I was sixteen when I started at an Israeli Air Force technical school. The hangars held old aircraft and old engines, piston and jet, and part of the course was working on them with our own hands.
Not all of it. Most of the time was study. But the part in the hangar is the part I remember best.
Taking it apart, putting it back
We took parts out and put them back. Oil coolers, fuel–oil coolers, pistons and the whole cylinder with everything in it, the camshaft, the crankshaft, and a long list of smaller parts. Sometimes we stripped an assembly all the way down and rebuilt it.
A drawing shows you what a part is. Putting it back teaches you why it is shaped that way, because the wrong orientation does not fit, and the right one only goes in after the part beside it.
The sparks when the propeller turns
The first time you turn the propeller on a piston engine and see sparks, it looks like something is wrong.
It is not. That is the ignition doing its job: a spark to ignite the fuel and air in the cylinder. Turning the propeller turns the engine, and the engine fires its spark. Understanding that is the difference between being frightened of a machine and understanding what it is doing, and it is also why a propeller is never treated as something safe to stand in front of.
Who touches the oily parts
Everybody hated touching the oily parts. Your whole overall goes black, and afterwards you wash your hands again and again with a special soap. Everything is slippery with grease.
So I usually started with that job myself, and then asked for help. People saw that I was doing it too, and they came to help me, instead of feeling I was handing them the worst part and walking away.
That was the most useful thing I learned about leading a group: you can persuade people to do a job they hated at first, if they can see you already doing it.
There is no such thing as no time
Towards the end of the year I spoke in front of my whole year group. The point was simple: there is no such thing as having no time for something. There is only priority. If something is a priority, most of the time you find the time to do it.
I finished the programme as an aeronautical mechanical technician with honours, an average above 95. And with the lesson the hangar teaches best: anyone can learn anything, if they are willing to work at it, and to get their hands dirty first.