Wire Installation & AC 43.13
According to AC 43.13-1B, a wire bundle should be routed above fluid lines and maintain a minimum clearance of this many inches from them.
What is 6 inches?
This heavy-duty copper or aluminum strip acts as a centralized power hub, receiving power from generators and distributing it to individual circuit breakers.
What is a bus bar?
According to FAA regulations, the position/navigation light mounted on the wingtip of the right wing must be this color.
What is green?
This safety switch, mounted on the landing gear shock strut, opens the gear retraction circuit when the aircraft is on the ground.
What is the squat switch (or landing gear safety switch / weight-on-wheels switch)?
This type of switch is designed to spring back to its original position as soon as the technician releases pressure from the button.
What is a momentary switch?
What is 1/2 inch?
This specific component on twin-engine aircraft automatically cross-connects the left and right main buses if one generator fails.
What is a bus tie relay (or bus tie contactor)?
This high-intensity discharge or LED light system flashes repeatedly to increase aircraft visibility and is usually located on the tail cone and wingtips.
What is a strobe light (or anti-collision light)?
An aircraft landing gear warning horn will typically activate if the landing gear is not down and locked and this cockpit control is retarded past a set point.
What is the throttle (or power lever)?
This multi-position rotary switch is used in dual-battery or dual-generator setups to allow a pilot to manually isolate a single power source.
What is a selector switch?
When splicing an aircraft wire, a technician is restricted from placing a splice within this minimum distance from any termination device or clamp.
What is 12 inches?
Large aircraft use this device to change 115V AC alternator power into 28V DC power for the essential bus.
What is a Transformer Rectifier Unit (TRU)?
To prevent high-power runway illumination circuits from melting standard panel switches, technicians use this component to switch the actual landing light load.
What is a relay (or solenoid)?
This type of proximity sensor, common on modern airframe landing gear, detects metal targets without physical contact to confirm if a gear is locked.
What is an eddy current (or inductive proximity) sensor?
To prevent a pilot from accidentally activating critical systems like the emergency fire bottles, the airframe toggle switch uses this hardware protection.
What is a guarded switch cover?
This specific electrical bonding standard requires that the structural resistance across a bonded airframe joint must not exceed this fraction of an ohm.
What is 0.003 ohms?
To protect alternating current systems, this unit monitors generator variables (like phase and frequency) and trips the generator off-line if faults occur.
What is a Generator Control Unit (GCU)?
This component must be installed in a windshield anti-ice heating circuit to cycle power on and off, preventing the glass layers from overheating.
What is a thermistor (or temperature controller)?
If an aircraft flight deck indicates a green light for landing gear status, it means the gear is in this specific physical state.
What is down and locked?
This component uses physical contact with a moving aircraft component (like a flap or speed brake) to break or make an electrical circuit path.
What is a limit switch?
When selecting wire size for an airframe modification, this physical limitation factor governs the selection for short wire runs, rather than voltage drop.
What is current-carrying capacity?
This critical safety relay automatically drops non-essential cabin loads (like galleys or IFE) during an in-flight engine or generator failure.
What is a load-shedding relay?
This unique airframe system utilizes an electrical timer assembly to sequentially cycle power to rubber boot heating elements on the propeller blades.
What is a prop de-ice timer (or distributor switch)?
In a split-bus landing gear motor circuit, this component must be wired in series with the retraction switch to ensure the nose gear door is fully open before the gear begins moving.
What is a nose gear door sequence switch?
This specific type of circuit breaker cannot be forced to reset or held down if a severe short circuit is actively present on the line.
What is a trip-free circuit breaker?