Common Squawks and How to Track Them

If you’ve owned a GA aircraft for any length of time, you know what a squawk is: something that’s not quite right. Maybe it’s a sticky fuel selector, a nav light that flickers on the ground but works fine in the air, or a slow oil leak that leaves a few drops on the hangar floor after every flight. None of them grounded you today — but left untracked, any one of them could ground you at the worst possible time.

The term “squawk” comes from the maintenance world and simply means a discrepancy or complaint — something the pilot notices and wants the mechanic to look at. Squawks range from cosmetic annoyances to genuine safety concerns. The challenge for owner-operators isn’t finding squawks; it’s keeping track of them between flights and making sure the important ones get addressed before they escalate.

The squawks every GA pilot knows

While every aircraft is different, certain squawks appear over and over across the GA fleet. If you fly a piston single or light twin, you’ve probably dealt with at least a few of these.

• Oil consumption above normal — worn rings, valve guides, or leaking gaskets. High priority.
• Rough-running engine at idle — fouled spark plugs, misadjusted idle mixture, induction leak. High priority.
• Sticky or stiff flight controls — cable tension, pulley wear, lack of lubrication. High priority.
• Landing light or nav light out — burned bulb, loose connection, corroded socket. Medium priority.
• Avionics intermittent or rebooting — loose wiring, voltage regulator issues, grounding fault. Medium priority.
• Brake pedal soft or uneven — low brake fluid, air in the line, worn pads or linings. High priority.
• Door seal whistling in flight — worn or compressed door seal, misaligned latch. Low priority.
• Fuel gauge reading inaccurately — sender unit wear, wiring fault, calibration drift. Medium priority.
• Static in radio or intercom — antenna connection, shielding, headset jack wear. Low priority.
• Tire wear or low pressure — misalignment, hard landings, slow leak at valve stem. Medium priority.

Some of these are fly-or-don’t decisions. A rough-running engine or stiff controls need attention before the next flight. Others — like a whistling door seal — are annoyances you can schedule for the next shop visit. The key is knowing which is which, and not losing track of the ones you defer.

Why squawks get lost

Most pilots notice squawks during preflight or in flight. The problem is what happens next. You land, tie down, drive home — and by the time you’re back at the airport for your next flight, that flickering nav light has slipped your mind. Or you remember it but can’t recall when it started, whether it’s getting worse, or what your A&P said about it last time.

The mental note trap: You notice during run-up that the left magneto drop is slightly higher than usual — still within limits, but a change from what you’ve been seeing. You make a mental note to mention it to your A&P. Three flights later, you can’t remember whether it was the left or right mag, and you’re not sure if the drop was 125 RPM or 175 RPM. Was it on the last flight, or the one before? Without a written record, your mechanic has nothing to go on except “it seemed a little rough on one mag a few flights ago.” That’s not enough context for an efficient diagnosis.

This happens to everyone. Squawks that don’t get written down within a few minutes of noticing them have a way of becoming vague memories rather than actionable items.

What a good squawk list looks like

An effective squawk list doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need a few things to be useful.

Date and tach time when noticed. This establishes when the issue first appeared and lets you and your A&P track whether it’s stable, worsening, or intermittent. “Oil consumption went from 6 quarts per hour to 8 quarts per hour over the last 20 tach hours” is far more useful than “it seems to be burning more oil.”

Specific description. “Engine rough” isn’t enough. “Left magneto drop was 175 RPM at 1700 RPM run-up, compared to typical 100 RPM drop” gives your mechanic something to work with.

Priority level. Not every squawk is equal. A stiff aileron cable is a higher priority than a scratched wingtip fairing. Marking each squawk as high, medium, or low priority helps you decide what to address immediately versus what can wait for the next scheduled maintenance.

Status tracking. Once you write a squawk, you need to track it through resolution. Did you report it to your A&P? Is it scheduled for repair? Was it addressed and signed off? A squawk that lives permanently on your list as “open” is a squawk that’s being ignored.

