All due respects to engineers I am always suspicious of an aircraft that has just come out of maintenance.
Very true. I had my fair share with that. You mechanics make mistakes. So do we pilots. But often the mechs mistakes are invisible until one tries to fly.
A short list of what has happened to me in just 20 years.
1) Fuel line in tank not put together properly. Found out after repositioning from maintenance and refuelling. (and then leaking like hell) Could have been a torch.
2) Outflow valve not connected.
3) Janitrol heater: ignitor taken out, cleaned and not put back in.
4) Phase on engines not done but documented. Came to light as no sample results came back from spectral analyses.
5) Fold up seat harnesses in KingAir fitted by simply drilling a hole in aft pressure bulkhead and puttiing screws through these, quite contrary to the instructions of Beech. Found out 8 years later when cabin was refurbished!
6) Wrong pressure gauge changed and wrongly documented (aks to change emer blow down bottle gauge and emer brake bottle gauge was exchanged)
7) Wrong material used on a bleed line. resulted in hot air leaving said tube after 15 minutes of flight....
8) Engines after overhaul completely misrigged (PT-6) Papers signed!!!
9) Whitnessed an engine run up trial with the fuel nozzles not secured. Fuel spray all over the place.
10) Trim cable on CJ misrigged, trim was hard to operate.
11) Airplane that I flew on fell of stands because of improper securing (Citation III)
And a lot more of little things that were forgotten or done wrongly.
Again, we all make mistakes. Before you go one and say that all of this probably happened at smallish mx providers....all of these things happened at very well known mx facilities just like AeroDienst, RUAG, JetAviation, Beech service center etc.
OTOH I have seen pilots do things....
This post is intended to make folks aware of the need to be very cautious when accepting aeroplanes from maintenance, not slagging engineers.
A lot of pilots just come and take the airplane from the shop....