PSA: An old timer told me to always check the cannon plug before chasing a ghost signal

He said it back when I was working on a Citation's nav system in Wichita, and I brushed it off. Last week I spent two hours trying to find a weird glitch in a G1000 display, only to find a bent pin in the main connector. That guy saved me a whole afternoon of pointless work. Anyone else have a simple tip that turned out to be a huge time saver?

2 comments

2 Comments

henrys603d ago

Used to think those old school tips were just superstition, like checking cannon plugs first for every little glitch. But after seeing a guy waste half a day on a bad ground when the plug was fine, it clicked. The real trick is using the tip as a starting point, not the whole plan. You gotta know when a quick check is enough and when you need to dig deeper.

kevin_sullivan3d ago

That old timer advice is solid for avionics, but it can backfire in my shop. We had a King Air come in with intermittent autopilot issues. The crew chief spent a whole morning pulling and checking every single cannon plug in the system. The real problem was a corroded splice in the wing root he never got to. Sometimes chasing the simple tip makes you miss the forest for the trees.