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Serious question, does anyone else think torque seal is overrated for line checks?
Last Tuesday I was doing a pitot static check on a King Air 200 in Wichita and the lead signed off the job without re-torquing the static port screws. I caught it when I ran my daily walkaround and saw the seal was cracked on the left port. He argued that the seal looks fine and the screws would not walk in 100 hours. I told him I have seen one back out on a Baron after 40 hours and we would be the last hands on it. We redid the whole check and wrote it up in the log. He was not happy with me for the rest of the shift but the plane flew next morning with no issues. I still think we spend too much time fussing over torque seal color matching when the actual torque is what matters. Curious if other shops out there are strict on the seal or if you just trust the wrench and move on.
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eva_gibson22d ago
Checking the actual torque value matters way more than the seal, but the color match thing isn't really about looks. The seal is just a visual flag so the next guy knows the fastener was torqued at some point, and that matters on something like a static port where you can't easily get a wrench on it later. Problem is a cracked seal tells you nothing about the real torque, so your lead's argument that it "looks fine" was backwards from the start. You did the right thing redoing it, because you're right that you're the last hands on that plane.
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