Have you ever had to do something where you got so frustrated that you gave up and said to yourself, “This is impossible?” Did you give up or continue pushing on through it to solve the problem?
I am sure we have all been there at some point in our lives. It is far too easy to give up and throw our hands up in the air when we get frustrated and upset at a situation we cannot solve.
I experienced this recently while working on an obscure install with a navigational radio system in one of our angel flight aircraft. I was installing two things; a navigational radio, and a display for the navigational radio called a CDI, or Course Deviation Indicator. Pilots use these radios and displays to navigate radio stations and airports across the world. My job was to install the entire system and get the new display to read out information from the new nav radio. What seemed like an easy job at first turned out to be a complete nightmare!
I had gone through all the trouble shooting in the manual. I had talked to several avionics install places and not one had installed the specific radio components that I was currently installing. I double checked my wiring at least three or more times to make sure everything was right, yet there was no success in getting the nav radio to display properly on the CDI.
I sent the radio back to the manufacturer and would not you know it – it had a bad receiver! The part of the radio that receives the radio signal was bad. What an object lesson it was when you consider the part in us that is to receive signals from heaven but becomes non-functional and needs replacing. We need a new mind and new heart… to be “at-one-ment” with God.
A bad receiver. Surely this was the culprit behind all my headaches and problems with the system. Once the radio came back from repair, I installed it fully expecting the system to come to life and have everything working as it should. The suspense was killing me! I quickly installed the radio, hooked up my test equipment and powered the system on. No! The same exact problem as before! The CDI was still not displaying the navigational data from the radio properly. And now, it was even worse. My head lowered. My shoulders drooped. I mentally signed off from the whole thing. It was clearly an impossible feat. Or was it?
The nav radio obviously was not the problem, it was in working order with a fresh repair and test by the manufacturer. I was then encouraged to call the manufacturer of the CDI this time. Why? I did not want to do it, because in my mind I had tried everything and even the experienced techs and manufacturer of the nav radio were just as confused as to why it was not working. Why? Why call? So, with much prayer and one last, “Hurrah,” I called up the manufacturer of the CDI (Sandia Aviation) and we set up an appointment with the engineer that designed the gauge.
There is something to be said of setting up an appointment, daily, with the Engineer that designed us and our “gauges.” Sometimes we just cannot figure out that deep issue inside, cannot put it into words, but our Heavenly Engineer, well, He wrote the manual, and He knows just what it will take to restore proper function.
The scheduled video conference call with the engineer soon happened and honestly, I did not expect much; but to our delight (Pastor Ric was on the call too), the engineer stumbled onto a simplistic answer that made everything come to light. The radio was not properly matched to the CDI readout, causing them to be so far out of tolerance that the two pretty much refused to cooperate with each other.
That concept of “matching,” and “being out of tolerance” reminds me of the importance of being unified as the body of Christ; filled with His Spirit. If we are so out of tolerance to the point we refuse to work together, we are not matched, nor able to reflect Christ to the world. We need daily recalibration with God, a filling of His Spirit to be unified with Him and our brothers and sisters.
Once we matched up the CDI with the nav radio it worked much better and allowed us to calibrate the two together for the first time. We got the navigational side of the CDI working and calibrated, but there was one last problem…
We had a flag on the display that should not have been there. That flag was for something called a back course (BC) flag. This flag is an indicator to a pilot should they fly into the runway from the wrong end – as navigational radios are a one-way thing. With the BC flag illuminated it was causing our glide slope indication (part of the display that guides the pilot to a runway on a vertical plane) to not work. Back to the radio manufacturer I went.
After talking with the manufacturer, I found out that the installation manual and wiring instructions had a misprint and showed an output for the BC flag from the radio when the radio did not have any such capability. I simply unhooked the BC wire from the radio… POOF! The display came to life! Everything now worked and my prayers were answered.
What lessons I had learned.
Never give up! Even when things seem impossible.
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”. Romans 5:3-5
The navigational system is continuing to serve its purpose in one of our angel flight aircraft. And it is probably one of the most accurate systems we have in use. Not only did I learn some things, but I also helped others find out how it could be done. Both manufacturers learned from my endeavor to do something that I initially thought would never work. And who knows, because of my trials and experience, someone else may not have to suffer through the frustrations I did if they encounter the same situation.
I encourage you to have the endurance to push through what may seem impossible. Your victory in the end could help someone else to gain victory too. If you just cannot handle it anymore, look up! You, too, can rely on the Great Engineer to help you through.
Submitted by Kyle Stevenson, A&P, IA
