Most likely you where/are at that time a much more experienced A&P then pilot. I have immediate family members who are A&P's. When they started out flying employers where interested in their A&P experience. When they applied for flying positions after gaining thousands of hours heavy jet time nobody cared they had a MX background.

I think you did the best thing for you and left for a flying gig. MX will always be there and try to take advantage of the new demand for pilots.

Most likely he had no ag experience. He could have a lot of flight time, but no ag time, and be a zero hour ag pilot.

Most operators are very reluctant to allow a pilot with no ag experience to spray or fly for them.

So if ANY pax airline was striking, you wouldn’t fly commercially?
If ANY cargo airline was striking then would wouldn’t mail order anything?

I think your idea of what crossing a picket line means seems......skewed.

This is true, I had over 20 years in maintenance at that point, and was a low time time pilot. It's gotten better since then, but I still find it odd that a commercial pilot application with only an A&P listed (I removed my IA from it) would get multiple phone calls asking if I would be interested in getting the IA and working a DOM position. To me this speaks volumes as to the lack of qualified personal in the aircraft maintenance profession.

You are correct that I had no ag experience, but this particular operator had already worked one low time pilot through a training program and had him flying, and had another in the pipe line. They were willing to check me out in the aircraft because I would have to do test flights after maintenance, so it wasn't a factor of them not trusting me to fly their aircraft, or wanting somebody experienced, it was the simple fact that it was easier to find pilots than mechanics, which gave them an incentive to keep me out of the cockpit and in the shop.

I've been doing aircraft maintenance since my early teens, and began flying ag right after high school, and stay current in turbine and radial piston ag aircraft.

Doing a maintenance hop around the pattern is not the same as working an ag airplane in the field, nor are the consequences the same.

There is an NPRM out concerning !47 schools. Industry is pushing to eliminate oversight so they can make students pay for some type specific training and call it an A&P. They want to certify all that day labor to cover 121 flight lines! Just the exact opposite of what pilots got. At the end of the day it wont matter, except for MX wages staying low forever.

Agree with all said here although I will say that there are plenty of documented disasters that fall strictly on mechanics or poor maintenance practices. AA 191, AS 261, JAL 123 just as a few examples. While you are correct that the flight crew and names are public after a crash if a crash is caused by poor maintenance you can bet they will track down the maintenance records for years if need be so where your responsibility ends when your flight ends mine can come back to haunt me years later if a plane should crash from a poor repair I made when I was having a bad day months or years ago. Pilots have more invested in training and expense and deserve to make more that is not an issue for me. My issue is how the industrial unions used the A@P to prop up unskilled labor pay. I was IAM for many years and the ramp guy made more than I even did for the first 4 years I was employed then at year 5 I only made a dollar or 2 more than they did. The National Mediation Board has classified the A@P in such a way that other "related" groups are lumped in with them unlike the pilots or dispatchers or even flight attendants. Until that changes and the FAA makes better more stringent rules regarding A@P's you will not see much improvement. You probably won't because the industry will fight any changes made.

I am a pilot with a lot of training, military and civilian. (part time auto mechanic too, )

But I think airline maintenance personnel should be paid well.

Haunt you for years?

None of those flight crews made it home to their beds, and in some cases, there was barely enough to scrape up to put in a matchbox.

There's a hell of a difference there.

You might pay with your certificate. The crew pays with their life. And the lives of everyone else on board.

You understand the difference?

How nice of you. And helpful, too.