Analog vs digital pitot testers - found my winner after a few years

I used a digital pitot static tester for about 3 years on corporate jets and kept fighting with it failing calibration checks. Switched to an older analog Schwien unit from the 90s and it's been rock solid for 18 months now with zero drift issues. The digital one cost me $2,200 used and the analog was $800 at a surplus auction near Dayton. Anyone else go back to older gear for reliability?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean481d ago

Did you ever run into the issue where the digital one would just spit out a random error during a leak test for no reason? I had a Barfield unit that would fail self checks every other week and the calibration lab just shrugged. The old analog stuff might be ugly and heavy but it just works. My shop still has a Schwien from like 1988 and it hasn't been touched except for a new hose. Sometimes the new tech is just more headaches.

juliaa6518h agoMost Upvoted

Right there with you, our old analog stuff never gives us grief but the digital ones act up constantly.

miaprice16h ago

That Schwien from '88 is probably outlasting new units made last year. The digital stuff packs so many features into one box that when one little sensor goes bad the whole thing throws a fit. Calibration labs shrug because the software is a black box, nobody knows how to actually fix it without sending it back. Analog stuff is just a straight line from the circuit to the gauge, simple and honest. New tech feels like it fights you every step of the way.