As a former aviator I would guess that every other pilot on here is very sensitive to the equipment we all flew. I was never able to prevent every equipment failure in-flight, but I probably was able to correct a lot by paying attention to what the plane was telling me. If a gauge was different by as little as a needle width I wanted to know why because it might be the first sign something is starting to fail.

I try to be as aware of clues that are forecasting a problem in the bus in the same way, but despite my best efforts there is so much going on in the bus I am not always succeessful. I posted earlier that if we take the time to measure our AC discharge and return air readings and record them we can probably predict when our AC systems need attention. Unfortunately we can spend hours gathering and recording data and stuff will still happen. This summer appears to have been a true test of our coach's AC systems. And when our AC systems are really needed none of us wants to find out they need service. Ditto with our generators, engines, etc.

But how many problems with AC systems as an example were predictable? My plane like a lot of others had a scanner or engine monitor. It had sensors which made it possible to read the cylinder head temperatures, exhaust gas temperatures, turbine inlet temperatures, etc. That information was available as the plane was flying and it could be downloiaded to a computer and displayed as raw data or as a graph. What was very important about the ability to have such data was that once a baseline was established, deviations from the norm could be used to diagnose or predict problems. There wasn't much going on in the plane that I did not know or have access to.

I am not going to outfit my coach with sensors and track the data from all the things in the coach. It would be information overload. But what everybody seems to be experiencing this summer with unanticipated AC problems might be avoided if I start making AC system data logging part of my routine maintenance. I will not be able to predict a compressor failure, but I should be able to identify a loss of refrigerant, dirty filters, and other changes that might be signs of an impending issue. Most of the problems we encounter with our AC systems seem to be related to loss of refrigerant or dirty filters, with motor problems lagging somewhere behind in terms of frequency.

So as soon as I can I am going to create a data logging sheet to include with my regular service to see if AC system failures are predictable to a certain extent. I am not worried about data tracking on my engine or generator as much because most if not all the data is already available, including oil pressures, engine temps, voltage output, etc.

Who knows? Maybe if this turns out to be worthwhile, future coaches can be set up with displays or data logging capability to make this information available so we all can predict low refrigerant levels and get them adjusted when we don't need our AC systems.