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That night shift on a 737 in Phoenix taught me to always check the basics first
Spent four hours chasing a phantom autopilot fault, only to find a loose cannon plug on the flight control computer. The humidity there must have made the connector pins contract just enough. Anyone else had a gremlin like that from weather changes?
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kareny596mo ago
Remember hearing about a similar thing with the old MD-80s in Vegas heat. Did you guys have any kind of moisture in the plug itself, or was it purely the metal shrinking from the temp swing overnight? I mean, that's a huge shift out there. Makes you wonder if a tiny bit of corrosion on the pins made it worse.
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butler.anthony6mo ago
Got me thinking about how everything seems to have its own sweet spot for temperature. You see it with materials all the time, stuff just works right in a narrow band. That plug was probably fine at 70 degrees, but take it down to freezing or bake it in the sun and all bets are off. It's like the world is held together with stuff that's just barely good enough for normal days. Makes you wonder what else is out there waiting for the exact wrong weather to act up.
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emery_lane6mo ago
Ever have a weird one where a plane just wouldn't pressurize right after a cold soak? Turned out a seal on the outflow valve got hard as a rock overnight. Sun hits it in the morning, it warms up and works fine. Took three days of chasing it before someone caught it on an early morning walkaround.
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