Ran into an old instructor at Oshkosh who changed my thinking on test equipment

I was at AirVenture last week and saw my old avionics instructor from school. He asked what I used for troubleshooting and I told him I always reach for my Fluke 87. He said real skill is knowing when to put the meter down and just listen to what the pilot describes. That got me thinking about how I rely too much on numbers and not enough on symptoms. Has anyone else had a mentor tell them something that made them work different?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_rowan15d ago

Oh man, that hits hard. I had an old mechanic tell me once that the best tool in the box is your ear, and I thought he was just being old school. Then I spent three hours chasing a voltage drop that turned out to be a loose connector a pilot knew about but didn't mention. Felt dumb after that.

adam41414d ago

Everything in life is just a loose connector you find three hours later.