I just started working a a flight school last month as their only IA, we are bringing in kids fresh out of A&P school because we cannot find experienced mechanics. One kid is green but willing to learn and another was trying to look up how to find top dead center in the manual because he didnt know how...I am hoping to find someone to mentor, I pay cash and its a weekend thing when I work on customers airplanes outside of my 9-5 job.
As of right now I have gone through 3 apprentices in the last 3 years, one felt it was beneath him to remove panels and to clean parts like tail wheels so I can inspect and reassemble, another started sniffing a girl and ran off, and the last thought he was worth 60K a year working weekends. I am hoping to find someone who can specialize in antique aircraft. What I get frustrated with is the fact I am using my tools, supplies and certificate, and apprentices think they are worth a fortune.
Then you have to deal with customers who want to argue about actually doing an annual and fixing things. Why do some owners feel it is necessary to jeopardize my certificate? I am not an expert on all things aviation, but I do try to be honest and I have traveled to help someone out. Being in the business is challenging and its mostly people who make it so. Tim
Oh and I have been helping a customer build a set of ailerons for a '41 Tcraft, new spars, leading edges and a lot of corrosion clean up. We started 6 months ago and I am hoping to get the leading edges on this weekend, he did all of the clean up and corrosion removal, it was stupid crap like getting real spar varnish and resorcinol (2 month for non expired resorcinol to build wood spars) that was a very time consuming problem. Its crap like that which can eat up a lot of time. If you are just replacing parts, and covering, it is easy.