Well it’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, but we now have a much needed break. The All-Star Game and festivities are July 13-15 in St. Louis and that marks the halfway point of the season.
I wanted to fill everyone in my trip to Delta last week. On Thursday, July 2nd I visited the Delta TechOps before our last game against the Phillies (we completed the sweep that night). Delta’s TechOps is located down at the Atlanta airport and they provide maintenance and engineering support for Delta’s fleet. They have the best mechanics in the world! Not only do they maintain Delta’s fleet, but they also serve as the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO is what I’m told) provider for more than 150 other aviation and airline customers.
This kind of inside look into Delta and its airplanes was really cool for me and the reception I got from the employees was so great. And trust me, I had to take notes during my tour so I could remember all the names, departments, statistics, etc. So I may sound fluent in aircraft terminology (like frequent contributor Mike Kotas), but don’t let me fool you too much, I wrote most of it down so I could repeat if for all of you. I wish you guys could have seen seen how many questions I asked.
The whole place was pretty overwhelming…the facility is 7.2 million square feet and they have more than 8,500 employees. I rode around most of the facility in a golf cart. I had to save my legs for the big game that night, and the place is so big there’s no doubt I would’ve been exhausted if I had walked the whole thing. So, let me walk you through my visit because I got to see and do some pretty cool things…
First stop was Engine and Component Maintenance where I met David Garrison, the Managing Director of Engine and Component Maintenance. David and Matt Mullis took me through their department, including engine overhaul, final testing, composite repairs, flight controls, instruments and engine components. I went down a line of engines being overhauled (by the way, a typical engine overhaul costs about $1 million!) and saw a GE CF34, GE CFM56-7, Pratt and Whitney PW2000, and PW4000. They’re huge! I also got to see them putting an engine through one of their test cells. They can set the cells to test an engine at different times of the day, different temperatures/weather conditions, etc. They test the engines at takeoff power and the engine that I saw running was a CFM56-7; it burns 60 gallons of fuel per minute. Not exactly cheap.
I ate lunch in Department 299 which is the General Electric CF34 shop (are the abbreviations and numbers giving you a headache yet??)…hamburgers, hot dogs, chips and cookies, just like a good old fashioned meal at the ballpark. During the summer the departments have big lunches brought in every now and then. I happened to time my visit just right and joined them for a pre-game burger. My last stop in Engine and Component Maintenance was Components, in particular Department 361 Electro-pneumatics. They repair engine starters, air cycle machines (in plain English: air conditioners), engine start valves, etc. As I left that department I made sure to tell them, “Whatever you guys do, make sure the planes the Braves fly on are the coldest!”
My next stop was Base Maintenance where I met and toured the hangars with Van Kale. Delta TechOps has three maintenance hangars and they can hold many wide-body and narrow-body aircrafts at once. We went through the hangars and even got to climb on-board of a couple of aircrafts, including an international Boeing 767-400ER (the ER stands for extended range). That plane will be put on the Atlanta to London route, and they were looking to have it finished by early this week, which is amazing considering how it looked when I was in there. They were still installing the seats in the business class section…the ones that recline all the way down and your feet slide up underneath the seat in front of you and your head sinks down almost to the floor. Now that’s what we need when we fly! I also got to go sit in the cockpit and learn about the different controls, taking off, landing, etc.
Next in Base Maintenance was the paint hangar bay. This was a HUGE room with an aircraft sitting in the middle. There were guys in full white suits and head gear/face masks (to give you a clearer picture they honestly looked a little like the guys from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) working on a paint scheme. They’ve done some pretty cool paint schemes in the past and I got to see some pictures of their work, including Hooters, the Atlanta Olympics, Breast Cancer Awareness, a Hank Aaron tribute, and Cartoon Network.
Last but certainly not least I visited Tim Dugger, General Manager of Materials and Logistics, and his team. This department manages the inventory needed to support the day-to-day operations of Delta’s 460-plus aircraft, as well as the planes they work on for other airlines. Here I was able to just sit and sign autographs and take pictures with the Materials and Logistics team.
All in all it was a great day. I learned so much about what goes on behind-the-scenes of all those Delta flights my teammates and I so frequently take. The Delta TechOps employees did get to learn a little more about me too…this visit came a couple days after all the news on my lucky “Thanksgiving Turkey Underwear.” I happened to have my Turkey Underwear on that day so I was happy to give them a first-hand peek at the underwear that was all over Atlanta sports news, as well as a lead story on ESPN! And they worked; we won that night so the winning streak continued.
Thanks again to all of the employees at the Delta TechOps for showing me a great time.
If anyone has any questions on what I saw there, let me know and I’ll do my best to get an answer for you. If it’s not on my cheat sheet, then I’ll just call some of the guys I met there last week.
Jeff Francoeur
Atlanta Braves
