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Safety is the most important thing when it comes to the military in general and helicopters specifically.

What would you do if you were at lunch when a helicopter pilot came in and demanded that you run the maintenance checks on his helicopter so that he could leave ASAP?

That is what happened to the maintenance guy in this story, so he made sure to mark down every single concern.

That might seem like the right thing to do, but the pilot was furious.

Read through the full story below, and see what you think about it.

So you want me to give up lunch to preflight your aircraft while you eat lunch Cpt. Entitled?

This took place long ago on a military base in GA.

I was a Huey helicopter crewchief at a small airfield with only a couple dozen, at best, in our detachment.

His day is going well so far.

I was readying to eat lunch alone in our small flight shack.

Normally, the Tech Inspector sergeant would be with me, but his wife was having a baby.

I had my day planned and was half way though pulling maintenance.

I heard a helicopter landing in the distance, identified it as another Huey and dismissed it, we didn’t have any birds in the air.

How rude.

A few minutes later, a captian carrying his helmet bag breezes in, tosses his helicopter log book on my desk and announces, “I’m going to get lunch and need my aircraft pre-flighted before get back.”, not even slowing down to look at me.

If he had, he might have noticed I had just started my own lunch.

I had never seen this guy before and his uniform patches identified him as a GA Army National Guard Captain. Who apparently felt a lowly enlisted E4 crewchief was beneath common curtesy.

Oh, and he was most definitely not my boss.

Time for some revenge.

O.K. Mr. Captain Arrogance, I’m going to give you the best maintenance pre-flight you have ever had.

BTW: Pilots also always do their own, briefer, pre-flight too.

He was gone three hours. During that time I gave that aircraft the best inspection it ever had.

Now, when we inspected an aircraft we wrote down every deficiency we found and next to it drew a black or red pencil mark noting how serious the deficiency was.

This helicopter is not fit to fly.

A minor issue might get a slash mark. A serious deficiency earned a circle red X meaning the aircraft could only be flown under limited conditions, (e.g. daylight only) , and a simple red X meant the aircraft was grounded, period. Nonflyable.

Well, wouldnt you know, I found several minor issues, three serious, (circle Red X) issues and the mother of them all, a red X grounding item, the slippage mark, (a small stripe of fingenail polish going down the bolt and out to the mounting plate) on the transmission bolt housing was cracked.

What this really meant that perhaps the bolt was slipping, or perhaps the fingernail polish/paint we use simply cracked, or perhaps somebody may have nicked the paint with their issued toolbox’s utility knife’s small blade, etc. Who knows?).

I never wrote so many serious deficiencies on one aircraft in my career. His unit must have had poor maintenance.

Honestly, this isn’t revenge. It is safety.

Well, when the Captain returned, all in a hurry to take off, he was as mad as a hornet. He demanded I erase the red X mark.

“Can’t do that Captian, its in the regulations.”

That was true. Only a maintenance Tech can reinspect it, oversee the correction, and enter thier inspection notes clearing the aircraft for flight.

By now, the Captain had stormed out to his aircraft to challenge my findings.

This guy is going to be here a while.

While the Captain was back at his aircraft, fuming, I called the Maintenance Tech at the hospital and explained the situation.

He said, “Tell Captain Antsy Pants ll’l be there at 0800 tomorrow morning. I won’t be available until then.”

The Captain returns, now boiling rage. “So get the maintenance tech here now!”, he demanded.

“Um, he’s at the hospital, his wife is having a baby.”

So, this really was a safety concern.

The next closest available Maintenance Tech was in Savannah, a short flight away, if you had a flyable helicopter.

So, our maintenance tech did finally show up, the next morning. He knew exactly what I had done and why, and he justly defended evey deficiency I noted as absolutely correct.

We had to get the big breaker bar to retorque the transmission bolt and it took about three hours to sort through the other deficiencies.

So, Captain Antsy Pants got to spend an unexpected overnight stay at Camp Swampy because he was a jerk.

Be nice to the little people who support you.

Maybe I am missing something, but this doesn’t seem like revenge. It seems like he followed established safety protocols, which is a good thing. He may have saved many lives.

Let’s see if the people in the comments on Reddit can add any context to the situation.

Treating enlisted soldiers poorly is never a good idea.

He wanted the inspection done, so that is what he got.

This is exactly what I was thinking too.

Following the rules is a great form of revenge.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a company that didn’t expect their work-from-home policy to result in better time off benefits for their employees.

This former Army field artillery mechanic loves this story.

Even if it was just revenge, he may have saved his life. It is hard to imagine why a helicopter pilot would be upset that someone took their safety seriously.

At the end of the day, this guy was just doing his job to the best of his ability.