Why does nobody talk about intermittent faults on the A320's ADIRU?

Spent 12 hours chasing a weird nav display flicker that only happened above 25,000 feet. Turned out to be a single pin in the ADIRU's rear connector with a tiny bit of corrosion. Anyone have a good trick for testing these high-altitude-only gremlins on the ground?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_max1mo ago

Our old Citation's GPS would drop out every time we taxied past the maintenance hangar.

the_logan27d ago

Started out thinking those kinds of problems were just bad luck or poor installation. Then I had a similar thing with a truck GPS that would lose signal every time I drove past a certain cell tower near the airport. Really opened my eyes to how specific interference sources can be. Now I figure if it only happens in one spot, it's almost always something local causing it, like a radar or a big metal building. You don't think about hangars or towers having that effect until you see it happen every single time. Makes you wonder how many other odd gremlins are just static interference from the airport itself.

simonb921mo ago

Ugh, that sounds like a nightmare to pin down. Those high-altitude-only faults are the absolute worst. Solidarity on the connector pin hunt.