The shift that wrecked me until I figured it out

I used to swear by the midnight shift for avionics work. Quiet hangar, no managers breathing down your neck. But last month we had a string of 4 back to back nights where every radio update went wrong. I spent 6 hours chasing a bad ground on a Garmin GTN 750 and almost missed the paperwork deadline. Then a senior tech named Dave told me he switched to days just to catch problems while the pilots are around. Took his advice last week and it felt weird at first but I caught a wiring issue on a King KX 165 before it even hit the bench. Has anyone else found that your shift choice really changes how clean your installs come out?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_dixon672d ago

Man I had the same problem on nights with a GTN 650 install years ago, spent three hours on a ghost issue that turned out to be a loose antenna cable. Switched to early days and suddenly I could just walk over and ask the pilot about weird radio behavior before diving in. Its wild how much time you save when you can actually talk to the people flying the plane instead of assuming everything's fine.

christopher_flores462d ago

Read an article saying most avionics issues are just bad connections, not the brain.