Noticed something odd at the Oshkosh fly-in last week

I was walking through the vintage aircraft section at Oshkosh and saw three different planes with safety wire twisted the wrong direction on their turnbuckles. One guy said his instructor taught him that way 20 years ago and he never changed it. Has anyone else run into mechanics who still wire stuff the old backward way?

4 comments

4 Comments

henryp4023d ago

Jump on what @michael669 said about habits being hard to break. I saw a guy at a breakfast fly-in last month who still safety wires everything with the old method because his first boss swore it was right. That whole trusting something that used to work thing is exactly why I double-check every new mechanic's work before they button up a panel.

danielnelson23d ago

That phrase "taught him that way 20 years ago" really struck me, because I used to think the old way was fine too until a bad experience with a friend's plane got me to change my mind.

michael66923d ago

And that's the thing, once you see it happen or it happens TO you, you can't unsee it. It's like how people still drive cars without blind spot mirrors because "that's how I learned" and then almost merge into someone. I've seen folks refuse to update their phone security because the old way "worked fine" right up until their identity got stolen. We get so locked into our habits that we don't realize the world moved on without us. It's not about being stupid, it's about trusting something that USED to work. But the problem is that new problems come up and the old solutions just don't cover them anymore.

ninaowens23d ago

What exactly happened with your friend's plane that made you switch? Was it something you saw go wrong firsthand or just the aftermath?