Let's plan a theoretical test case. At a minimum, you'd need two maintenance guys, maybe one and a pair of tools. One guy to tweak the sensor outside (as several hundred mile per hour airstreams aren't exactly in plentiful supply, or easy and trivial to reconfigure in a hangar near you), and a guy in the cockpit, reading off the measurement on the computer against some sort of calibration chart.
The "tweaking" part would probably be done with some sort of precision test mount (that I doubt they even build into the plane.)
Also, odds are, you'd only detect very specific types of disagrees on the ground. Bad springs should be trivially deducible from the forces required to create measurable deflections.
Bad potentiometer connections should be deduceable from checking output voltage against the component spec sheet while deflecting.
Unfortunately, this dive into Electrical Engineering won't stop until you've taken into account every length of wire and eventually, every circuit board and line of code between that sensor and the avionics suite. If some FOD for instance, was slowly wearing through the wiring and insulation leading from the sensor to the computer, or an inductive cross-talk event occurred, or something shorted. Etc, etc.
And all of this work and diagnostics would need to be done by someone whose documentation told them the AoA sensor was a non-critical component so the manufacturer could cut corners.
Oh yes.
<double facepalm>
Been here before.
Way.
Too.
Many.
Times.
Not in safety critical systems , mind, but oh the web's I've seen woven.
Let's plan a theoretical test case. At a minimum, you'd need two maintenance guys, maybe one and a pair of tools. One guy to tweak the sensor outside (as several hundred mile per hour airstreams aren't exactly in plentiful supply, or easy and trivial to reconfigure in a hangar near you), and a guy in the cockpit, reading off the measurement on the computer against some sort of calibration chart.
The "tweaking" part would probably be done with some sort of precision test mount (that I doubt they even build into the plane.)
Also, odds are, you'd only detect very specific types of disagrees on the ground. Bad springs should be trivially deducible from the forces required to create measurable deflections.
Bad potentiometer connections should be deduceable from checking output voltage against the component spec sheet while deflecting.
Unfortunately, this dive into Electrical Engineering won't stop until you've taken into account every length of wire and eventually, every circuit board and line of code between that sensor and the avionics suite. If some FOD for instance, was slowly wearing through the wiring and insulation leading from the sensor to the computer, or an inductive cross-talk event occurred, or something shorted. Etc, etc.
And all of this work and diagnostics would need to be done by someone whose documentation told them the AoA sensor was a non-critical component so the manufacturer could cut corners.
Oh yes. <double facepalm> Been here before. Way. Too. Many. Times.
Not in safety critical systems , mind, but oh the web's I've seen woven.