MAster MEchanic David Jones

David Jones was awarded the FAA’s Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award and Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for his lifetime achievements in aviation during the ATEC annual conference in March 2024. He spoke with Aviation Week Network about some of his career highlights and shared perspectives on challenges the industry faces moving forward.

Read an excerpt from the interview:

You began flying at a young age and then attended school for aviation engineering technology. Could you tell me a bit about the early days of your aviation passion and how you broke into the industry?

My father learned to fly on the GI Bill after World War II, so I grew up with that in the family. He didn’t own an airplane until I was getting ready to learn to fly...He bought a little World War II trainer that I used to learn to fly. My mother was his first passenger when he got his license and she decided to be my first passenger when I got mine—she was a daring lady! The flying kept me [around] airports where you could get really close with the airplanes and people, and my interest continued to grow. When I was in high school, I started working at the airport as a mechanics’ helper, which is where I got my interest in the [technical] side.

The local community college in Lansing, Michigan had an agreement with Western Michigan University (WMU) and they sent people from WMU to recruit for the aviation department. One of the mechanics I worked with was a WMU graduate, so it seemed very logical to look at that program. At the time, the aviation program had an engineering technology degree option, and with it you chose a specialty. I already had a commercial pilot’s license and a lot of that [work] already done, but the classes you took included everything for the mechanics, so I went ahead and did both. I finished my pilot training and got my mechanic certificate at the same time.
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When I graduated, I went back to Lansing to work at the airport. I took my girlfriend for an airplane ride one day and we stopped back to fuel the airplane up. One of the customers whose airplane I had worked on was there and he said he had a job opening that might interest me.  I went to work for him, mostly in a machine shop. It was interesting design work and prototype machinery, but I also got to fly and work on his airplane occasionally. That was really my first aviation job.
You can read the full interview here.

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