The great wire snake of 2022 at our hangar in Phoenix

So about two years back, we had this old Cessna 172 come in for a full panel upgrade... the avionics bay looked like a bowl of spaghetti someone dropped. I'm talking about a solid week of just tracing wires, no joke. The before picture was pure chaos, just a mess of old, faded wires all tangled together. The after picture, taken after we finished the job, looked like a wiring diagram from the book. What changed was our lead tech, Dave, who had this crazy idea to use a label maker and color-coded zip ties for every single system. He said, "If we can't fix it fast later, we didn't do it right now." It took us an extra day to do it his way, but the next time that bird came in for a check, a problem that would've taken hours was sorted in like twenty minutes. Anyone else have a boss or coworker who pushed for a super clean setup that paid off big time down the line?

4 comments

4 Comments

troy76828d ago

No way, a whole week just to trace wires? That's insane. I've seen some bad panels but that sounds like a total nightmare. @phoenix_burns28 is right, that guy was a genius for pushing the clean setup. I can't even imagine trying to find a bad ground in that old spaghetti mess. Spending an extra day to save hours later is a no-brainer. More shops need a Dave.

phoenix_burns2828d ago

Dave's idea was GENIUS. My old shop had a guy who was the same way about cable management, saved our butts more than once.

hernandez.stella28d ago

Yeah, I read an article once about how messy wiring actually costs shops more in labor over time than the extra hour spent cleaning it up. Dave was totally right about that pay-off. It's just smart business, not just being neat.

pat_murray536d agoTop Commenter

Totally worth the extra day. Clean wiring is just future-proofing your own work.