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Bought a $220 'calibrated' pitot static test box off a guy in Wichita, and it cost me way more than that
Picked up a used pitot static test box at a swap meet in Wichita back in March because the seller swore it was freshly calibrated and had paperwork. Got it back to the hangar, hooked it up to a King Air, and the airspeed readings were off by almost 9 knots against our known good unit, so I had to pull everything and redo the leak checks twice. Turns out the paperwork was from 2016 and the guy ghosted me when I called, so I ate the $220 plus about 6 hours of unbooked labor explaining to the DOM why the plane was late. Anyone else got a swap meet horror story, and do you guys have a go-to way to sanity check used test gear before you trust it on a live airframe?
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the_wendy29d ago
A swap meet in Wichita is about the worst place to buy test gear honestly, half that stuff sits in a barn for a decade before it ever sees a table. But here's where I dont fully agree with you, the guy told you it was calibrated and you had paperwork in hand that you could have checked right there before handing over cash. A date on a cert takes two seconds to read and 2016 would have jumped out at you on the spot. I get being in a hurry at a swap meet, but a pitot static box is the one thing I would never trust without plugging it into a known source first or at least calling the shop that signed the paper. Six hours of redoing leak checks is the real cost here, not the 220, and that part was avoidable. Live and learn I guess but I would be madder at myself than at the seller for that one.
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