Finally caved and tried a borescope on a Pratt 700, man was I wrong about those things

I always thought borescopes were just for the fancy engine shops or guys who had money to burn. Then a senior mechanic at my hangar in Atlanta let me borrow his Olympus one last month to check a stubborn hot section crack on a PW150A. Took me about 10 minutes to find a hairline fracture that I'd missed with a mirror and flashlight twice before. Has anyone else had a tool they wrote off for years that turned into a must have after just one job?

3 comments

3 Comments

brianreed1mo ago

Second that @owens.anthony, cheap ones just piss you off.

jamieb801mo ago

Man I gotta push back a little here @brianreed. Is it really that big of a deal if the screen is a little small or fuzzy? I've been using the same $60 borescope from Amazon for like 3 years now and it works fine for poking around in engine bays and checking for blockages. Sure the picture isn't 4K HD but it shows me cracks and debris well enough. Maybe I just have low standards but spending $400 on a tool I use twice a year feels like overkill when a cheap one gets the job done. Seems like one of those things where people get caught up in having the absolute best gear when a basic model works for 90 percent of the stuff we actually need it for.

owens.anthony1mo ago

Borrowed a cheap one from a buddy years ago to check a Robin engine in a homebuilt, couldn't see jack squat because the screen was like looking through a dirty straw. Wrote them off completely until I got my hands on a VP Scope with the articulating tip and realized it's like the difference between a flip phone and a smartphone. The secret is you really do get what you pay for, a $200 one will just waste your time and make you mad. Now I keep a middle of the road one in my box and use it for stuff I never would have bothered with before, like checking inside baffling or exhaust manifolds for hidden cracks.