Old inspector told me to always trust the torque wrench over my gut

Felt a bolt bottom out weird on a 737 flap track last Tuesday but followed his advice anyway and the torque check caught a hairline crack in the bracket, saved me a redo and a possible write-up.

2 comments

2 Comments

dylan_thompson3d ago

I get what you're saying and I respect the old timer's advice but honestly I see it the other way. Your gut is what tells you something feels off in the first place, the torque wrench just confirms it. If you hadn't been paying enough attention to notice that bolt bottoming out weird, you never would have bothered with the check. That feel in your hands is years of experience talking, it's not just random guessing. The torque wrench is a tool, it's not a replacement for your senses. I've had too many times where the wrench clicked fine but something still felt wrong and I found problems later that a rookie would have missed entirely because they just trusted the tool blindly.

schmidt.eva3d ago

@dylan_thompson Are we really acting like a slight wobble on a bolt is some kind of sixth sense now?