Did you make appropriate labels for the important stuff like, ‘Crisse de merde/GDU’, ‘Tabernacle/Landing gear’, ‘take off eh/O2 masks’

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If you work with people with aerospace engineering degrees (in Canada) are you able to provide a small range of what they make? As well as other aerospace connections you may have in Canada.

You a what?

Can you always check your maintenance work without actually flying the plane? If no, do you board with the pilot and check the systems or do you fly it yourself?

I read somewhere there were concerns on the telco side about users switching too quickly from one cell to another, or reaching too many towers at the same time, but this was a long time ago.

I remember the dirka-dirka speakers would make when your phone was nearby.

Would a cellular connection work well at cruise speed?

It's also partially a hold-out from older tech cell phones that definitely used to interfere. I used to have a cell phone around 2005 that if placed anywhere near a speaker that was powered up but not transmitting audio, would cause noticable interference any time there was a phone call coming in. I could tell my phone was about to ring about 1 full second before it actually rung. I've been told that pilots around that time were having similar issues, but it seems like that's not the case anymore.

What was life like when Garmin global was malwared and held hostage?

Do you actually use your education or is it just avionics card swapping? Failt finding is a past years expertise as most systems have replacement cards nowadays or are under years long mfct contacted obligations.

How did you get into the industry? It's always something that has fascinated me but I have no clue how to get my foot in the door.

Alberta based if that helps.

How did you get started in this industry? Is it difficult to break into? I've actually considered pursuing moving into an avionics career... Coming from a electronics and mechanical background...

Ketchup or All Dressed chips?

Have you had any issues staying employed? I know with some of the big companies like Boeing it was boom or bust and they would lay off people in the bust times.

I've had the unfortunate four-year-plus experience with two different jet owners going through the expensive upgrade to NXi on their G1000 to then be mad at me (I'm an IT dude, not an aviation tech, who deals with a couple rich bosses) for the advertised-as "easiest way to update your charts etc." from Garmin to never work for them. I'd then whip out to the hangar, throw in the latest update on an SD and it would be done in 5 minutes and off they'd go with their latest cycle. Rinse repeat each monthly update cycle with the owner-pilots bitching at me for their broken-assed Garmin NXi failing to complete updates and me driving out to the airport to manually update the plane(s). I'd like to poke a couple Garmin engineers in the eye with a frozen fish over the emotional trauma. lol

The G1000 NXi system is pretty good (as far as feature upgrades goes), but their cycle update method is beyond frustrating if you don't just do it the old working SD way.

There’s an airworthiness directive about it. We had until the end of last year to install RF filters on susceptible radio altimeters.

Hey! You're very welcome, I'm learning as much as everyone else is by trying to give as good an answer as I can to you all!

In general, I worked on the A220 very little and I'm not trained in any official capacity on it (no type course or anything). Moreover, the aircraft operations I work with now don't really overlap with any A220 operators so take my answer with a grain of salt, and it's going to be pretty generalized.

The Airbus A220 was originally the Bombardier C110 and C130 (different variants) and was subsequently redesigned to the CS100 and CS300 in 2009. Bombardier had a rocky start with it, having an engine failure early on in flight testing and getting into a pretty aggressive race with Airbus and their A320 program, which Bombardier was attempting to square off against.

After more testing, the CS100 and CS300 got Transport Canada approval in 2015 and 2016 respectively, and in 2018 Airbus aquired the type certificate and rebranded to the A220. (I gathered most of this info from the Wikipedia article... I had no idea about the pretty fascinating history of this thing besides the Bombardier involvement so thank you for prompting this!)

My opinion on the aircraft is generally good. I think it was designed to try and do things differently both in terms of customer experience and technologically. Innovation is not something that aviation is altogether famous for, and generally when a company does so in such a way that Bombardier did they come under heavy scrutiny by both Transport and the commercial market (which, realistically, is pretty cornered). I think this point increases tenfold with the early issues that the C100/130 had in testing. Getting approvals for anything is a huge time dedication and requires incredible amounts of persistance, money, and time. Our company has been involved in applying and receiving STCs (basically paperwork and plans that allow and certify modifications for an aircraft) and they take years of work to complete. I can't imagine how much more intense the process is for a commercial passenger airliner.

