I was working on a Cessna 172 at KPAO in Palo Alto, double checking the GPS antenna coax. The pilot walks up and starts saying how I probably messed up his whole flight plan. I just showed him the loose connector I found and asked if he wanted it fixed or not. He calmed right down after that. Anyone else ever get blamed for something before you even had a chance to explain?
Been using a Fluke for 15 years on Gulfstream harness work, but last month I tried a digital pin tester on a G550 wing harness. Found 3 intermittent faults in 2 hours that would've taken me all day with a meter. Anyone else seeing better results with those newer handheld testers?
First job out of school I was Fluke or nothing. Last month I was doing an LRU swap on a CRJ-200 in a hangar in Omaha and kept getting intermittent resistance readings on a terminal block. Grabbed a buddy's Keysight U1282A on a whim and the damn thing caught a loose pin the Fluke was averaging out. Been using the Keysight every day for three weeks now. Anyone else run into a situation where a different brand of meter caught something your usual one missed?
Picked up one of those cheap 12v chargers for my Fluke multimeter off Amazon last month. Worked fine for a few charges then Thursday morning I went to test a circuit on a King Air and the meter wouldn't turn on. Popped the battery out and it was swollen up. Swapped in a fresh one from the truck and it read 14.8v on the meter terminals. That charger is supposed to put out 9v max. Anyone else had issues with off-brand chargers killing gear?
I was picking up some connectors at the Grainger near DFW airport Tuesday morning and this younger technician, maybe 22 or 23, was arguing with the counter guy about a pinout. He said he just swaps components till it works, never traces a circuit. Made me realize how different this trade is now compared to when I started in 1998. Back then we had to understand every path on the board because you couldn't just swap a whole LRU. Anyone else feel like the younger guys rely too much on swapping parts instead of actually troubleshooting?
I replaced a bundle of Cannon plugs on a 2018 build plane last month and the old crimps looked perfect. Got the new ones on and all was fine for about 2 weeks... then the flight crew started getting intermittent navigation flag warnings. Pulled the panel again and saw the crimp barrels had actually cracked near the wire stop. I used the exact same tool and die set I've used for 15 years. Boeing changed their terminal spec quietly last year and the new pins need a different crimp height. Has anyone else run into terminals cracking after a short service life?
Was troubleshooting a nav radio in a Cessna 172 at the hangar last Thursday, kept getting intermittent faults on the VOR display. Turns out the ground strap on my handheld tester was corroded from sitting in a toolbox drawer for 3 months, cleaned it with a wire brush and the readings were solid. Anyone else find their test gear needs more maintenance than the actual aircraft?
Guy with 30 years in said he sees more static issues from loose braided straps than bad connectors. Said he watched a crew chase a transponder glitch for two days before finding a corroded strap under the floor panel. Anyone else check those before swapping boxes?
That FA said "the IFE screen's been flickering for 3 weeks" and what I found was a D-sub pin 8 that was barely hanging on, has anyone else seen lazy crimps from those cheap tools cause intermittent faults like that?
Had to choose between a $200 aftermarket supply and the $850 OEM part last month at a shop in Houston, and I went cheap to save the boss money. Now the radios are flaking out on every other flight and I'm spending twice the labor trying to trace faults. Anyone else deal with these knockoffs causing gremlins?
Was digging through the maintenance logs last night for a 737 we've been working on, and I found out the angle of attack probes haven't been swapped since 2018. That's 6 years on a part that's supposed to be replaced every 24 months per the manufacturer. I checked the last annual and the shop signed off on them like they were fine. Now I'm stuck arguing with the lead about ordering new ones because he says they 'still read okay.' Has anyone else found stuff like this buried in the paperwork at your hangar?
I was chasing an intermittent power loss on a Cessna 172 at our shop in Wichita for almost 2 weeks. After replacing connectors and chasing wires, I hit the backplane board with some freeze spray and watched the unit glitch out immediately. Turned out to be a hairline crack on pin 13 of the main processor. Has anyone else used freeze spray to find those intermittent faults?