Pro tip: Record squawks right after you shut down the engine — while the details are fresh. Even a quick note on your phone is better than trusting your memory. Transfer it to your full tracking system within 24 hours.

The annual inspection connection

Your squawk list becomes especially valuable at annual inspection time. When your A&P or IA opens up the aircraft, they’re going to find things. But if you walk in with a running squawk list, you’ve given them a head start — they know what you’ve already noticed, when each issue started, and what the trend looks like.

This saves everyone time and money. Your mechanic isn’t discovering issues cold; they’re verifying and diagnosing items you’ve already identified. If you’ve tracked that oil consumption has been rising over the last 50 hours, they know to pay close attention to the cylinders from the start rather than spending time elsewhere first.

Paper notes vs. digital tracking

Plenty of pilots keep squawk notes in a small notebook they leave in the aircraft. It works, but it has real limitations: notes get out of order, there’s no way to sort by priority, you can’t search for a specific item, and the notebook stays in the airplane when you’re at home trying to schedule a shop visit.

Paper / sticky notes:

• Easy to lose or damage
• No priority sorting — everything is a flat list
• Can’t share with your A&P unless you’re in the same room
• No timestamps unless you manually write them
• Hard to track status (open, in progress, resolved)
• No photos — you’re describing what you saw in words

Digital squawk tracking:

• Accessible from anywhere — phone, tablet, or computer
• Sort and filter by priority, date, or status
• Share your list with your A&P before the shop visit
• Automatic timestamps with tach/Hobbs time
• Clear status workflow: open → reported → scheduled → resolved
• Attach photos of what you’re seeing

The point isn’t that paper is bad — it’s that squawks have a lifecycle. They start as observations, become work items, and eventually get resolved and documented. A tracking system that mirrors that lifecycle keeps things from falling through the cracks.

When a squawk becomes grounding

Not every squawk is a grounding item, but knowing where the line is matters. Under 14 CFR 91.213, if an instrument or piece of equipment required for the specific type of flight operation is inoperative, the aircraft may not be flown (with certain exceptions outlined in that regulation and the aircraft’s equipment list).

For example, a burned-out position light doesn’t ground you for daytime VFR flight — but it does for night flight. An inoperative transponder doesn’t prevent you from flying in Class G airspace, but per 14 CFR 91.215(b) it prevents flight in Class A, B, or C airspace, above 10,000 feet MSL, and within the Mode C veil around Class B airports (with exceptions per ATC authorization).

Your squawk list should note whether a given item affects the aircraft’s airworthiness or operational limitations. When a squawk crosses from “annoying” to “potentially grounding,” that’s a different urgency level entirely.

Important: Determining whether a squawk is a grounding item requires judgment that accounts for the specific aircraft, its equipment list, the type of operation, and applicable regulations. When in doubt, consult your A&P mechanic before the next flight. Your squawk list is a tracking tool — it is not a substitute for professional maintenance judgment.

Making squawk tracking a habit

The best squawk tracking system is the one you actually use. Here are a few habits that make it sustainable.

Record immediately after shutdown. Before you close the hangar or leave the ramp, take 60 seconds to log anything you noticed. The detail you capture now is worth ten times what you’ll remember tomorrow.

Review before every flight. Glance at your open squawk list during preflight. This refreshes your awareness of known issues and lets you check whether anything has changed.

Prioritize ruthlessly. Not everything needs to be fixed right now. But everything needs to be tracked and assigned a priority. The worst outcome isn’t having a long squawk list — it’s having a short one because you stopped writing things down.

Close the loop. When a squawk is resolved, mark it as such and note who did the work, when, and at what tach time. This creates a maintenance history you can reference later if the same issue recurs.

This is one of the things we built TachMinder to handle. Every aircraft in TachMinder has a dedicated squawk list where you can log issues, assign priorities, attach photos, and track each item from discovery through resolution. When you send a pre-visit summary to your A&P, your open squawks are included automatically — so your mechanic shows up already knowing what you’ve been seeing.