Sedan Wing spar AD is now official

[joea]

Well folks, the wing spar AD is now official. AD 2012-04-10 - Small Airplane/Rogers, Burl A./15AC is now on the books.

Just received it a few minutes ago and there is good and bad.

The good is that its not effective for another month and gives us a year (or next annual) to bend over and take it like a man.

The not so good is that they did not give a damm about any of the AMOC (alternative means of compliance) and there is none. There were 11 posters who asked for and provided an AMOC that would have inspected the spar cap area without putting 18 large holes in our wings but the FAA once again disagreed, saying that they did not have "written guideance for doing a borescope inspection at this time." BS, as I have seen the AMOC sent into the ANC FSDO and it was included in the documents.

For that matter they did not agree with ANY of the comments that any of the Sedan owners or maintenance professionals posts. Not one of them...

As well at this time as far as I can see there is no other option than to buy the covers from one source.

Now, I have received an email from someone I will not name and they told me that the identical inspection covers just might be available from another source and for less than half the listed price from the other source, so that helps. Have also heard that a Sedan owner has made a device that helps cut the holes for the inspection covers and that he might be willing to loan it out to us, and that would help.

This is a sad day in the Sedan world... An AD for absolutely no reason!

Joe A

[Carl Prather]

Joe,

Has anyone owned a flying Sedan with the claimed exfoliation damage? It would interesting to learn which specific Sedans had this problem. I wonder if an AMOC could not be demonstrated using a video showing the use a Borescope? $800+ should buy a pretty nice borescope. I would like to see some substantiated proof rather than "reports" as shown in the AD.

Sorry, Joe, about the AD on such a nice airplane. I bet a six-pack you'll find nothing corrosion-wise in your wings.

Carl

[Paul Agaliotis]

Well it looks like I'm in the market for a Sedan. With the new AD just issued, I'd be a buyer at about $8,000. Thanks to all parties responsible, I feel safer now.
Paul

[poulter1]

All,

I just spoke with Mr. Asay at the ACO in Alaska. Now that the AD is published the rules the FAA operates under have changed. I believe that it will be much easier to work with them to get an AMOC approved. I will provide more information as I get it. In the mean time it might be best to hold off on the nasty comments about the FAA in AK. They do read this forum.

V/R,

John Poulter

[joea]

Joe,

Has anyone owned a flying Sedan with the claimed exfoliation damage? It would interesting to learn which specific Sedans had this problem. I wonder if an AMOC could not be demonstrated using a video showing the use a Borescope? $800+ should buy a pretty nice borescope. I would like to see some substantiated proof rather than "reports" as shown in the AD.

Sorry, Joe, about the AD on such a nice airplane. I bet a six-pack you'll find nothing corrosion-wise in your wings.

Carl

Carl,

Not ONE flying airplane has been found with corrosion. As well in the letter posted on the Burls Aircraft website it is still saying "there have been at least 34 wings that had corrosion," something that has been admitted to be incorrect, but its still posted for everyone to see!

As for the reports, there have been four M&D reports on Aeronca Sedans. FOUR reports total, and two of them were in the 1970's. Two recent ones in the last 20 years and one of them was dealing with "nails in the wooden spars"... which is interesting because Sedans have metal spars and the submitter confused a Chief and a Sedan. There has not been ONE M&D report about Sedans and ANY spar or wing issues, not a single one, yet now we have an AD out for it.

Am as well guessing that in a year when all of the Sedans have been inspected that they will find absolutely nothing unless the plane has been on floats.

Thx,

Joe A

[joea]

Well it looks like I'm in the market for a Sedan. With the new AD just issued, I'd be a buyer at about $8,000. Thanks to all parties responsible, I feel safer now.
Paul

Paul,

You are spot on! Prices went down a good 20% after the first reports of this crap came out, now it very well may go down even more. Hope everyone is happy now!

Joe A

[joea]

All,

I just spoke with Mr. Asay at the ACO in Alaska. Now that the AD is published the rules the FAA operates under have changed. I believe that it will be much easier to work with them to get an AMOC approved. I will provide more information as I get it. In the mean time it might be best to hold off on the nasty comments about the FAA in AK. They do read this forum.

V/R,

John Poulter

Thanks for the help and good to chat with you this afternoon.

Joe A

[Paul Agaliotis]

Joe,
All kidding aside, I would say the replacement of the angles would be in the neighborhood of 12K per wing. These wings come apart in a specific order and that just takes time. The shop rate quoted is a little low in CA.
When you have a repair that costs half the value of the airplane people tend to walk away from them. Even with a fresh restoration, new engine and the new angles the airplane would be a tough sell at 50K. It's a great airplane but not 50K great. They tried to build new planes and didn't have much success.
Joe I hope you can get an AMOC for the repair. We deal with a bunch of extrusion manufactures at work, Tiernay Metals for one. They may have the exact extrusion you need for repair or can make it for you. I know who would be at the bottom of my list for getting parts from.
Follow the Money and you'll find the Truth.
Paul

[Nathan K. Hammond]

They're getting into my price range now.

It does make the Aeronca crowd feel raw in the rear.

nkh

[joea]

Paul,

Am hearing the same things from all over the country. This has really gutted the Sedan market and hope that the people responsible for this are happy.

Regarding parts, well lets just say that only two out of the 25+ calls and emails I received yesterday said that they were buying the parts from the company who started this mess, the rest were either using the "owner produced" rules, buying then elsewhere or waiting for the AMOC to come out.

The AMOC is already in the works, in fact it was done and sent into the FSDO over a year ago but they did not accept it. Now that the AD is out and they can talk about it, we know what additional material they need and and are working on it right now.

What I really want to see are the results that we will have in 12 months of how many ACTUAL cases of corrosion are found. The TC holder still has the letter on their website saying "there have been 34 cases of corrosion found" when its been admitted afterwards that this is NOT the case. More like 2-3 cases but the letter is still up there putting false information out to the public. Then and only then will we see that this AD was not IMHO needed in the first place.

Joe A

[Paul Agaliotis]

Joe,
Let me know what I can do on this end. I think Aryana still has his wings apart if we need to look inside. There was no corrosion, but since it was a heap in the floor I think the angles are to be changed.

It's also funny that this all started with a perceived corrosion issue. But the way it's worded you can't even fix a crack that wasn't corrosion related without replacement.

The FAA needs to understand that as the number of GA pilots and aircraft shrink so will the number of employees needed. Maybe this needs to be brought to the attention of our elected officials. And if the FAA processes are being used to stimulate private sector revenue increases, the people involved should be prosecuted. I think this needs to be further investigated. It sounds like a simple "pump and dump" scheme. Create a scenario that requires your product and regulate it into existence, regardless of the facts.
Paul