That week in Dallas where everything that could go wrong did go wrong

Last month I was working on a Cessna 172 avionics upgrade at a shop in Dallas. Monday morning I pulled the old panel and found a nest of corroded wires behind it that looked like they'd been sitting in water for years. Tuesday the new GPS antenna wouldn't fit the mounting holes because the previous guy used some off brand bracket. By Thursday I had to redo half the harness because the schematics didn't match what was actually in the plane. Has anyone else had a job just spiral like that where you end up working three times the hours you bid for?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_barnes2414d ago

That kind of spiral is exactly why I hate quoting flat rate on older planes. You never know what mess is hiding behind the panel until you get in there. One bad bracket or splice can blow up the whole budget quick.

hannah_wells13d ago

Man I used to think flat rate was the only way to go on panel work. But after getting burned on a 172 where one hidden splice turned a 10 hour job into a 30 hour nightmare I completely changed my mind. That "one bad bracket or splice" line hits hard because I've seen a single corroded terminal take down an entire radio stack more times than I can count. Now I always add a "mystery wires" clause to any estimate on pre-80s planes.

fiona_kim9714d ago

That Cessna job you mentioned, @sean_barnes24, is a perfect example - one corroded connector can turn a simple swap into a full harness rebuild. I had a similar 182 panel job where a single bad ground took out two whole electrical buses and added six extra hours of tracing. The older the plane, the more you gotta assume every wire has a surprise waiting for you.