Meet the airplane mechanic who went viral for connecting aviation with … ‘The Lord of the Rings’?
What do a hobbit and the leading edge of the wing on a Boeing 737 have in common? Not much.
But that doesn’t stop one prolific airline pro from pointing out a connection.
Max Comer is an aviation maintenance technician who works at a maintenance base for a major U.S. airline. If you’re on social media and follow aviation accounts, chances are you know him as @airplanefactswithmax.
(He asked us not to name his employer or publish his base’s location in this article because he’s not authorized to speak as a representative for the company.)
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Comer has taken off over the past year or so on social media, amassing more than half a million followers on Instagram and hundreds of thousands more on TikTok. Staring straight at the camera with a droll, deadpan effect, Comer explains interesting little tidbits about commercial passenger jets — and then explains exactly how those technical features are nothing like “The Lord of the Rings” movies or books.
Confused? That’s understandable; it’s totally absurd.
It’s also hilarious.
He shows viewers everything obscure or mundane on an airplane as he works on it. For example, he’ll explain how a plastic covering called a “window reveal” makes up the interior portion of the window in the passenger cabin but doesn’t play any role in the structural integrity of the actual exterior window; this means you don’t have to worry if there are any scratches or dings on that clear inner part.
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Then, he’ll point out how airplane windows are nothing like “The Window on the West” — the fifth chapter of the second section of “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” novel where Frodo was questioned by Faramir after the Rangers of Ithilien successfully waylaid a company of the Haradrim as they were marching to the Black Gate to bolster Sauron’s forces. But even so, they’re still pretty cool.
“The Lord of the Rings” is probably not the first thing you’d compare or contrast to an airplane. You may have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. But somehow, it just works. Based on Comer’s follower count and the reaction he gets to his videos, the absurdity resonates with people.
“It’s been crazy watching this explode, I never expected it to,” Comer told TPG in an interview.
Comer initially started making videos with silly throwaway one-liners and would share them with friends to try and make them laugh, he said. He added that in his first video, he pointed out that the tires on a commercial plane are different from the tires on your car because … they’re on an airplane, not a car. With the encouragement of friends, he started posting the videos publicly on TikTok (and later Instagram as well). Each video garnered more views than the last.
A few months and a handful of videos later, while rereading “The Lord of the Rings” books, he got the idea to work in a reference to his next video.
Humor and grief
At first, the content only got a handful of views, Comer said, and a few casual acquaintances actually unfollowed him. But a week or so later, the video somehow caught the attention of Instagram’s algorithm. Views began pouring in — and haven’t stopped since.
Comer said that he never set out to make educational videos about airplanes or to become a mainstay of the online J.R.R. Tolkien fandom. In fact, he never really planned to make video content at all. Instead, the whole thing was born from tragedy: He started making them as a way to distract himself during quiet moments after his wife unexpectedly passed away.
“I was at work and just needed to distract myself during lunch breaks,” he said.
As the videos spread and “The Lord of the Rings” schtick got bigger, the videos — and the connections he made through them — became more than just a tool to help him work through his grief.
“I’ve met some really amazing people through it, some people I look up to, artists, musicians,” Comer noted. “I’ve even met people I work with, friends I wouldn’t have met otherwise.”
The videos’ popularity is remarkable given the bizarre niche Comer’s content covers. The content lives in the Venn diagram overlap of geeky technical aviation mechanical details and over-the-top, hyper-specific references to a fantasy world created in a 70-year-old book series that was memorialized in a trilogy of movies more than 20 years ago.
Comer suspects that part of it is because the videos can be funny to anyone with a passing interest in aviation or “The Lord of the Rings,” even if they aren’t particularly into the other. There’s something about seeing such a ridiculous dump of information that’s just funny.
Another aspect is the low production value. Comer’s videos mostly consist of one scene. He holds his phone, turns on the selfie camera and talks for about 45 seconds, sometimes showing off an airplane part with his other hand. He described it as “low effort.”
“I think that over the last few years, at least for me, I see a lot of influencer-type people doing a lot of influencer-type things, and I feel like it got old,” he said. “People get tired of it.”
When reflecting on the reception to his videos, Comer said he believes the authenticity of the low-effort takes combined with the genuineness of someone sharing nerdy facts about topics they’re passionate about strikes a chord.
“I think that resonates with people because you see so much stuff that is overproduced,” he said.
Still, Comer said he’s noticed an unexpected niche overlap between some aviation enthusiasts and “The Lord of the Rings” fans.
Take me, for example. I first reached out to Comer to share my own shtick, Instagram stories I share with friends making “The Lord of the Rings” puns as I watch the movies during flights. (I even crowdsourced a hashtag: #LordOfTheWings.)
‘There and Back Again’
Content creation and social media presence are also just a fun way for Comer to geek out and have fun during his downtime, he said. He films the videos during his lunch breaks. This is so he can record without accidentally showing co-workers in the background and violating their privacy and stay focused on work while he’s actually working.
Most of his videos are filmed on narrow-body jets, which is what he primarily works on. While he might throw in the occasional Boeing 777 or 787, he generally works on the smaller planes because of how aviation maintenance technicians at his site bid on schedules. Comer is a solo parent to two young kids. By opting for a narrow-body maintenance line, he was able to snag a prime daytime schedule, which works best for childcare.
It’s a fun job, Comer said, and the schedule is helpful at this stage of his life. His online persona has taken off and created new opportunities. (Comer writes and performs music as a hobby, and he recently self-produced and released an extended play, which benefited from exposure through his social channels.) However, he said he has no plans to leave the hanger to go full-time on the content creation front.
“I had never sought out to be an internet person before,” Comer said. “As I kept going, it’s been fun, because I get to share ‘Lord of the Rings’ with aviation people, and educate ‘Lord of the Rings’ people about aviation.”
“I really like being a mechanic,” he added. “Like the other day at work, we were pulling a bunch of spoilers off — it’s greasy, it’s dirty and it’s fun, you know?”
With the way his content and account have gone viral, he’s enjoyed the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the maintenance side of aviation. Even as aviation influencers and content creators have grown alongside broader travel creators, maintenance is an often overlooked yet crucial part of what makes it possible to catch your next flight.
“Aviation maintenance, in particular, is really underrepresented online,” he said. “I’ve told people I’m an aircraft mechanic, and they didn’t even realize that was a thing.”
Despite his outgoing personality and easy accessibility, Comer described himself as more of a homebody. As much as he loves airplanes and aviation, he rarely uses his flight benefits or travels otherwise.
Of course, he’ll make exceptions.
Comer recently attended San Diego Comic-Con as a guest of Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” series, which is adapted from various Tolkien writings about Middle Earth.
“It was one of the coolest experiences of my life, to be honest,” he said. “I met so many wonderful people from the Tolkien online community, aviation enthusiasts … it was a whirlwind.”
He even got to chat with Sean Astin, who played Sam in the movie trilogy.
“I never would have thought when I started this that they’d invite me, an aircraft mechanic, to Comic-Con,” he said.
Regardless of the original plan — or lack thereof — Comer is enjoying where he’s ended up.
At the end of the day, it’s about working at a cool job and having fun. It’s also about pointing out how the windows on a Boeing 787 darken electronically rather than with a physical shade — and how the way they fade out is nothing like how Frodo fades after he’s stabbed by a Nazgul on top of Weathertop in “The Fellowship of the Ring” (since the window fading isn’t caused by the evils contained within the Morgul blade).
“If I can talk about airplanes and ‘Lord of the Rings,’ like, those are my two favorite things,” Comer said. “I could talk about that forever.”
