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A Delta pilot showed me a trick with the audio panel I never saw before

Last month on a 757 in Atlanta, the captain walked back to the hangar while I was wrestling with a stubborn squelch issue. He said "try the MIC switch isolation first, then trace the intercom wiring, most guys swap the whole panel needlessly." That one tip saved me about 90 minutes of troubleshooting, has anyone else had a pilot hand them a shortcut that beat the manual?

2 comments

2 Comments

robertb4718d ago

Hold on, I gotta push back on this. Pilots are great at flying, but they are not the end-all for avionics troubleshooting. That "shortcut" is just a guess that happened to work, and it can lead you down the wrong path if the real issue is a bad jack or a flaky squelch pot. The manual's step by step process exists for a reason, it keeps you from chasing a ghost and makes sure you don't miss a second problem. I've seen guys skip the isolation steps, replace the panel, and then the pilot comes back a week later with the same complaint because the mic jack was still bad. You got lucky, but telling everyone to skip the book is how you end up with a hangar full of half fixed birds. Did that pilot stick around to help when his tip didn't work?

the_eva17d ago

Isn't it worth checking the book first, @robertb47, since a lucky guess still beats a hangar full of half fixed birds?