From: dst+@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Subject: The Beast flies again
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 00:03:56 GMT


And now, we bring you part 3 of a painfully continuing series...

		TRIALS OF THE BEAST

The Beast is flying again, using a temporary repair to the nose wheel
centering spring.  In the process, I've learned some interesting things
about both Piper and the FAA.

First, Piper.  When I talked to their customer service rep this past Monday,
she told me that they currently had 50 of these hard-to-find parts in
production.  Her computer records showed that they had previously sold a
batch of 15 of them in April, and a batch of 16 three months before that.
As of Monday, they had none in stock and 42 back orders for the part, but
according to her records, none of them were AOG orders; they were just parts
dealers looking to replenish their stock.

[Acronum note:  AOG = Aircraft On the Ground.  In other words, a plane that
is grounded for need of a critical part.]

I had a hard time believing that they hadn't received a single AOG order for
this part, but then again, my own mechanic hadn't placed one either, since
it appeared that it would take too long for such an order to be filled.  We
were going to try to fabricate a replacement ourselves.

The impression I get from Piper is that right now, when someone orders
non-urgent parts, they just file the order and wait; they will not get
around to making the part until they have orders for a large batch.  This
might be where the "up to 18 months delay" figure came from that somebody at
Piper quoted to my mechanic two weeks ago.  HOWEVER, she also said that when
they get an urgent (AOG) order, they immediately contact their production
folks and try to schedule a production run of the part.  It could take up to
7 weeks to get the part made, but they can get back to the customer with a
projected availability date in at most 2-3 days.  So, I'm theorizing that
perhaps when my mechanic called Piper he didn't make it clear that he needed
the part for an AOG situation.

Piper now says that they will be shipping new nose gear centering springs
sometime next week.  My order is on file, and, per the sevice rep's advice,
I made sure that when my mechanic placed the order he emphasized in capital
letters that it was URGENTLY NEEDED FOR AN AOG AIRCRAFT.  She said this
would give me priority in case they weren't able to fill all the orders
they had received.

The woman also confirmed that it was not Piper's policy to release materials
specs on parts they manufacture.  However, from talking to a couple of
professors in the metallurgy department here, I found it would be pretty
easy to get a lab analysis showing the chemical makeup (hence, the grade of
steel used) and hardness (hence, the type of heat treatment used), so if I
have to fabricate parts in the future, this shouldn't be an obstacle.

In summary, although things at Piper are bad -- up to seven weeks delay for
a critical part is pretty darn bad -- they aren't nearly as insane as I
originally thought.  I'm glad I held off sending that letter to the Aviation
Consumer.

................

Now, on to the FAA.  Initially, my mechanic's original position was that the
centering spring could not be repaired by welding.  He found a guy down in
Florida making unauthorized repairs (presumably by welding), and the folks
from the local FSDO were very interested in this, i.e., they might want to
bust the guy.

But yesterday, my mechanic welded my own broken part, put it back on the
airplane, did a gear retraction test, and released the airplane to me for a
taxi test.  I did some tight donuts on the upper west ramp, he checked the
part to make sure it wasn't damaged by sharp taxi turns, and then he cleared
me to go flying.  And I did.  A further postflight check revealed no
problems.

How is this legal, you ask????  Well...

What's legal is whatever the FAA says is legal.  In my case, the mechanic
got a local FSDO inspector to personally inspect the welded part and agree
that the weld was okay as a temporary repair, until my new part comes in
from Piper.

The local FSDO guys weren't eager to do this; my mechanic had to twist their
arms quite a bit.  One guy wanted to kick the matter up to the regional
office in New York, but in several other recent cases the regional guys have
proven themselves to be obstructionist bureaucratic hose-heads, so my
mechanic wouldn't accept that solution.  Nobody really doubted that this
particular weld was a safe repair, but nobody wanted to stick their neck out
either; after all, there is always some risk in saying "yes", and it costs
nothing to say "no".  But in this case the FAA took a look and finally said
"yes, as a temporary fix."  So I'm flying again.

A couple of important lessons here.  First, when the FAA says "no", it isn't
always the final word.  If you show them you're doing everything possible to
resolve a problem but you don't have any better alternatives, they can be
persuaded to cooperate on matters that require a judgement call.  Second, it
can pay to use a well-connected maintenance outfit.  My FBO is the biggest
one on the field and does maintenance on everything from two-seat trainers
to huge bizjets.  They spend a lot of time dealing with the FSDO maintenance
guys, which gave them the leverage to push through approval of this weld
repair.

The other nosewheel centering spring (the golden one from England that only
lasted 3 days before a tug operator broke it) is being welded now, so when
this incident is over I'll have two spares.

After flying various unfamiliar rental stuff for the last 3 weeks (a nice
Cherokee Six, a doggy Archer, and a mediocre Mooney), it's wonderful to be
back in my own Beast again.

-- Dave Touretzky,  CFI-AIM,  Seneca N8147E (``The Welded Beast'')
Newsgroups: rec.aviation