ANNUAL, 2005 Redux...

"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk at wow way d0t com writes:

George Patterson" wrote in message
Yeah. I heard an ad on the radio about a shop that had the gear to read
the computer chips for diagnosis in cars. That set me thinking about the
diagnosis technique frequently used with aircraft; replace parts until
something works. It seems to me that it wouldn't be hard to get the FAA to
sign off on at least a diagnostic chip.

Right. Now a mechanic just replaces parts until the fault codes go away...

See my last rant...about alternators..

It's nearly impossible to narrow things down to just one part, so even with
diagnostic codes to point the way, mechanics still tend to replace the easy
stuff first.
For example if you get a "oxygen sensor not switching" code, 9 times out of
10, the mechanic will replace the sensor. Then, only when that doesn't solve
the problem, will they will actually start to look for the cause of the
mixture problem (vacuum leak, etc.). Of course, there are those who will
just replace the sensor again. And again. And again... After a few tries,
they then complain that there is something wrong with the diagnostic
software.

BT,DT,GtTS!

Thirty years ago a friend had a job teaching the folks at a certain
western Ohio weight measuring company how to fix their new load cell
scales. These guys had fixed huge mechanical scales for years and
were ....resistant... to change. Every time he got a board-swapper;
he'd put them on the rigged unit with ...intermittent.. backplane
wiring. They soon learned.

Good diags and error codes are tremendous timesavers, but they are
no substitute for a brain, logical thinking and a rigorous
problem-solving approach.

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