Kept finding loose screws on engine cowlings until I changed my routine

I work at a small regional airport in Nashville, and for the last few months I kept pulling cowlings that had at least one screw barely finger tight. Turns out a couple of the guys on my shift were starting the fasteners from one side and going in order around the panel. That leaves uneven pressure and the first ones get loose. I started doing a cross pattern like you do with lug nuts on a car, tightening opposite screws first. After 3 weeks of that, not a single loose fastener on my checks. Has anyone else run into this with their crew and found a better way to teach it?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker_bell26d ago

I dealt with the exact same thing at an FBO in Knoxville a few years back. We had a new kid who would start at the top left of a Cessna 172 cowling and work his way clockwise, and I kept finding the bottom right screw almost falling out. I got a torque wrench with a soft click and just ran through the pattern twice, once finger tight and once with the wrench at spec. After a week of showing him how the first screw would end up loose if you didn't cross pattern, he got it and we never had the issue again. I also marked a small dot on the backside of each cowling with a sharpie to show the order, top right, bottom left, top left, bottom right, that way nobody has to remember.

spencer_ross26d agoMost Upvoted

Damn, that sharpie dot trick is actually brilliant and I was totally wrong about labeling patterns being unnecessary.