It wasn't dangerous in the way the hydraulic fault had been dangerous. It wouldn't cause a structural failure, but it was the kind of fault that would show up during a demonstration flight at exactly the wrong moment. And it was the kind of fault that if it made it past delivery, would erode client trust in a way that no amount of subsequent repair could fully restore. The chief engineer, a man named Howell, who had been with Hysterion for 11 years and was not given to overclaiming his limitations, called Sloan at 7:15 Tuesday morning. "We can't find it," he said without greeting.
She heard what that cost him. Tell me where you are. We've run full diagnostic on the primary avionics bus twice. We've physically inspected every accessible wiring junction in the Ford electronics bay. We pulled three harness connectors that showed minor wear and replace them.
The fault disappears. Then it comes back. It's intermittent enough that we can't pin the source location. He paused. I have a good team, Sloan.
This is not a personnel problem. I know that. She said, "I need four more days minimum to run this down correctly. We don't have 4 days." She was already up and moving across her apartment to find clothes. What are you thinking?
It is shielding issue. Maybe something in the wiring bundle behind the primary avionics panel that's causing cross interference under specific load conditions. But we can't get to it without pulling the panel. And if we pull the panel and we're wrong about the location, we've added 2 days of reassembly to the problem. Sloan was quiet for a moment.
She was standing in her closet holding a jacket and thinking about a name. "Give me an hour," she said. She drove to the workshop on Meridian Street. She hadn't been to this part of the city before. It was the kind of neighborhood that existed in most midsize cities, working industrial, slightly past its peak, with a density of small businesses that were doing real work without much visible prestige. a metalworking shop, a commercial HVAC service company, a place that sold used restaurant equipment, and midway down the block, the building Garrett Aapor owned with a plain painted sign above the bay door that said AAR aviation services in letters that had started to fade.
She parked and went to the bay door, which was rolled up. Inside she could see two aircraft in various states of maintenance. A small single engine propeller plane with its cowling off and a twin engine light aircraft elevated on jacks. Tool chest along the walls. A compressor running somewhere in the back.