A pilot at our hangar said his new plane's autopilot kept trying to turn left on its own.

We found a tiny piece of metal shaving stuck in the roll servo's feedback pot. It was maybe half a millimeter long, but it was enough to send a constant bad signal. The whole system was chasing a trim input that wasn't really there. It took us a whole day to trace it back to that one part. Has anyone else seen a random piece of debris cause a weird, constant fault like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

noahbaker20d ago

Buddy of mine found a paperclip scrap in an ECU once. Same deal.

maxb462mo ago

Yeah I used to think those systems were bulletproof. But a tiny bit of junk can totally mess them up, just like @rayc38 said about bad luck. Really makes you double-check everything now.

rayc382mo ago

Tbh that sounds like my luck with any project.