Are all A & Ps retarded?

All A&P's are retarded or they would not be in the plane business. I have been doing it for 35 years and often wish I stayed in college( Aero Eng.).
It has always paid the bills and since my wife changes careers every 10 years, accountant, teacher, lawyer, it has meant a stable income. She recently became ill and I was forced from general aviation into "Government Aviation". Kinda like an elephant graveyard. Two of the guys at my employer were guys i worked with elsewhere and were fired for incompetence.
Like any profession, and that's from gardener to attorney, it is up to the consumer to find someone worthy of your business. An A&P is a license to learn. I know a guy who was a USN crew chief for 20 years and got an A&P a year later. My boss hired him and he later asked me what the "X" on the ships battery meant. I was waiting for a punch line but sadly none came. He was serious. After about two months I told the boss he needed to go for safety reasons. One of 2 guys I have done that to in 35 years. He stayed on another 6 months and after several thousands of dollars in errors was finally let go.
I have seen both ends of the spectrum and seen aircraft that should have been grouded years before. There is ALWAYS someone who will sign a logbook for cash. The horror stories never end but I will. Strive to be the best at what you do! People notice.

 

Once again Bob, you hit the nail on the head for the root cause. I am an A&P with an IA in my wallet and when I lived in Buckley, I did an average of 29 owner assisted annuals a year. Owners like saving money by doing a little routine grunt work maintenance and I like to keep them flying. My philosophy was and still is to charge a modest fee for the inspection and all the research and book work that goes along with that. In the process I write all the things I find on a gig sheet and let the owner determine what he wants done. If it's cosmetic I don't worry about it, my only interest is in two things.

Is it correct as far as parts installed and log entries, and is it airworthy? Back then I charged $150 bucks for this on something simple with fixed gear. I would also fly in my plane to the customers field and do the inspection. It was a good excuse to go aviatin'.

All my customers were obtained by word of mouth, I never ripped anyone off and my workmanship is why I had so many customers other than being well connected in that community. If I fix it, it's right or I don't do it. There is nothing besides my marriage that I take more seriously than someone trusting their families lives to my hands which is exactly what the customer is doing. There is no room for error, period.

To the folks that have had bad experiences I have to say that you do an injustice if you brand all of us for the screw ups or lack of scruples of a few knot heads. I know a lot of people that have A&P's that are superb at what they do and I also know some that should never have gotten out of 8th grade.

As for that comment that supposedly came from the mouth of an A&P that basically stated that "it is because planes are built well rather than maintained well as to why planes don't rain from the sky". That in my opinion is completely retarded thinking. If they were not maintained, they would be dropping or not taking off to begin with a lot more often. Part of the reason that I charged so little is because I know how cheap people are especially pilots, hell that's just well known by us all and I'm one myself. I know that the tendency is to skimp and fudge to get by as cheaply as possible, it's just human nature.

Well, thinking like that will get you killed; so by saving a bunch of money by not having to pay me a fortune, they can apply that money to buying that part or changing those fine wire plugs, all 18 of them rather than try to squeeze another year out of them. I have a day job so I don't need to ask for 500 bucks for an inspection and while I won't be able to buy a Ferrari on that kind of thinking, I do sleep well knowing that I was paid fairly for my time, they got a good thorough inspection, and I left them with an airworthy plane they can fly their loved ones in with confidence. We both have peace in our hearts as a result which to me is a win/win situation.

Another fringe benefit was that I got to fly a LOT of cool planes that I would not otherwise have been exposed to like T-6, Staggerwing Beech, Gull wing Stinson Reliant SR9, Stearman, PT-22, Extra 300 and the list goes on. In fact that PT-22 is what I learned to fly tail dragger in. How cool is that? I was just like the young man in the 40's earning his wings in the same plane before transitioning to the T-6 and on to whatever plane they were assigned to in order to fight the war. It's been a great ride.

Find a good, honest, conscientious mechanic and keep him, that's my advice.

 

Dito.
Sometimes I question my own judgement on career choice. The times I have tried to get out of it have all been because of two things: Incompetent management and grossly incompetent mechanics. When you work with "professionals" that still write on the bathroom stall walls, it's time to hunt another place to work!

It is why I left the Air Force after 10 years and why I went back to college for that Telecommunications degree that ened up being worthless because of all the "Dot Commers" jumping out of sky scraper windows along with the day traders around 2001 timeframe.

When the bottom fell out of my new career I had to resort back to doing what I do best, chasing airports around the country trying not to get laid off. It gets old after a while especially when you have a family. I've lived in 10 different states, most of them since I started aviation... I want to plant some roots someday before someone has to plant me.