Military Discipline Meets General Aviation: Our Crew Is Growing

Choosing who maintains your airplane is one of the most consequential trust decisions an aircraft owner makes. So when we grow the crew at Mach Aircraft Maintenance, we hold new mechanics to the same standard the shop was founded on: would we want this person working on our own airplanes?

Today we’re proud to introduce three aircraft maintenance technicians who clear that bar with room to spare — two of them veterans of military aviation maintenance, and all three bringing a discipline to general aviation that owners can see in the logbook.

Jacob Clark — 14 years of turning wrenches, Army-trained

Jacob, a U.S. Army veteran, brings over 14 years of hands-on aviation maintenance experience: five years of Army aviation maintenance, followed by nine years in general aviation servicing a wide variety of aircraft — Piper, Mooney, Cessna, Beechcraft, and Cirrus models among them.

That mix matters. The military side builds an uncompromising, by-the-book inspection culture; the GA side builds the pattern recognition that only comes from years of annuals, complex troubleshooting, and repairs across many different airframes. In Jacob’s own words: “I take pride in delivering reliable workmanship that keeps aircraft safe and airworthy.”

Cole Goodrum — Air Force heavies and a commercial pilot certificate

Cole spent four years as a U.S. Air Force aircraft hydraulic systems technician, maintaining hydraulic, fuel, pneumatic, mechanical, and electrical systems on some of the largest aircraft in the world — the C-5 Galaxy, C-17 Globemaster III, and KC-10 Extender. He led maintenance teams, trained other technicians, and held a 100% pass rate on quality assurance evaluations.

He’s also that rare technician who sees the airplane from both seats: Cole holds an FAA commercial pilot certificate with an instrument rating and a bachelor’s degree in aviation science. A technician who is also a pilot understands not just how a system is assembled, but how it behaves — and fails — in flight.

Chris Fields — 20 years of wrenching, and a born troubleshooter

Chris brings 20 years of mechanical experience, the last three of them in general aviation across an unusually broad mix of types — Cirrus, Beechcraft Bonanza, Mooney, Piper, Lancair, Rans, Jabiru, and Cessna. Two decades of diagnosing machines builds a kind of pattern recognition you can’t teach, and it shows: Chris is one of the best problem solvers in the business. The intermittent squawk nobody else can pin down? That’s his favorite kind of job.

What military maintenance culture means for your airplane

Military aviation maintenance runs on habits that translate directly into safer, better-documented GA airplanes:

• Nothing from memory. Work is done to the technical data, every time — the same way we work to manufacturer data and checklists on every annual.
• Tool control and FOD discipline. Every tool accounted for before an aircraft flies. It sounds simple; it prevents disasters.
• Documentation as a way of life. If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen. Your logbooks stay clean, complete, and resale-ready.
• Inspection sign-off culture. Work gets checked, and nobody signs what they haven’t verified.

What this means for North Texas owners

Practically: more capacity and shorter waits for annual inspections, pre-buy inspections, and squawk work — plus deeper bench strength on retractable-gear and hydraulic systems, and broader type experience across Beechcraft, Cirrus, Piper, Mooney, and Cessna models.

The process doesn’t change: you get a photographed, itemized squawk list and a straight estimate before any corrective work begins, and a clean logbook when it’s done. There are just more good hands to do it.