other things there, I said, “Sure!”

I’ve driven some heavy equipment in the past – my dad grew up on a farm with tractors and such, and when I was a teenager we had a small bulldozer for a couple of years that we used to put in a road on some land we owned in Vermont. I can drive a stick shift (not actually needed for today, surprisingly) and I’ve got something like 1,000,000 miles behind the wheel (literally) in over forty-four years of driving. I was being taught with a couple of cadets who didn’t have their driver’s license yet.

Forklifts are cool and at least today seemed pretty straightforward. Tilt, lift, back, forward, steers from the back, keep an eye on your CG so you don’t flip over, always watch out for things around you… One of the guys who’s been doing this for decades gave a demonstration where he was lifting and turning and tilting and backing and driving and lowering like it was a symphony, doing in about 30 seconds what it had taken me closer to five minutes to do – but that’s just practice, practice, practice. I went through the obstacle course three or four times both forward and backwards and never touched a cone, so that one I felt good about.

On the tugs, we have several of different sizes, some really big, some mid-sized. I drove two of them today being taught by one of our cadets, a smart-as-a-whip, 17 or 18 year old young lady who can drive tugs with the best of them. Driving the tugs alone was pretty straightforward, just a need to get used to how they steer differently and need significantly different amounts of force on the brake and gas pedals.

Then we hooked up a tow bar.

It’s a lot like towing a trailer, except you’re usually not towing, you’re pushing. Which is like towing a trailer backwards while looking in a mirror, or something. Your instincts are all wrong, your turning radius (at least, my turning radius) has gone from about five feet to about thirty feet (Nicole was doing it in about ten) and it’s surprisingly easy to jackknife the tow bar.

The guys who have been doing this forever were having a good time watching me weave all over the place (I still never hit a cone!), going from here to there via there, there, there, there, and there. Pictures were taken, videos will no doubt be popping up on our website soon (I’ll post links if/when that happens), and a good time was had by all. (I believe that some of the cadets were having a good time at my expense because I was being taught by a girl, and a girl a third my age to boot. Let ’em laugh, I got over that particular insecurity in the Nixon administration.)

So there may be more practice necessary before I’m ready to actually hook a planes to the other end of the tow bar. But it will happen, and one of these days when we’ve got five tugs and only two drivers and we’ve got to shuffle planes all over the ramp, I’ll be able to jump in and help.

It will be fun! Until I get asked to come in at 0500 to pull planes out and get them ready to launch or stay until 2350 to put planes away. But on those days I think I might have some bank reconciliation reports to do or some gift shop inventory figures to process…