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FOD

wirejock

wirejock

Well Known Member
This stuff makes me crazy.
Lost a wrench this morning. Hours later, it's been found.
I am fanatical about FOD. If I drop so much as one of those tiny rod bearing washers, I won't let it go. Eventually every item is found. I've actually vacuumed and sifted the dirt before.
I suspect it would have lived there just fine but I'll sleep better now.
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Yep. A very good rule to work by.

A friend was up doing his thing one day, loops, rolls & what ever, & found he couldn't move his stick back to neutral from a right bank. Frantically checking everything, he looked out his left side & saw a wrench sticking out the rear inner edge of the wing tip & jamming the aileron down. All he could do was aggressively apply left aileron & try to expel the wrench, which worked thankfully. He ended up with a dent on the aileron edge & splitting the wingtip trailing edge open to get rid of it! We figured a long lost wrench worked it's way from the center wing bay (aileron bellcrank) area, outboard to the wingtip during all his aerobatic maneuvers to eventually cause that frantic event...
 
OCD levels

I’m finding that my OCD levels are going up exponentially each year past 60 on such things I would have blown off in my 30’s
 
Excellent post, Larry.
Like you I'm a find it or I can't move on builder/maintainer. I've vacuumed and sifted by hand many times.
The Navy has iron-clad, zero tolerance FOD, Fastner, and Tool Control programs.
A jet in a sister squadron was lost due to jammed controls thanks to a lost socket that was confirmed NOT to have been lost in the plane. The accident was years later and the plane had been transferred to several different squadrons in that time. How did they verify the socket in question was the cause? It had its required squadron and shop number engraved on it and that engraving was embossed and readable on the control tube that it had jammed. Short and simple accident investigation...
 
I started spreading a towell under my work area. Especially if it involves installation of any fastener parts. It really cuts down on the travel. Those little buggers would sometimes go 1/2 way across my shop. Inside the plane it stops the FOD from dropping under a floor pan.
 
Suspicions

You suspect it would have lived there just fine? I suggest you reassess your suspicions, Larry. :D Next to the control stick and mixer?? Yeah, it would have lived there just fine but maybe not yourself. Or the next guy. If one wants to make a safety poster and hang in a MX shop, that’s the photo they use. Hahahah
 
rmarshall234 said:
You suspect it would have lived there just fine? I suggest you reassess your suspicions, Larry. :D Next to the control stick and mixer?? Yeah, it would have lived there just fine but maybe not yourself. Or the next guy. If one wants to make a safety poster and hang in a MX shop, that’s the photo they use. Hahahah
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I was being kind. Like I said, if I drop so much as a washer, I find it. Tools? I won't stop. I found it. Took a few hours, but I found it. Drove me "nuts". Pun intended.
I actually find a lot of other peoples tools. Picked up a really nice 10/8mm long wratchet wrench. I suspect it's for bicycle work.
 
I know, just razzing you since the only two peeps I know that live and lived in Estes Park are you and my ex-wife. Ha! But seriously, wouldn’t want others to get a wrong impression. Cheers!
 
Larry,

Looking closely at your photo, it appears that you don't have the center section AN4-34A bolt tightened up.
.
 

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Tony Kirk said:
Larry,

Looking closely at your photo, it appears that you don't have the center section AN4-34A bolt tightened up.
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I knew someone would spot that.
No. The wings are not installed. Fasteners and spacers installed but not torqued. The nut on each side has a big red tag.
It's tagged to be torqued before final close out.
One each side.
I keep a spreadsheet checklist of items like that to be done as various stages in the build. Each gets noted with a date when completed.
Before anyone points it out, the dirt will be vacuumed before it's closed up too! :D

Keep 'em coming.
You guys!
 
Found a bucking bar inside the wing of a C-150, we figure it was left there from the factory.
 
Another crew lost an Apex tip in the cockpit of one of our jets. 8 people, using flashlights, mirrors and borescopes couldn't find it in more than 16 hours of searching. Finally brought out the process control people with their portable x-ray unit. Took about 30 shots before they found it. Took us two days to take the cockpit apart to get to it and 4 days to put it back together. It then took us another 3 days to run all the regression checks for everything that had to come out to get to the tip.

I've stood on a one step stand for an entire shift, using tools thru a borescope working channel to retrieve FOD from areas of no direct access. 5" screen and working the tip about 7' away, thru numerous access holes in the structure. Grab a piece and pull everything out, and then go back in for more.
 
I found a nice airdrill in the wheelwell during my walk around of a 737.
I discreetly called a maintainer and asked him to get it back to where it belonged. To this day I wonder if he kept it...
 
I once helped with the first annual (err, condition inspection) on someone's new-to-them RV, and found three pairs of sunglasses under the floorboards. I recall the new owner was pretty quick to install a set of proper stick boots to keep that from happening again!
 
Drift warning. Sorry.

It From my Space Shuttle days;

Every tool/item was logged whenever someone entered the orbiter. It’s an even bigger deal because stuff moves around in zero G. Well “ or the best technician” was in the aft section doing a job. Didn’t tell anyone about his ankle weights. Short story, long. Containment ripped. Lead pellets everywhere. Man-shifts of cleaning. The shop leads protected him but they flat hated him for it. He didn’t get fired but he was #1 on the lay-off list.

