Walked through the avionics bay at JFK last week and saw something weird

I was checking out the new hangar at JFK and noticed the techs there are using these custom cable holders ziptied to the racks instead of the standard velcro straps we use. They said it cuts down on troubleshooting time when you have to trace a wire bundle. Has anyone else seen this setup or tried it in their own bay?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamesfox23h ago

Holy crap, zip ties? In an avionics bay? That's insane. I can't believe they'd use those things on anything you might need to touch again. Once you cinch a zip tie down tight, it's basically a permanent weld unless you've got dykes handy. Snip one wrong and you're fishing little plastic bits out of a bundle of thousand-dollar wires, that's a nightmare waiting to happen. Velcro might look a little messier but at least you can swap a bad cable in five minutes without breaking out the cutters. Whoever signed off on that idea is asking for a whole lot of unnecessary trouble down the road.

kevin_harris781d ago

Hard pass on that idea. Zip ties are a nightmare once you gotta change anything out. You snip one wrong and you're chasing plastic shrapnel through the whole rack. Velcro lets you open a bundle, work on it, and close it back up in seconds. Those custom holders sound like a solution looking for a problem. Maintenance downtime adds up fast when every wire wrap is a permanent decision. I'll stick with the straps that don't turn a simple swap into a half hour ordeal.