Overheard a new guy say "avionics is just plug and play" and had to walk away

Was showing a kid how to pin out a harness for a G1000 retrofit and he said that after watching me fight a bad backshell for 20 minutes. Has anyone else dealt with trainees who think the troubleshooting is already done before they touch a wire?

3 comments

3 Comments

william_henderson1d agoMost Upvoted

Man, I once backed my fire truck into a pole trying to show a new guy how easy backing up is, so I get it. We all think we're hot stuff till we're holding a bad wire and sweating it out.

wilson.sam1d ago

Honestly, did you ever have that one guy who swore crimping was basically magic and you just needed the right tool and it fixes everything? I once had a trainee who spent a whole afternoon trying to get a D-sub pin to seat properly, kept saying "it's just a push" until I showed him the bent contact that was causing intermittent shorts. Ngl, that kind of attitude makes me nervous because plug and play is for USB sticks, not something that decides if the autopilot keeps you level at night. Tbh, I'd rather have a kid who's scared of the wires than one who thinks he's already got it figured out before he's even read the schematic. Sometimes you gotta let them fight a bad backshell for a bit so they learn the hard way.

grayc271d ago

Right? That kid who thinks he knows it all is always one bad crimp away from a reality check.