I was super skeptical about buying a $15 coax crimper from Amazon for my home bench setup. Been using the $80+ ones at work for years, figured the cheap ones would just crush the connector or slip. Last month I had to do some RG400 pigtails for a repair job on a King radio and my good crimper was locked up in the shop. Grabbed the cheap one out of desperation and honestly, it worked fine for about 50 crimps before I noticed any play in the die. Not saying I'd trust it for flight line stuff where every connection has to pass a pull test, but for bench prototyping and repairs it's been surprisingly solid. Has anyone else found a cheap tool that totally changed your mind?
I used to buy the $2 D-sub backshells from Amazon for all my bench repairs. Last month a lead tech at my hangar in Orlando saw my harness and told me the strain relief was garbage and would fail in 6 months of vibration. He showed me a $12 Amphenol backshell with a proper clamping mechanism, and after swapping it out I instantly saw the difference in how solid the connectors felt. I changed out all 15 of my builds that week and now I only use certified MIL-spec parts for anything flying. Has anyone else had a senior tech change their whole approach with just a 2 minute critique like that?
I spent 4 hours tracing a glitchy altitude readout on a Cirrus at Deer Valley last Tuesday and it turned out to be a loose pin in the DB9 connector, not the encoder itself, so has anyone else found weird fixes that saved a bunch of money?
I was working on a King KX 155 nav/com in the shop and an older guy named Pete walked by. He asked why I was using a $20 multimeter from the parts store instead of the shop's Fluke. I told him the cheap one worked fine for continuity checks and he just shook his head. Then he showed me how the cheap meter was giving me false readings on a capacitor discharge test by about 15 volts. He said he's seen guys chase ghost faults for days because their test equipment wasn't accurate enough for aviation work. Now I'm wondering how many times I've misdiagnosed a problem because of my gear. Anyone else had a cheap tool lead you down the wrong path?
I was just doing my normal thing rewiring a King Air panel and I counted them up at the end of the day... five hundred crimps without a single bad one. That's got to be some kind of personal record for consistency, right? Has anyone else ever kept track of a clean streak like that?
Pulled that from an FAA safety report last night while researching a no-start issue on a C172... blew my mind how lazy some of the crimps looked in the photos. Anyone else double-checking every ring terminal now?
Last month at a private hangar in Scottsdale I had a Garmin GTN 750 go dark mid-diagnostic. Turned out a D-sub pin had a cold crimp from the factory install. Spent 4 hours chasing a ghost before I just re-did all the pins. Has anyone else seen bad crimps on brand new harnesses?
I never really kept track of my hours until I tallied them up for a renewal. Turns out I crossed 10,000 last Tuesday on a routine 737NG troubleshooting job. It surprised me because I always figured that milestone would be some big exciting moment, but it was just another day fixing an autopilot disconnect issue. Did anyone else hit a number that snuck up on you without any fanfare?
Last Thursday I was troubleshooting a NAV 2 that kept dropping out on approach. Spent 3 hours swapping boxes and checking connectors before I finally looked at the ground strap behind the rack. It was corroded almost all the way through, looked fine from the top. Replaced it with a new strap and everything worked perfect on the next flight. Made me feel pretty dumb for not checking the simple stuff first. Anyone else ever chase a ghost fault that turned out to be a ground issue?
I normally use the manual test set at our shop in Orlando, but last week I hooked up a digital one a new guy brought in. The numbers were all over the place, like 50 feet off on altitude and 3 knots off on airspeed. Spent two hours chasing it before I realized the digital set had a leak in its own hose fitting. That thing cost the company $1,200 and was trash out of the box. Anybody else run into test equipment that was faulty right from the start?
I was doing a routine check on a Hawker 800 out of Van Nuys last month. Everything looked fine on the initial test. But when the pilot fired up the avionics, the GPS kept dropping. I spent three hours chasing a ghost in the wiring. Finally found it. A pin on the back of the NAV unit had worked itself loose halfway out. Must have been from a previous install. Took me two minutes to reseat it. Has anyone else had a pin walk out on you like that on a midsize jet?