Rant: Spent 4 hours chasing a leak that was right in front of my face yesterday

I was working on a Cessna 172 fuel system at the hangar near Burbank yesterday, looking for a slow drip under the right wing. After swapping out two O-rings and re-torquing fittings, the damn thing still seeped. Turned out it was a tiny crack in the fuel strainer bowl I overlooked because a rag was covering it. Three years in this trade and I still make rookie mistakes when I'm in a hurry. Anyone else spend way too long on something simple before spotting the obvious?

2 comments

2 Comments

mitchell.mark27d ago

Respectfully, I read that and thought maybe you're being too hard on yourself. Three years is still pretty green in this world. Spent a full afternoon once on a 172 that wouldn't build fuel pressure because the primer knob was loose and letting air in. Walked past that little plunger twenty times doing a compression check and checking plugs. The rag hiding the crack is frustrating but its also just how this stuff works when youre focused on the wrong thing. A rookie mistake is leaving a tool in the engine bay or cross threading a sump drain. Missing a hidden crack because a rag was in the way is just a bad day, not a sign you dont know what youre doing.

jenny_carr5227d ago

You wrote "A rookie mistake is leaving a tool in the engine bay or cross threading a sump drain" and that is true, but isn't missing a hidden crack also a pretty serious oversight? I get that we all have bad days, but on an airplane a bad day can mean something much worse than a ground loop. Maybe we should be a little careful about normalizing stuff that could get someone hurt.