Spent 6 months torquing landing gear bolts by feel before a senior mechanic called me out

I was working night shift at a regional maintenance base outside Atlanta when Jim walked over during a brake change. He watched me tighten a main gear bolt and said "you realize you're supposed to use a crow's foot adapter with that torque wrench, right?" I had been using a regular socket for six months on everything - landing gear, flight controls, you name it. The torque values were probably off by 30-40% because I wasn't accounting for the offset. I felt like an idiot but he just laughed and showed me how to calculate the correction factor. Still blows my mind nobody caught it earlier during inspections. Has anyone else missed something basic because you learned it wrong from the start?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana_west273d ago

Wait the inspectors never caught that? That's actually terrifying considering landing gear is kinda important for the whole not dying thing.

lucasschmidt3d ago

Six months torquing landing gear by feel? Might as well have been using a banana for a torque wrench. Jim should've charged you for the "stupid tax" lesson. Bet that one bolt on the right main is still cross threaded from your first week. Props to the inspectors for being blind as bats too, guess they were double checking by vibes.