c/avionics-technicians

Went to the Airbus facility in Mobile last month and saw something odd with their test harnesses

I was down in Mobile, Alabama visiting the Airbus assembly line for a training thing last month. While walking through one of the avionics bays I noticed a bunch of their test harnesses had hand written labels taped on them with electrical tape. Like numbers and letters scratched in with a marker. For a brand new facility that felt super sloppy to me. Our shop at the regional airline I work for uses a proper label maker for everything after one guy hooked up the wrong pin and blew a module. Has anyone else seen production facilities cutting corners like that or is this more common than I thought?

I finally toured the C-130 depot at Warner Robins last month and noticed something odd about the wiring harness repair station

I had a chance to visit the Robins AFB depot back in October through a family connection. Everyone there talks about how great the new automated wire testing equipment is, but I was more interested in the old manual repair bench tucked in the corner. The technician there was stripping and splicing wires by hand for a harness that the automated line supposedly already "fixed" two weeks ago. He told me they find about 1 out of 20 connections from the automated system are bad and need rework. I asked three different guys about it and they all shrugged it off like it was normal. Seems to me like the money spent on that fancy tester might have been better used training more people on the manual methods. Has anyone else seen big gaps like this between what the tech reps promise and what actually works on the floor?

That moment I stopped trusting the factory crimp settings

I was out at Paine Field last Tuesday working on a King Air panel swap. Had this terminal strip I was terminating by the book, using the exact factory setting on my DMC crimper like I always did. Pulled a wire to route it through a clamp and the terminal just slid right off the insulation. No grip at all. I stood there holding the wire and the loose terminal feeling like an idiot. Turns out that batch of terminals from the supply room had slightly thicker wall tubing than standard. Now I do a pull test on every single crimp before I button up a panel. Has anyone else run into terminal batches that don't match the spec sheet?

Put $400 into a used ID-5000 test set and it died after two weeks

Realized I was grounding avionics gear to the airframe wrong for 2 years after a senior tech pointed out my ohm reading at a shop in Phoenix

Turns out I was using the static ground lug instead of the power return bus bar, causing intermittent comm errors on three separate installs has anyone else made this same dumb mistake?

Hot take: Had a chat with an old A&P that flipped my whole view on troubleshooting

Was working a gremlin in a King Air pitot-static system down in Savannah last Friday. Old timer named Dave walked over, saw me chasing a bad connector, and just said 'you're looking at the wire, not the problem.' Hit different because he was right I spent 2 hours testing a perfectly good harness when the issue was a corroded junction block 3 feet away. Anyone else ever had a senior guy drop a line that made you totally rethink your process?

Vent: Old timer at the hangar in Tucson said something that stuck with me

I was troubleshooting a weird voltage drop on a King KX 155 nav radio last month at the shop near Tucson International. This guy, Jim, who's been doing avionics since the 80s just walked over and said "stop chasing the wire, chase the pin." Turned out I had a bent pin in the connector, not a broken wire. Has anyone else had a simple tip from a senior tech that saved you a ton of time?

Tried crimping satellite coax with cheap pliers vs a proper compression tool and man what a difference

I work on a lot of general aviation planes that have satellite receivers and last week I was struggling with a stubborn connection on a Cessna 172. I had my old $15 crimping pliers I got from a hardware store and kept getting loose fits that would fail continuity checks. A buddy who does commercial avionics handed me his compression tool from Ideal and it was night and day. The first crimp came out perfect and I didn't have to redo any of them. Those cheap pliers just don't squeeze evenly no matter how hard you try. I swear I wasted 45 minutes redoing connectors before I switched. Has anyone else noticed a big gap between budget and pro crimpers for avionics work?

Old inspector told me to stop using dielectric grease on cannon plugs

Guy with 40 years in the military said the grease traps moisture and causes corrosion over time, especially on j products out of Phoenix where the humidity spikes. Switched to dry contact cleaner only and haven't had a single pin issue in 6 months, anyone else ditch the grease?

Vent: Chased a ground fault for 6 hours on a King Air 200

Worked a King Air 200 last Tuesday. Pilot said the nav lights were flickering. Thought it would be a quick fix. Checked every bulb, every connector, every breaker. Nothing. Spent the whole afternoon tracing wires in the tail cone. Finally found it at 5 PM. A single chafed wire behind a panel near the aft equipment bay. Barely visible. Took me 6 hours total. All for a 10 minute fix once I saw it. Anyone else spend way too long on something that should have been obvious?

Had to pick between a used Garmin G1000 and a brand new Dynon SkyView

I was rewiring a 1978 Piper Archer in Tulsa and had to choose between a used Garmin G1000 from a salvage yard or a new Dynon SkyView HDX. Went with the Dynon because the guy selling the Garmin couldn't prove it only had 200 hours on it. Installation went smooth until I realized I needed a $90 adapter plate to fit the panel.

