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Rant: stop testing pitot heat with your hand, use a meter or you will miss a shorted element
I keep seeing techs do the touch test on pitot tubes during preflight checks and it drives me up the wall. Last Tuesday I watched a guy at our hangar in Wichita pass a heat check by feel, and that same tube failed a resistance check the next morning at 12.4 ohms when it should have read between 8 and 10. The element was shorting internally and only heating on one side, so his palm felt warmth and he signed it off. A meter takes 30 seconds and catches the partial failures your hand never will. I have found 3 bad elements this year that way and every one of them passed the touch test first. What are you guys using for pitot heat checks, and has anyone else caught a shorted element that felt fine?
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