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That time a lead mechanic told me to stop using the manual on a landing gear swap
I was about 3 years into working at a regional airline in Des Moines, doing a nose landing gear replacement on a CRJ200. I had the manual open on my cart, checking the torque sequence for the axle nut, when a senior guy with 30 years experience walked over. He said "put that book away, I'll show you the real way" and then had me tighten it by feel with a ratchet. I stopped him and said I was going to follow the manual anyway, and he got pretty irritated about it. Do you guys ever get pushback for sticking to the approved procedures over someone's "experience"?
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jessica92116d ago
Yeah but did that nut actually get torqued right?
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troyknight16d ago
Jesus, that's wild. I mean, tightening a landing gear nut "by feel" instead of using the spec from the manual? That's not just skipping a step, that's basically hoping nothing falls off. I get that the old timer has done it a million times, but a CRJ nose gear isn't some backyard bush plane, that's a real piece of hardware. Good on you for sticking with the book, that's the kind of thing that ends up in an NTSB report.
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nathankim16d ago
You say "tightening a landing gear nut by feel instead of using the spec from the manual" is bad, but honestly, those old timers get it. A torque wrench is just a tool, and if you've done the same job a few hundred times, you know exactly how tight a nut should feel. The manual gives you a number that's right for the average mechanic on the worst day. The guy with 30 years has a feel for the threads, the lockwasher, and the exact condition of that gear. I've seen brand new guys snap bolts with a torque wrench because they don't account for dry threads or old hardware. The manual is a good starting point, but there's a reason guys like that are still around and their planes don't fall out of the sky.
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