EL-AJO

A story about a young man who demonstrates that it’s not what you‘ve done in life it’s what you can achieve.

I worked as an Aircraft technician for a small cargo company in Belgium, I was part of a team that carried out the structural maintenance or the aircraft. The owner of the company decided to build a small workshop within the hangar to do the overhaul of the electrical components so he employed a young carpenter to do just that. When he was finished he was asked to stay on and do some other jobs and eventually all the carpentry work was done. The owner again asked him if he would like to stay a little longer and work with the vehicle mechanics just helping them to do simple tasks, he accepted and was very helpful and after a few months was able to work alone. The young man then progressed to the aircraft and started to help the aircraft mechanics and eventually became one of them, a part of the team. He worked hard and was always asking questions, he wanted to know everything about airplanes. He was now an aircraft mechanic and was able to fly with the crew as the flight mechanic should anything go wrong on the way. He was now part of the flight crew and so he was watching the pilots at work but did not stop there he continued along the path of learning and did every job on the aircraft from mechanic to loadmaster, then flight mechanic and he was now interested in the flight engineers position. That is the person who sits at the rear of the pilot and co pilot with his own instrument panel with fuel gauges, oil temperature gauges, hydraulic pressure and cabin pressure gauges and a whole lot more. During this time the young man decided to take flying lessons and he excelled because he spent so much time in the cockpit with the other crew members watching ,listening and asking questions so much so, that his flying instructor had an easy time with him. Well you guessed it he eventually became a pilot and a very good one too, on his check ride in Stockholm at the flight simulators he passed with a result of 94% the best marks awarded since the 50’s. I eventually flew with him one weekend Dublin-Toronto-Oostende, that was one of the magic moments in my life to think that only a few short years earlier this young man walked into the hanger
with his tool box as a carpenter and now he was flying the company airplane a carpenter who had a pilot inside of him but more than that, he gave life to his pilot. How many of us will die with our other characters inside of us because we didn’t give them a chance to live, who else do you have inside of you that you could bring out and give life to. The young man in this story chose to accept a challenge and did something that he had never done before something that took him to another place. If he did not choose to stay on and not had the courage to try something new he would probably have remained a carpenter wishing he had done something else.

The places we end up in life are determined by the choices that we make.