Customer Reviews

Avionics Troubleshooting and Repair

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A better title for this book would be "Avionics systems for Pilots" or "An overview of aircraft radio systems". I am An Airframe and Powerplant mechanic and I had hoped that this book would assist me in troubleshooting Avionics problems but instead it only gives brief but detailed descriptions of the radios and how they operate. I would have loved a more in depth troubleshooting chart at each chapter and perhaps some more instalation and repair tips. I would recommend this book because there is nothing else out there that even comes close.. but I wish there was a second edition "Advanced Avionics Troubleshooting and repair"

For an aircraft owner or pilot this is a good basic tool to troubleshoot the most common problems while recognizing the symptoms. It also presents the accepted methods and techiniques of installation to avoid such problems. For the established professional avionics technician or aviation mechanic the book could go further. Therefore I rated the item four stars from the perspective as a pilot, owner.

As a FAA licensed A&P maintenance technician, I was expecting far more than the generic info that most A&P's receive with their training. Most of the content covered how the avionics worked. While there was some diagnostic/troubleshooting, it was at a very low level and did not go into much detail. There was a lot of text that could have been much more definitively explained with a flow chart. The normal repair info provided was to ship the possible defective unit back to the manufacturer for repair. In one word, what this book lacked is DETAIL!

In all fairness to the author, avionics diagnostics and repair is not an easy subject of cover. The cover says that the audience is for Pilots and Technicians. Having two diverse audiences is probably the problem. There is probably slightly more info than what is needed by the Pilot. However, the info is highly deficient for the Technician. This book is more of a Pilot book.

I was a bit misled by the title 'avionics troubleshooting and repair'. Really there isn't that much about repair in the book. It is OK as a guide to a pilot working with an avionics shop, but really not a lot of help for someone actually trying to repair avionics. For example the author wanders off pontificating about electrostatic discharge for over 7 pages, starting with Thales of Millet describing static electricity in 600 BC. Loran and ADF's get coverage in the book adding to the waste. Meanwhile COM equipment gets 10 pages total. The authors spends a lot of words trying to describe 'F-style contacts' which would have been better served by a small sketch.