Boot question

[gkey]

Well, after buying my 337G, it is still not home after 2 weeks in the shop. A super-duper inspection was done, and no big item stuff was found to be wrong. But a myriad of smaller things had to be repaired, and it just made sense to have it done when the plane is sitting there in the shop, butt-naked and stripped.

One of the items was that the main boots did not pass the inflation test, because there were more than 10 holes per boot. The shop informed me last week they ran out of patches and had to order in new patches!

Now, I've heard somewhere that one can repair these boots to the point of death, and they will happily continue to work again. But when does one decide the boots have had enough, and need replacement? How does one determine the residual integrity of such a patched-up boot?

[Ernie Martin]

Jakes:

Can't help you with the boot issue, but I think I can improve your avatar. The one you're using fails to show the beauty of your airplane. To me, the airplane seems too small and too dark, so I played with Photoshop and came up with the picture shown below (you'll notice that I took some liberties and made the front prop more visible). If you like it better, feel free to use it for your avatar.

Ernie
Webmaster

[Sport]

can you discrbe how the test was done and the performance if your boots during the test.

[gkey]

I wish I could, but I was not present when the test was done. I imagine it could be somewhat similar to testing bicycle inner tubes, where you apply a soap solution on it and inflate, and watch for formation of bubbles.

Maybe someone else on this forum has the 'correct' answer.

[kevin]

There comes a time when the boots need to be refinished, or replaced. One of the speakers at our Oklahoma gathering was from BOOTS EDGE, a company that refinishes the boots. They have a toll free number 888-687-0945, and I would suggest calling them. Your mechanic can restore the boots, but there comes a time when you actually need to replace them. Bootsedge.com can do that as can http://www.deicerboots.com/
The latter place is the home of Goodrich, the folks who actually made the original boots. They have some publications that can help with your decision.

[stackj]

Kevin,

We are sure missing you. Larry and Ernie are doing well keeping the board up. It's really good to see a post from you!

[gkey]

Originally posted by kevin
There comes a time when the boots need to be refinished, or replaced. One of the speakers at our Oklahoma gathering was from BOOTS EDGE, a company that refinishes the boots...

Thank you. Just a few days ago I received an email from Tom Carr regarding a very good article on boot repair. This article is to be found in the November 2003 issue of the CPA magazine, written by Mike Bush, and the job was done by BootsEdge. I can definately recommend it - it's a good read with informative pictures as well.

Subsequently I found out that one can patch boots until the patches literally touch each other - aesthetics will probably be the reason for replacing them long before loss of functionallity!

[Paul Sharp]

My boots were really worn when I bought the plane, but I nursed a number of extra years out of them with patching. In fact I got 3 or 4 more years than BootsEdge said I could get (they said I need to give up and replace them). I got good patch jobs done and they kept inflating firmly and doing their job.

Finally they reached the point where there just wasn't enough material in various places, and the leaks were too great. So I gave up this past year and replaced them.

My mechanics who nursed them along during that time did a simple soap bubble test with a small controlled air flow into the line when they were looking for leaks.

BTW, you really affect boot life significantly depending on whether an aircraft is hangared or not. OTOH there's always the argument of which costs more - the hangar charges or the repairs/replacements. But in the case of boots I personally believe hangaring is more critical than other things.