Why does nobody talk about the shift from visual inspections to borescope-first on turbine blades?

I started in this trade back in 2012 at a regional shop in Omaha, and back then we did a visual inspection first, like every single time. You'd pull the cowling, grab a flashlight, and poke around with a mirror if you had to. Fast forward to last year at my current gig, and now we go straight for the borescope before touching anything, like it's the new normal. The change happened around 2018 or so when the engine manufacturers started pushing these high-res scopes with video capture. On one hand, it saves time on tear-downs for minor nicks, but on the other hand, I've caught myself missing subtle cracks that a good visual sweep would have spotted. My old foreman swears the borescope makes us lazy, but younger guys say it's just being efficient. What's your take, do you still do a visual once-over before pulling out the scope, or did the industry leave that behind?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix_grant3411d ago

Cracked myself up the other day pulling out my borescope and realizing I left the memory card at home, so I had to go old school with a flashlight and mirror like it was 2012 all over again. My foreman got a good laugh watching me squint at a blade tip for twenty minutes while the scope sat useless in my pocket. Honestly, I still do a quick visual sweep before the scope just out of habit, but I'll admit the high-res video capture catches stuff my aging eyes miss now.

logan_young2911d ago

I did that same thing two winters ago with my Milwaukee M12 borescope. Had to drive forty minutes back home to grab the SD card because the foreman wasn't about to let me use a mirror and a flashlight on a GE frame 7FA gas turbine combustor liner. Ended up wasting an hour of OT just because I didn't double check my kit before I left the shop. At least your foreman thought it was funny mine just gave me the silent treatment the whole ride. Now I keep a spare SD card in my lunchbox just in case.

jamesroberts11d ago

Haha I feel that "old school with a flashlight" bit hard. I mean, I've literally gone back to the truck to grab my old Streamlight because my borescope wouldn't focus on a tiny crack I knew was there (after staring at it for ten minutes like an idiot). The high-res stuff is great don't get me wrong, but I swear my eyes trained on worn blade tips from years of squinting catch things the scope just skips over, especially in the shadows where it's all glare. But then again, I also once spent a whole shift chasing a "crack" that turned out to be a piece of fuzz on the lens, so maybe I'm not the best judge of what's actually efficient here.