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Rant: I just logged my 100th annual inspection squawk and I can't believe what it taught me
So I keep a little notebook in my box where I write down every squawk I find during annuals, mostly just for my own sanity. Hit number 100 last week on a 1978 Cessna 172, and the thing that got me was this: 37 of those were the exact same loose jam nut on the elevator trim tab. I'm not making that up, I flipped back through the pages twice. What really surprised me was that only 4 of the 100 were anything serious, like a cracked exhaust or a bad mag drop. I guess I always figured I was catching big stuff, but mostly it's little things folks forget to torque. Anybody else track their findings like this, or am I just weird?
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murray.robert23d ago
The "37 of those were the exact same loose jam nut" line is wild but honestly I believe it. Same deal at my shop, you could set a watch by the stuff that keeps coming back. Trim tab hardware, throttle cable friction lock nuts, those tiny screws on the mag p-lead, all of it just vibes itself loose over 100 hours no matter how good the last guy was. What got me was your 4 out of 100 being real problems, that tracks too. Most annuals are 90 percent punch list and 10 percent pucker factor. The scary part is the stuff that never makes the notebook, like the guy who "checked" his own oil and never pulled the cowl all year.
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