Swapped to a borescope after that inspection surprise

Had a Cessna 172 come through last month with a rough idle, ran my usual compression check and everything looked fine, so I almost sent it back. Then I borrowed a buddy's borescope and spotted a chipped exhaust valve seat that no amount of guessing was going to catch. Now I'm wondering how many of you keep one on hand as standard, or do you still trust the old gauges first?

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fiona_reed10d ago

Watched the same thing happen with home inspectors who only check the obvious stuff and miss what is hiding behind a wall. The tool itself is not magic, it just lets you see what your hands and ears were already telling you something was off about. Compression gauges show you a number, but a borescope shows you the actual story inside the jug, and that gap between a passing number and a real problem is where engines get signed off when they shouldn't. Keep the scope in the box next to the gauges, they answer two different questions.

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