The Mad Men of Aerospace

I have 43 years in aircraft engineering. Although a lot has changed, some still remains the same. There are a few things though, that may be gone for good, like the wildcat contract engineer. I first began as a lowly drafter in hydraulics engineering on Boeing’s new 767. I learned the wild cowboy mentality of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s was still alive within certain cadres. Howard Hughes never had a monopoly on that; he was just a public reflection of the madly driven people that worked in aerospace.

In my day, those cowboys were primarily known as job shoppers; contract engineers – temporary workers in today’s parlance. I knew nothing of this profession when I started, but I learned rather quickly they were the guys I wanted to hang with. They are an animal distinct from other engineers, indeed, most other people. A combination of rebel oil rigger, borderline alcoholic, brainiac, cowpoke and wandering degenerate, these guys (and a few depraved women) were largely motivated by money, challenge and avoiding boredom. Drinking was a prerequisite to joining the club; if you didn’t know how you were going to learn. Most of these guys traveled all over the country, even the world, in search of high-paying, new project design work. A typical job lasted anywhere from 6 to 18 months. Once in awhile you could hang on longer if the company was busy and they liked your work. They couldn’t have liked anything else about you, because outside of work you were a bad influence and a generally poor example of social conduct.

As I mentioned, money is probably the main attraction to this profession. Because your job and income is theoretically insecure, the pay rate for a contact engineer is about twice what a direct company employee makes. The only benefit back then was a week’s paid vacation. These days it might be two weeks. Everything else you pay for yourself. But with twice the income that’s not a problem. Also related to money (and not coincidentally, the drinking) were the work hours. Any contract job exists because the project is either understaffed or behind schedule, or both. Job Shoppers, then, are hired guns who sweep in to rescue projects with their expertise and their willingness to work ungodly hours. In my day, the standard workweek for any shopper was 56 hours. I don’t think that has changed. So no self-respecting contractor will take a job that doesn’t offer at least that. We used to say, “Chaos is Cash” because the more screwed up a project was the more we got to work, the more overtime money we made, and the longer the job lasted. It was always about the overtime. Shoppers were known to bring sleeping bags to work and snooze under their desks. It wasn’t unusual to work 80 to 100 hours in a week. The more the merrier. I wasn’t one of them, but some shoppers were known to milk a job as much as they could. This typically took place only at the big airplane manufacturers, where they could effectively hide.

It wasn’t unusual for lunches to be two or even three hour drink fests, where nothing much was accomplished after returning to work. The old shopper adage of “Never lay down more ink in the morning than you can erase in the afternoon” was well-observed on some days. There were a couple of post lunch afternoons I had to really concentrate on which drawing layout line I was supposed to be inking to. Life and work were one long party, where camaraderie was important, where people were actually dedicated and fueled by the design challenges, and adolescent behavior was part of maintaining some semblance of sanity. To illustrate that, there was a “Shopper’s Code” that included such euphemisms as “If you’re late to work, make up for it my leaving early.” Or, “If you get a local girl pregnant, do the decent thing and leave town.” And then, “It’s ok, I was looking for a job when I found this one.”

Shoppers were colorful people. They sometimes had families back home, but most were usually divorced. After all, not many spouses could handle the crazy hours and the nomadic lifestyle, the sometimes reckless management of money, the drinking, the parties, and the long absences from the homestead. There are endless stories, most of which I no longer recollect. Maybe it was the booze….

One story does come immediately to mind about one of our electrical engineers, Ken, while I was working in Renton, WA. Sparkies are an interesting breed of engineer, and generally even crazier than the normal brand. Ken was no exception. We were at lunch one day at Billy McHales in Renton, WA. Ken was sitting next to another crazy dude, John, who just happened to be about 6′ 6″. John is sitting there staring at Ken’s polo shirt and the brand logo that was on it. He interrupts Ken and says, “Hey Ken, I really like that logo on your shirt.”

Ken stops talking as we all look at John with WTF expressions and start laughing. Ken says, “Oh yeah, John, you want it?”

John says, “Yeah, I do!” With that, he magically produces a pair of scissors, grabs the chest of Ken’s shirt (along with Ken, of course) and begins cutting the logo out of his shirt! We’re all dumbfounded, laughing, pointing, calling John all kinds of things. When he’s finished, Ken fingers his shirt and the hole where the logo used to be, and then just stares at John for a long minute. “If you wanted one that bad, John, I would have bought you one,” he says quietly.

John looks at him, then at the logo in his hand, and says, “No. I’m good.”

Ken walked around the rest of the day with a ragged hole in his shirt.

We were lunchtime regulars at Billy’s. Our Engineering Manager, Ray Twynam (another contractor) often picked up our tabs and we would throw him cash for our share. We drank so much and spent so much money there Ray was memorialized with an engraved plaque on the bar.

There are tons of other stories. While in Wichita, we had a shopper who used to buy his lunch and all his snacks from the vending machines every day. I called him “Mondo Vendo.” We would throw money in a betting pool a couple times a week, wagering on how much money he would deposit in those vending machines each day. It wasn’t pretty. Winner’s were usually disgusted.

Other stories include ones you can read on this blog, including “My Italian Beauty on State Street,” “An Airline’s Impossible Dream,” “The Red Lights of Europe,” “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “Into the Fire,” “The Watermelon Run,” and “Rocky the Flying Squirrel.” I have more, trust me.