What is happening in Kerrville?

[PT20J]

McFarlane rep told me at a trade show that they are getting lots of inquiries about Mooney parts and are actively looking at PMA parts for Mooneys.

[ilovecornfields]

3 hours ago, PT20J said:

McFarlane rep told me at a trade show that they are getting lots of inquiries about Mooney parts and are actively looking at PMA parts for Mooneys.

That would probably be the end of the factory, right? If they don’t make planes and they don’t make parts not sure what else they would do. Maybe worlds biggest Mooney Service Center?

[EricJ]

9 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

That would probably be the end of the factory, right? If they don’t make planes and they don’t make parts not sure what else they would do. Maybe worlds biggest Mooney Service Center?

Yeah, if they can't figure out how to make high-margin parts that are in shortage and required to keep Mooneys flying, and they think that owning drawings is intellectual property protection, I'm not sure we should count on them as a long-term source of support.   :'(

 

[GeeBee]

Yes. They got to own it, and own it in a big way.

 

[Pinecone]

They have to MAKE the parts and have them available.

Requests for parts from other suppliers (not just parts that the specific supplier makes) means people cannot get them from the factory.

Frank Crawford told me at Mooney Max that Eaton requires an order for 50 NBS to make them.  I had heard that a batch recently were not made properly.

You put down a deposit without a delivery date.  If the factory said, we are taking pre-orders with a lead time of 6 months, I think that at least 50 owners would do so.

[A64Pilot]

I’ve talked to a few Mooney owners, ones that have owned their Mooney for awhile, ones I’ve met just out and about.

I’ve not found one that even knew what a no back spring even was. Other than people on this forum I don’t think there would be much of a demand, so maybe 10 on this forum would buy, then hopefully a few would go to a couple of MSC’s and that’s about it I’m afraid.

Bad thing about the NTSB reports is they don’t seem to be very descriptive, by that I mean it’s uncommon for them to state why the gear up happened, I’ve read about a couple of failed push-pull tubes but haven’t seen any that are from failed actuators.

I want an NBS and would pay way more than one should sell for, because I want to send my actuator to whoever the actuator guru is and have it gone completely through. 

[toto]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

Frank Crawford told me at Mooney Max that Eaton requires an order for 50 NBS to make them.  I had heard that a batch recently were not made properly.

The whole reason we're talking about no-back springs is because of a bad batch that resulted in premature failures.  It's definitely concerning that manufacturing new ones seems to be unreliable.

I've struggled to understand the relative risk of keeping an original NBS versus installing a newly manufactured one.  If they are tricky to make at low volumes, then the OPP approach isn't going to be any better. 

We need to figure out where to put the zip tie for a bush fix.

[toto]

51 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

I’ve talked to a few Mooney owners, ones that have owned their Mooney for awhile, ones I’ve met just out and about.

I’ve not found one that even knew what a no back spring even was. Other than people on this forum I don’t think there would be much of a demand, so maybe 10 on this forum would buy, then hopefully a few would go to a couple of MSC’s and that’s about it I’m afraid.

Bad thing about the NTSB reports is they don’t seem to be very descriptive, by that I mean it’s uncommon for them to state why the gear up happened, I’ve read about a couple of failed push-pull tubes but haven’t seen any that are from failed actuators.

I want an NBS and would pay way more than one should sell for, because I want to send my actuator to whoever the actuator guru is and have it gone completely through. 

I learned about the NBS on MooneySpace.  I've never had a shop mention it.  The old posts from MSers have kind of disappeared too - I had bookmarked the photo set that @Hyett6420 posted a few years ago, but the whole thread was deleted at some point.

I'm still loosely in the market for a NBS, and if there was one available to buy, I'd throw my hat in there.  But I've basically come to the conclusion that a NBS is a pretty minor concern in the broad scheme of things.

[ilovecornfields]

Where is this “bad batch” information coming from? Which ones are affected? Why hasn’t Mooney released any information or recalled them?

I still have one I purchased a couple of years ago (not due yet) and if it’s bad I’d like to not install it and send it back.

[Schllc]

29 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

Where is this “bad batch” information coming from? Which ones are affected? Why hasn’t Mooney released any information or recalled them?

I still have one I purchased a couple of years ago (not due yet) and if it’s bad I’d like to not install it and send it back.

I’m pretty sure they were referring to the batch that caused the AD. 

[ilovecornfields]

13 minutes ago, Schllc said:

I’m pretty sure they were referring to the batch that caused the AD. 

Apparently there’s a rumor out that some of the recently manufactured ones were bad too. Just trying to find out if there’s any credibility to that.

[toto]

1 hour ago, ilovecornfields said:

Apparently there’s a rumor out that some of the recently manufactured ones were bad too. Just trying to find out if there’s any credibility to that.

I’ve definitely heard the same thing here on MS, but I don’t remember the exact context. I’ll see if I can find a search term that works. 
 

ETA: This is probably it:

https://mooneyspace.com/topic/44650-no-back-spring-update/?do=findComment&comment=783448

 

[Pinecone]

There was a guy here that was going to PMA make some.  He needed one to determine material, even a broken one.

[GeeBee]

The problem is this. The entire spares supply chain is broken. The idea of going through an MSC is nice, but in reality both decrepit, cost ineffective and not a sustainable business model. Most MSCs don't even have a parts department and those that did are running away from them like LASAR. Heck even Maxwell does not have a dedicated parts department. What is needed is a new distribution model before someone creates one. Remember when Napster was robbing musicians of profit and or you had to go to Tower records to buy an album? It finally did not get straightened out until Apple and Amazon created an easy and cost effective distribution system where everyone, the labels, the artist and Apple got a cut. What Mooney needs to do is allow factory direct ordering and kick back to the MSCs within the sales zone. Not the amount they are currently making because they were not fully participating in the sale with cost and overhead but enough to protect and satisfy them. This is what Mercury Marine has done and it works.  I think the MSCs would like it because they would not have to deal with the  labor and shipping of a parts department and for Mooney it would be one less person in the transaction. To do so you would have to stop dealing with pricing ad hoc and start having list prices for the end user, jobber to the trade and wholesale prices to the MSCs. Any non MSC maintenance facility would have to buy jobber or retail. A factory parts department would serve everyone better and be more cost effective to run.