Spent 4 hours chasing a ghost in a King Air 350's weather radar

Turns out the radome had a tiny crack letting moisture in, not the waveguide or the antenna itself. Anyone else had a trouble call that ended up being something this simple after all that digging?

Why does nobody talk about how easy it is to mess up pin crimps on D-sub connectors?

Spent 6 months chasing an intermittent fault on a King Radio KX 155 before a senior tech noticed my crimps weren't fully seated. Has anyone else had that sinking feeling when you realize your basic technique was off the whole time?

Finally fixed a wonky Garmin GNS 430 with a can of contact cleaner

Kept getting random NAV failures on a Cessna 172 until I pulled the tray connector and sprayed DeoxIT on every pin. Been three months with zero issues now. Anyone else had dirty pins fix weird avionics glitches?

Figured out a trick for tracing intermittent wires in the 737 overhead panel

Been working on a 737 that had a flickering fault in the overhead panel for almost two weeks. Every time I'd hook up my meter, the problem would disappear. Finally tried something different: I used a cheap tone generator and probe set from Amazon, cost me about $35. I clipped the tone generator onto the suspect wire at the connector, then slowly went along the wire bundle with the probe while gently wiggling the harness. Found the break in about 20 minutes near a cable clamp where the insulation had chafed through but only made contact when the plane was in certain flight attitudes. Anyone else use tone tracing for intermittent faults, or do you stick with the old wiggle-test method?

Pro tip: Labeling my pinout diagrams saved me 3 hours on a 737 nav fix

I was stuck tracing a fault in the VOR receiver on a 737-800 last week, spent forever flipping through the manual every time I lost my place. Decided to print out the pinout diagrams from the AMM and scribble notes directly on them with a sharpie in the order I tested. Any of you guys have a go-to method for keeping track of your steps when you're deep in the avionics bay and the schematic pages are getting greasy?

Wasted $300 on a multimeter that lied to me

Picked up a cheap Klein MM325 off Amazon because I needed something quick for a pitot-static test. Thing showed 120mV on a dead wire and I chased a ghost short for 3 hours. Anyone else get burned by a budget meter that was way off?

Used to fight with those tiny coax connectors for an hour, now I keep a jar of hot water on the bench

I mean, trying to get the braid over the ferrule on those RG-400 cables in a cold hangar was the worst. About six months ago, I saw a guy at the MRO in Tulsa dip the connector end in a cup of hot water for like 10 seconds. The plastic ferrule gets soft and slides right on. I do it for every single one now. Anyone else have a weird little trick like that for coax?

Toured the old Pan Am hangar at the Miami airport museum and the wiring bundles in the cockpit mock-up were a total trip

Just logged my 500th hour on the Garmin G5000 system and it feels weird

I was doing the monthly log review and the number really jumped out at me. Part of me thinks that much time on one platform makes you a real expert, but another part worries it boxes you in compared to guys who work on more varied gear. Has anyone else hit a big hour mark on a specific system and felt the same way?

Remember when you could fix a radio with just a multimeter and a schematic?

I was working on an old Cessna 172's KX 155 nav/com last week, trying to save the owner some cash. I found a cracked solder joint on a filter cap, reflowed it, and the radio came back to life, but the frequency display was off by about 0.05 MHz. Turns out the old crystal had drifted with age, something a simple visual fix couldn't solve. What's the oldest piece of gear you've brought back from the dead lately?

Found a weird fix for a stubborn autopilot pitch trim fault on a King Air 200

The fault kept coming back after normal checks, so I tried cycling the circuit breaker five times fast, which cleared it for good. A retired guy at the FBO in Boise said it can reset a sticky relay in the old system. Has anyone else had to use this kind of odd reset on similar vintage gear?

Had a close call with a bad batch of Raychem SCL heat shrink from a supplier in Phoenix

Used to just grab whatever heat shrink was in the bin, but after a section from a recent order didn't fully shrink and left a gap on a coax repair, I check every piece now. The adhesive didn't flow right, and it was a whole box lot number from early this year. I switched to only buying from the main distributor and doing a quick heat test on a scrap wire first. Anyone else run into bad adhesive on heat shrink lately?

Question about the old way of checking continuity on those multi-pin cannon plugs

I used to spend forever with a multimeter and a pinout sheet, checking each wire one by one. Then a guy at the MRO in Mobile showed me his homemade breakout box with LED indicators for every circuit. Built one myself for about 80 bucks in parts, and now a 56-pin connector takes 2 minutes instead of 20. What's your go-to method for a quick continuity check on a big harness?

Visited the Pima Air Museum and spotted a weird antenna setup on a C-130

I was walking around the static display area last weekend and saw an old C-130 with a VHF blade antenna mounted right next to a UHF one on the fuselage. The spacing was maybe only 8 inches apart, which seemed way too close. I asked one of the volunteer docents about it, and he said it was a field mod from the 80s that caused constant interference issues. Has anyone else run into vintage airframes with oddball antenna placements that just don't make sense?