All of that to say, I would trust a Canadian or American maintainted A220 with my life. But that is just based off of what I know of the airframe and moreover, the industry itself and our standards for safety. Things break, but in general there are always safety nets that pilots and aviation professionals can deploy to mitigate any real world risk in 99% of situations.

I will never say that aviation is perfectly safe, because nothing is perfectly safe. But I have seen the firsthand diligence and procedures that we go through to minimize the risk to the absolute lowest probability, and it's a risk that I accept and face whenever I fly commercially, privately, for flight tests, and everything in between.

No, I'm not currently employed there. I'm with a small shop (15-20 guys) based out of Calgary. I'm not performing this AMA in conjunction with my company though, so I won't advertise or namedrop them here. If you are interested in the company I have it listed on my Reddit profile. Thanks for the question!

Very good question! I'm honestly not the most up to date with ADS-B and diversity nuances (and Garmin's answer to these) besides some basic knowledge (Canada's rollout plan and the fact that diversity is required for aircraft operating in Canadian and US airspace both)However, I feel that you deserve a more fleshed out answer than I can provide this morning (and you've piqued my interest also), so I'm going to learn and get some info together for us and come back tonight with a great answer. Stay tuned!

I worked in a field adjacent to yours under CAE, is that the same contractor you are working for? Maybe you can't share.

I can say that the standard salary has certainly not gotten to a level that rivals overseas work, or even work south of the border. I know of a good handful of techs that live on Canada and work in the US, just due the substantial wage difference. I'm fortunate enough to have gotten in young and gotten on with a really generous company that meets my needs at present.

Our MRO does line maintenance occasionally, and I did daily line maintenance with the airline I worked with for a short period. Overseas work in my future certainly isn't off the table, but it's not in the cards for the next five or so years. Thank you so much for the compliments though my friend! I wish you the best of luck on your ventures in other timezones!

To be frank, this is the first time I'm hearing of both Garmin's advertising of the updates over wifi, and issues with the technology. I'm quite low level, so the package and purchase decisions are typically made above my head prior to my involvement. I'll say that I've always done my software loading of any sort over usb and SD card (for no political reason besides that's just how I know to do it) and the odd time when a customer has asked for guidance with the process I've always instructed doing so via hardware storage device.

That being said, if it's a lapse in our marketing I'll perform my due diligence and bring it up to my PRM and DOM when I'm in today that this technology is potentially flawed. Thank you for the insight!

Do you ever tell your customers/clients that spending the money on the NXi upgrade is a 50-50 bullshit proposition because nobody, anywhere, ever, can reliably use the utterly broken and poorly engineered steps to use wi-fi for Garmin updates and 99.99% of every user will revert back to using the reliable stick method? I am still amazed that there hasn't been a class action suit by all the aircraft owners who have been hoodwinked by Garmin over this garbage.

I would say that it's pretty lucrative and you're in a good place for career growth. Most shops we go and contract for are hurting for in-house avionics, and we are very busy for the majority of our work year. The maintenance force in canada also has a very high average age, and there are way more guys retiring than there are people available to meet the maintenance demands. As with anything though, there are caveats and certainly ways by which you can improve your chances in getting a good job close to graduation. Do your best to have a good rapport with your instructors; their word has been enough for companies to give me a chance. The industry is small and you want to stand out as much as you can.

Talk to as many people in as many companies as you can... when I was graduating I drove to some shops and hangars around the airport and asked to visit their avionics departments... it's good to know what you might be signing on for and it helps show great inititive.

Overall I think as long as you demonstrate your desire to learn and understand, you'll find work. In this industry, your reputation is key so make sure you take small steps to build that up a little bit more every day.