Had a weird intermittent fault on a G1000 autopilot last week

Was doing a preflight check on a Cessna 182 and the autopilot just kept dropping out. No error codes, no hard failures, just a random disconnect every few minutes. Spent three hours chasing it. Turned out to be a tiny bit of corrosion on one pin of the pitch servo connector, not enough to show up on a basic continuity check but enough to cause a voltage drop when the system was under load. Cleaned it with some contact cleaner and a fiberglass brush, problem gone. Boss was getting impatient because the plane was booked for a flight. Felt good to nail it down, but man, those intermittent ones eat up your day. Anyone have a better method for tracking down these kinds of ghost faults besides just swapping boxes?

3 comments

3 Comments

elizabethg8520d ago

Those gremlins are the worst, right?

alex_wilson7920d ago

Wait, you actually saw one? I thought they were just a joke we all made up.

jones.nancy20d ago

Oh man, I'm basically a gremlin magnet! My car's weird noises and my phone's random glitches feel like a personal haunting (seriously, it's a gift). I've just accepted my fate at this point.