Pressure Under the Wings

Ok, full disclosure: I happen to be flying next week, so this post might be a little biased.

When us marketing folks go to work, we look at pictures of other people, diagrams and flow charts, and, if we're lucky, maybe of the gear that we sell. I happen to look at pictures of pressure gauges a lot.

Knowing that I'm flying, I gotta admit it's a relief to say I know our gentleman engineer, Terry, who designs our pressure gauges. I can't wait for the day I look out of the plane window and see our flat-sided gauge and bright orange rubber boot checking the tire, strut or brake pressures on a neighboring aircraft. Besides it being a matter of company pride, I know the people who build and calibrate our gauges and I know I'd be safe relying on their work.

I realized the other day that not everyone knows the difference between a high-quality pressure gauge and a regular $50 analog gauge, so I thought I'd share some of our internal gearhead knowledge with you!

DPG2000B Digital Pressure Gauge

To the left is a picture of one of our gauges. This one happens to be a DPG2000B, the one that a certain major airline manufacturer located in Washington state recommends on their drawings that maintenance techs use.

Toasted Marshmallow Gauge

To the right is a picture of what we call our toasted marshmallow gauge. Believe it or not, it's the same gauge as the DPG2000B above, only this one kind of got blown out of the back of a jet engine after it was accidentally left inside.

Aaaand it stayed perfectly calibrated. For all you non-techies out there, that means that it was accurate before it was super-heated, and it was just as accurate afterwards. More on cal stuff later, I promise I'm not just bragging.

Gauges on a Brake Line

Here we have two DPG2000BBL5000PSIG-D4-10-TP-HA-RB gauges on a 737 brakeline.

Ok, hold on, before your eyes cross with the NewSpeak, that's a DPG2000 battery-powered gauge with backlighting.  It is rated up to 5000 PSIG for this particular higher-pressure situation. Terry (above-mentioned engineer) included memory capability in his design so that the techs can record min/max readings and record them back in their offices.

Why are our gauges recommended for checking aircraft brakeline pressure? Well, let's just say you don't want your brakes failing when you are hitting the tarmac at 170 mph / 149 kph (knots-per-hour).

Airplane Strut Assembly

Gauge Measuring Strut Pressure

I had to do a little internal research to learn how airplane struts function. Struts, as you may know, smooth out your ride. Think a landing was a little bumpy? Without struts, the airlines' Twitter complaints would be off the charts - just as soon as passengers could use their arms again. Struts on commercial aircraft operate on both air (nitrogen) and oil. The pressure must be checked regularly - schedule varies per aircraft - to ensure a smooth landing and, most importantly, the safety of the passengers (me next week!).

This is an Airplane Tire

Ok, ok, you know that.

Our gauges are the recommended pressure gauge for many major U.S. airlines (remember, we are on those Major Aircraft Manufacturer drawings I mentioned above). This means that, though service techs and engineers are not required to use our product, it is held as the standard for the industry and highly recommended by the engineers in the know about tire pressure.

(BTW, if you know who this man is, please leave a note in the comments, I like to credit people!)



I am no field tech, but I imagine testing tires on multi-ton aircraft may be the most dangerous situation a pressure gauge can get itself into. You saw the Toasted Marshmallow gauge above. Not enough proof?

More proof:

Gauge Wall of Shame

No, my photo isn't stretched. This is one major American airline company's wall of shame. (As the story goes, these puppies, after being run over by airplane tugs, still worked but they couldn't jimmy out the batteries, so they had to scrap 'em.)

So here's the thing. (Again, I'm biased. Disclaimer! I work for this company, and I like 'em!) A lot of folks in the airline industry choose to use analog gauges, and I get that. Given how much gauges are beaten up on the tarmac, and how many of them are used, why would anyone want to buy something expensive and beat that up (our gauges are a few hundred dollars) when you can buy a nice, inexpensive analog gauge for $50?

Besides the obvious answer of safety?
Time.
Money.
Headaches.

Analog gauges have some fantastic features, price being one. But the reality is, after being dropped even a few times, accurate and reliable are no longer features of any poor analog.

One of the things that inspired me to write this post was the picture at the left. It got me thinking: how did that gauge end up on the ground? Was it gently placed there?
I have fixed my car. Do I gently place the wrench on the ground after I loosen the gasket on my oil reservoir? Nope. I toss it to the side so I don't get a face full of oil because I have better things to do than to baby my wrench.
If I were an airplane tech, I'd do the same thing. A gauge is a tool, though an important one.

So if you get a good, solid, rugged digital tool, and you drop it every day, no big deal. We have proven it holds its calibration. But we have also proven that an ultra-ruggedized digital gauge can save money, time, and headaches.

Money because, among other things, highly accurate tire readings decreases tire wear and increases tire life SIGNIFICANTLY.
Oh yeah, and even after a significant amount of wear & tear (and maybe getting run over by a tug), Cecomp digital gauges can be repaired for a nominal cost and be back up and running quickly (we drop-ship!).

Time because you can beat these things up and they're just fine.

Headaches because you don't have to wonder ever again if your gauge is doing what you need it to do. And you won't have to let passengers getting safely to their final destination depend on how greasy your or your techs' hands are.

Bon voyage!