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Watched a ramp guy in Tulsa wave off a $40k pitot test because of a wasp nest in the boom
Three years back at a shop in Tulsa I was doing a pitot static check on a King Air when a wasp crawled out of the left boom right as I slid the adapter on. The ramp lead, a guy named Duane, calmly said nope and made us wait 20 minutes while he smoked it out with a shop vac, then he found four more nests in the same boom. Cost us half a day on the schedule but the leak check passed clean on the first try after that. Anyone else had a bug problem mess with a test, or is Tulsa just built different?
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andrewt414d ago
Duane smoking wasps out of a King Air boom with a shop vac is the most Tulsa thing I have read all week. My version of that story is way less cool: I opened a wing inspection panel on a 172 last spring and found a mud dauber condo the size of my fist, and my big move was to scream like a kid and drop the panel on my own foot. Took two hours to clean that mess out and I still had to redo the pitot check because a chunk of dried mud fell into the line when I bumped it. Duane was smart to just stop and deal with it, since rushing a dirty system only buys you a failed leak check later. Bugs love airplane cavities more than we do, and they always pick the worst possible moment to show up. Tulsa might just be built different, but that shop vac trick is going in my toolbox notes.
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