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Warning: I trusted a quick pin swap on a Garmin rack and cost myself a whole Saturday
Two Saturdays back I was doing a pitot static check on a King Air at a hangar in Mesa and figured I would knock out a quick connector swap while the plane was already open. I pulled the rack, swapped the pins the way I always do, and slid it back in without double checking the sheet. Powered up and got nothing on the display, just a blank screen and a fault I had not seen before. Turned out I had two pins mirrored and pushed one contact halfway out of the housing, so it was sitting there looking fine but not actually seated. I burned almost four hours chasing a harness problem that did not exist. What got me was that I had the pinout pulled up on my phone the whole time and just did not look at it. Now I keep telling the newer guys to read the sheet out loud before they crimp anything. How do you all keep from rushing a job when the plane is already open and you think you are saving time?
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kaiharris1mo ago
Man I felt this in my soul. That blank screen after a quick swap is the worst feeling because you know deep down you did it to yourself. Four hours chasing a ghost when the answer was right there on your phone the whole time, that stings. I started taking a phone pic of the connector before I pull anything now, saved me more than once. Reading the sheet out loud sounds dumb until you're the guy who mirrored two pins.
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