Dawley Aviation

[Igor_U]

 

I had a couple of good experience sending parts of the exhaust system to Dawley aviation in WI and decided to send them my exhaust for OH while waiting for the reman engine to arrive (ETA is now in May).

Few days I had made a call to Dawley, got some preliminary pricing from a person I didn’t deal before, so I sent the whole system to them.

Today I received a call form Kurt and Dawley telling me they were sold to Tailwinds Technologies (parent of Hartzell, Plane power and number of other companies) and they are closing as they have duplicated capacities. All the work and phone calls to their 800-number goes to Aerospace Welding Minneapolis (AWM).

 

What surprised me was that person I spoke to (unbeknownst to me) at AWM never mentioned that and for some reason my exhaust today ended up at Dawley not AWM (UPS error). They can’t fix it as all the tools and fixtures are gone to AWM.

Not sure what to expect but now they have my parts, for better or worse. I’ll follow up when I get the exhaust back with my experience. I was assured by AWM they’ll contact me when they get package from Dawley and turnaround is 8-9 days.

Has anyone dealt with them in a past?

 

It seems corporate restructuring and acquisitions in aerospace are alive and well not only in the big boy league (see Boeing, Raytheon, L3, Northrop) but also with little guys. I’m not really pleased as there’s less options for my employment as well as no competition with GA parts… All parts and OH’s more than doubled since I own my Mooney while my salary certainly hasn’t.

 

Regards,

[67 m20F chump]

I thought the guy who owned Dawley retired.  They did great work for a reasonable price.  I’m sure the new shop will be glad to charge you more.

[DanM20C]

I have been a Dawley customer for a long time too.  I received a flyer a few months back announcing his retirement and the referral to aerospace welding.  I just had AWM overhaul my entire 231 exhaust.  I think the prices were fair(comparable to Dawley’s recent prices), craftsmanship appears good. Turn around time was fast, about 1/2 of the 8-9 days quoted.  
 

I’m  happy with them.  Well as happy as you can be when you drop 4amu on an exhaust OH.  
 

cheers,

Dan

[Greg Ellis]

AWM did my exhaust last year and did a really nice job.  Not sure about the prices because I had nothing to compare it to but they did really nice work.

[Seth]

Aerospace Welding in Minneapolis does good work. They did the MissilE Exhaust R&R in 2011 and then realized they didn’t have what they needed for an Overhaul in 2020 and shipped the exhaust to Rocket for overhaul.

They do good work in my experience.

-Seth

 

[Greg Ellis]

These photos are work from AWM.  The first two are my muffler inside and out with the loss of the flame tubes inside.  The last two are the very nice work I got back from AWM.  They also redid all the exhaust parts including the down tubes etc...  DOn't have photos of those.

[RH Galyen]

I have delt with AWI for many years, exhaust and motor mounts. I have always gotten good service and fair pricing.

RHG a&p IA

 

[1980Mooney]

I spoke to my A&P about Dawley.  Missiles have a known corrosion weakness on the tail piece. They would send that and other pieces to Dawley who would do an IRAN in order to save me some coin.  They said that they would not send it to AWI because they would only quote and do full Overhaul.  This particular A&P is a very active Cirrus shop and they said that they can buy new Cirrus exhaust pieces cheaper than sending to AWI for Overhaul.  They said that they are not sure what it will be like on future pricing with Mooney exhausts at AWI.  

Tailwind Technologies adds capabilities of Dawley Aviation and Dawley Manufacturing to general aviation portfolio | Press Release | Business Air News  As noted in the release Tailwind acquired only the assets of Dawley.  Confirms Igor_U comment that all tools and jigs are gone. My A&P commented that Tailwind/AWI let all the Dawley employees go and shut it down.

Tailwind only acquired AMI-AWI in January 2020.  Now in a mere 12 months they have acquired and consolidated AWI's main national competitor.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know which way Tailwind's corporate mandated pricing pressure will go.  If you are in a large metropolitan area you may have some local welding shops that can provide some competition.  My A&P said Houston has one local welder than is qualified to do some, but not all, of the exhaust work.  Get ready to pay more...like everything in aviation.

Edited April 17, 2021 by 1980Mooney

[1980Mooney]

I just reread the Tailwind Dawley press release and after thinking about my A&P's comments  - I now understand their strategy.  

"Dawley Aviation supplies repaired, overhauled and remanufactured exhaust systems, utilizing excellent welding techniques. And Dawley Manufacturing provides custom metal fabrication, tube bending and metal finishing parts, most notably to Cirrus Aircraft."

My A&P said " they can buy new Cirrus exhaust pieces cheaper (from Cirrus) than sending to AWI for Overhaul.".  Those new exhaust pieces were coming from Dawley Manufacturing shipped in a Cirrus box.  Dawley was undercutting AWI by selling more cost effective new product to Cirrus. It doesn't sound like there are a lot of qualified aviation exhaust manufacturers/suppliers out there. Tailwind/AWI are likely going to screw Cirrus and Cirrus owners as soon as they can raise price when their Dawley supply contract renews.  I suspect once they start raising prices on Cirrus parts that they won't stop just there.

Edited April 17, 2021 by 1980Mooney

[Guest]

The Nicrocraft division of Wall Colmomoy is an option for some work as well.

https://www.nicrocraft.com

Clarence

[Gary0747]

Maybe time to go Power Flow for some of us?

[carusoam]

Looks like Siri changed a spelling...

https://www.wallcolmonoy.com

Best regards,

-a-

[thinwing]

On 4/16/2021 at 10:03 PM, GEE-BEE said:

That is some poor welding

 

Knisley is a suggestion 

 

GB

agree ,first photo shows non continous weld,porosity and poor overlap....