A 30-year vet told me torque wrenches are for 'confidence', not accuracy

Last month at the hangar in Tulsa, an old-timer named Dave watched me torque a landing gear bolt and just laughed. He said he spent 20 years doing it by feel and only stripped one lug nut in his whole career, so he calls torque wrenches "confidence builders" for guys who don't trust their hands. That hit different because I was trained in a school that drilled torque values into us like scripture, and here was a guy who'd flown everything from Cessnas to 737s with zero issues doing it his way. I didn't argue, but I pulled out my calibration log and showed him the 14% drift on my old snap-on that I'd been using for months, which I only caught because I checked it after dropping it on the tarmac. He went quiet, then said maybe he should start checking his own tools, but honestly it made me wonder how many of us are out there with gear that's just slightly off and we don't know it. When was the last time you actually verified your torque wrench's calibration, or do you just trust the click?

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