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A comment on American Airlines' Legendary Mechanic Passes Away at 100 After 80-Year Career. Parent comment

Re:American Airlines' Legendary Mechanic Passes Away at 100 ... by quickthrowman on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @09:14AM (#49521553)
There are detailed step-by-step instruction cards (task cards) for every single maintenance operation on an airplane. Nobody is reinventing the wheel, they’re carefully following predetermined procedures. Someone has to figure out which maintenance procedures need to happen, but the work itself is laid out for you step by step.
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Re:American Airlines' Legendary Mechanic Passes Away at 100 ... by realo on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @09:46AM (#49521972)
Cool! I did not know that.

Augmented reality glasses, coupled with an AI that can interpret vision would seem to be useful here then.

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Re:American Airlines' Legendary Mechanic Passes Away at 100 ... by Guthwine on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @11:30AM (#49523321)
This seems like a fast-track to making airline mechanics a minimum-wage, any-guy-off-the-street kind of job, which is not who I want touching the plane I'm flying in.

There needs to be SOME accountability. "Oh, but my glasses told me to unscrew this bolt, I was just following orders." is not how I want the future to be.

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Re:American Airlines' Legendary Mechanic Passes Away at 100 ... by quickthrowman on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @10:41AM (#49522646)
I’ve had the same thought re: AR glasses with a HUD for mechanics/construction workers, there are a lot of cool possibilities.
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Re:American Airlines' Legendary Mechanic Passes Away at 100 ... by realo on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @11:19AM (#49523148)
Yeah ... then you can have basically anyone off the street do the job. A great opportunity to pay your jumbo jet mechanics less than taxi drivers.

I guess it would explain those small insignificant issues, however:

https://viewfromthewing.com/ntsb-report-confirms-the-unravel...

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Re:American Airlines' Legendary Mechanic Passes Away at 100 ... by dam_jackalopes on Tuesday September 01, 2026 @11:24AM (#49523222)
We worked on a proof of concept using HoloLens for an engine teardown team at a trucking OEM. Ran into issues around network, security, the Hololens itself and a general disinterest from the teardown team but there's a lot of room to run in this space. It was a fun, if frustrating, project.
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