[Danb]

8 hours ago, toto said:

I learned about the NBS on MooneySpace.  I've never had a shop mention it.  The old posts from MSers have kind of disappeared too - I had bookmarked the photo set that @Hyett6420 posted a few years ago, but the whole thread was deleted at some point.

I'm still loosely in the market for a NBS, and if there was one available to buy, I'd throw my hat in there.  But I've basically come to the conclusion that a NBS is a pretty minor concern in the broad scheme of things.

Weber MSC notified me after reaching around 950 hours on my Bravo. I’ve never been told by another Mooney pilot other than here about MBS’s

[chriscalandro]

Remember that time there was a big cry fest from “manufacturer x” about the owner produced up/down lock blocks?

even though “manufacturer x” didn’t actually have a way to manufacture and sell said blocks?

 

reverse engineering isn’t that difficult, owner produced parts are possible, and even if they want to cry about intellectual property or some other BS, it isn’t going to stop people from going that route and using those parts anyway. 
 

just like everyone did with the blocks despite them being “quarantined “. 
 

if someone wants to send me a bad one I’ll reverse engineer it and sell you the data along with an “example unit” for you to evaluate.  

[1980Mooney]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

There was a guy here that was going to PMA make some.  He needed one to determine material, even a broken one.

As Eaton has shown when they messed up the manufacturing, there is some knowhow related to these springs.  How is this "guy" going to test them? Perhaps put it on his plane and get back to us in about 12 years when he gets 1,000 hours? 

Is this "guy" going to take the liability when one breaks prematurely (less than 1000 hours)? 

And who are going to be the guinea pigs to give it a real-world test?  Perhaps this "guy" should give the first 100 away free - and still who would be foolish enough to install it?

 

[1980Mooney]

18 hours ago, ilovecornfields said:

That would probably be the end of the factory, right? If they don’t make planes and they don’t make parts not sure what else they would do. Maybe worlds biggest Mooney Service Center?

It might not be the world's biggest Mooney Service Center, but it would definitely be the the MSC with the greatest crushing overhead - carrying the costs and overhead pretending to be an aircraft manufacturing company (past liability for manufactured aircraft, insurance, maintaining certificates, SB and AD's etc, Engineering, etc.  It would be instant bankruptcy reorganization to ditch all the past liabilities and lay off all the technical and Manufactuing staff.  

Edited July 4, 2023 by 1980Mooney

[Pinecone]

1 hour ago, 1980Mooney said:

As Eaton has shown when they messed up the manufacturing, there is some knowhow related to these springs. 

Eaton screwed up the order of making them.  They heat treated them before bending the ends.

 

[1980Mooney]

52 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

Eaton screwed up the order of making them.  They heat treated them before bending the ends.

So because of these knuckleheads back in 2001-2002, we get a Service Bulletin requiring inspection and NB spring replacement in 2002 with subsequent 1,000 hour inspections forever. What a load of crap and unnecessary expense.  

[donkaye]

If you want to see what they look like here it is:

https://donkaye.com/infamous-1500-back-spring

[Danb]

15 hours ago, donkaye said:

If you want to see what they look like here it is:

https://donkaye.com/infamous-1500-back-spring

And here’s a broken cable revealed when changing the NBS  A nick in the brass ring messed up the cable. The plane only had about 900+ hours 

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, Danb said:

And here’s a broken cable revealed when changing the NBS  A nick in the brass ring messed up the cable. The plane only had about 900+ hours 

Spring looks okay in the pic, though.   I'd keep that one as a reserve if there's no evidence of cracks, etc.

[A64Pilot]

On 7/3/2023 at 2:30 PM, ilovecornfields said:

Where is this “bad batch” information coming from? Which ones are affected? Why hasn’t Mooney released any information or recalled them?

I still have one I purchased a couple of years ago (not due yet) and if it’s bad I’d like to not install it and send it back.

That’s what the girl at Top Gun told me when I called and asked if she had an update. I don’t know her name but she seems to know what she’s talking about.

On edit, I was told it was the last batch and that Mooney QC caught the defects prior to shipment, if so no recall is needed.

Edited July 7, 2023 by A64Pilot

[A64Pilot]

On 7/4/2023 at 8:21 PM, EricJ said:

Spring looks okay in the pic, though.   I'd keep that one as a reserve if there's no evidence of cracks, etc.

The problem is with high strength steel the crack growth is very fast, you literally can inspect for surface cracks visually and eddy current to determine no internal cracking to have the part fail completely in a short time.

Typically the “scatter factor” used to determine life limits on high strength steel is 7 to 1.

But then hours isn’t a good way to track as it’s more likely cycles are what causes the fatigue, but who tracks landing cycles? Cycles in a training airplane vs one only used for cross country trips is vastly different per hour of course.

Then throw in how many failures of NBS springs have there been? I don’t know but suspect not many or I woukd hear about it here.

I want one because I think after 2200 hours and 42 years it’s time to have the actuator disassembled, cleaned and re-lubricated and while you’re there it makes sense to me to replace the spring. In fact I think disassembling, cleaning and re-lubing the actuator every 10 years or so is prudent, that’s why I think replacing the spring every 1,000 hours isn’t a bad idea, because I think you should be there anyway.

My 2c anyway