There’s your useless story of the day.
 
Was flying an H-34 chopper in Vietnam, many moons ago, and noticed the controls seemed awfully stiff. Upon shutdown, climbed up on the platform by the rotor head. (There's flight controls up there). Found a big as&^%$ed screw driver up there, wedged under one of the controls. Yikes:eek::eek:
 
You’d be surprised the amount of lost items floating around in A/C from ultralights to Airbuses!
I used to overhaul Lycoming 6 Cyl engines including the IGSO540, during a tear down of a ‘gitso’ for overhaul I found a few cotter pins and wasted nuts in the sump amongst the sludge!
 
We could not get a Cobra helicopter into proper C.G. We discovered a very old 2 lb. bucking bar in the nose. Once removed, she magically was back in C.G.

One underused word in our community is "Swarf."

Swarf, also known as chips or by other process-specific names, are pieces of metal, wood, or plastic that are the debris or waste resulting from machining, woodworking, or similar subtractive manufacturing processes. Swarf can be small particles; long, stringy tendrils; slag-like waste; or stone fragments and dust. Some of these terms are mass nouns and some of them are count nouns. Wood swarf is discussed at sawdust.
 
Larry: The company is so serious about it, where I work, that I have to attend a minimum of two classes every year on FOD and FOD control. My Flight Line driver's pass depends on it as well as my Ejection seat maintenance certification and my Egress Systems' certifications.

If you remember back a number of years, Reba McEntire's jet got crunched due to a flashlight being left in the nose gear bay..... I've seen something as small as a single strand of wire from a 26 gauge piece of stranded wire, take down a system and require a lot of troubleshooting time to find it. Both the military and the corporate world are fanatics about FOD control.
 
Freemasm said:
Drift warning. Sorry.

It From my Space Shuttle days;

Every tool/item was logged whenever someone entered the orbiter. It’s an even bigger deal because stuff moves around in zero G. Well “ or the best technician” was in the aft section doing a job. Didn’t tell anyone about his ankle weights. Short story, long. Containment ripped. Lead pellets everywhere. Man-shifts of cleaning. The shop leads protected him but they flat hated him for it. He didn’t get fired but he was #1 on the lay-off list.

There’s your useless story of the day.
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That one is scarry. Ankle weight beads?
I dropped one of my shot bag weights on the shop floor once. Huge mess and they are not magnetic.

cvairwerks said:
Larry: The company is so serious about it, where I work, that I have to attend a minimum of two classes every year on FOD and FOD control. My Flight Line driver's pass depends on it as well as my Ejection seat maintenance certification and my Egress Systems' certifications.

If you remember back a number of years, Reba McEntire's jet got crunched due to a flashlight being left in the nose gear bay..... I've seen something as small as a single strand of wire from a 26 gauge piece of stranded wire, take down a system and require a lot of troubleshooting time to find it. Both the military and the corporate world are fanatics about FOD control.
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I'm not so crazy after all! Thx
 
Larry: Not being fastidious about FOD is an opening to invite an insignificant item to bite you in the butt at the most inopportune time in a way to inflict the most damage in the least amount of time.

One of the biggest problems we have with FOD, outside of dropped hardware, is the cut tails from safety wire and electrical wire. Got to capture them at the instant you cut. For those that don't have cutters or safety wire pliers with the synthetic inserts to grab the cut tails, a little wad of modeling clay can be used to do the same thing. Press it over the wire to be cut, between the jaws, just prior to making the cut and it's generally going to capture the tail without it flying somewhere to be FOD.
 
FWIW; I learned this method of keeping track of my hand tools many moons ago while in the Air Force. Lay the tools on some foam then make cut outs of each tool in the foam. As you can see in the attached photos, identifying a missing tool is quick and easy.

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Drawer1 Missing.jpg

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Drawer3 Missing.jpg

This method has saved my butt on more than one occasion. :rolleyes:
 
GalinHdz said:
FWIW; I learned this method of keeping track of my hand tools many moons ago while in the Air Force. Lay the tools on some foam then make cut outs of each tool in the foam. As you can see in the attached photos, identifying a missing tool is quick and easy.

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This method has saved my butt on more than one occasion. :rolleyes:
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What's even better is to use two color foam like what you can get at places like www.foamfittools.com
 
About 30 years ago when I was doing my preflight inspection on an FAA Convair 580 I found a nearly new safety wire pliers in the nose gear well. I still have those in my tool box.
 
Foam cut out

dstates said:
What's even better is to use two color foam like what you can get at places like www.foamfittools.com
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I would need a really big tool box.
I have a lot of tools.
However, after 40+ years working on all sorts of moving vehicles, I can look in any drawer and know what's missing.
I think we all adapt. The trick is how far will one go to find the missing FOD. A pair of pliers or a wrench. Yep. Gonna go looking. A tiny strand of cut wire? I leave it to the individual.
 
When I start work, I take a photo of all the tools and supplies laid out on the cart. At the end, bring the photo up and compare. I’ll also have someone else look before the plane gets closed up.
 
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