PSA: Stop signing off on squawks you didn't actually see yourself
Had a talk with a young A&P in the hangar at Tulsa last week that got under my skin. He told me he signs off squawks his lead points at without laying hands on the plane, because the lead has 20 years on him and "knows what he's looking at." I asked him how many of those he could actually explain if the FAA came asking, and he went quiet. Here's the thing: your name and cert number go on that log entry, not your lead's, and when a gear pin gets missed or a fuel cap o-ring gets skipped, nobody cares who pointed at what. A signoff is not a team sport. I've watched 3 guys get walked out over stuff they "trusted" someone else to verify, and not one of them saw it coming. You put your hands on it, you check it against the manual, then you sign. No shortcuts, no handoffs, no "he's got it." So my question for the guys here: how do you handle a lead who pressures you to just sign and move on?