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Warning: my transponder readback failed at the worst time, but I caught it on the ramp
I was doing a quick ramp check on a Cessna 172 at KAPA last Thursday before the owner took it up, and when I keyed up to test the transponder with Denver approach, the reply came back with a squawk code that didn't match what I'd set. I shut everything down and traced it to a loose pin in the backshell connector that had worked itself free, probably from all the vibration. Took me about 40 minutes with a pin extractor and some new crimps, but the readback came back clean on the second try. Nothing beats that feeling when ATC confirms you're squawking right after you've been chasing a gremlin. Anyone else had a connector pin just give up on them like that?
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jade_johnson1d ago
Had a backshell pin do the same thing last summer, drove me nuts.
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