AV Web SIDS Article 12-24-09

[Skymaster337B]

Perhaps Cessna should just "buy back" the remaining Skymasters still out there....just like Beachcraft did with the Starship. Or perhaps the wing mounts are just fine...until they start falling out of the sky. As I remember, the entire 337 lacks zinc-chromate, except the wing mounts. So, why would Cessna all of a sudden be worried about corrosion?

[WebMaster]

Larry, I maintain a website called www.conquestowners.org and one of our primary goals is stopping Cessna SIDS. On the 441's they cost around $100,000 per plane. It did not make the airplane any safer, they did not find any "smoking gun" hiding in the airframe, it did nothing for owners of the aircraft but cost money, devalue the airplanes, and take away 6 weeks of down time. There are a few legal groups kicking around the idea of a class action lawsuit against Cessna for creating SIDs, but from what we learned through the FAA is SID's are not mandatory. They carry no more weight of enforcement than a Service Bulletin.

I would like to discuss the SID issue more, so that owners of 337's are not taken advantage of by Cessna service centers and having to buy loads of Cessna parts. The 441 SID program caused a one year sales spike of $14,000,000 dollars of part sales for Cessna that otherwise would not have taken place. They love SIDs, it's thier way of making money off old airplanes. And it is thier hope that they can remove some old airplanes off the market so that you buy new airplanes. Or they want to make old airplanes so expensive to own, future buyers opt for the factory new model.

Rumor has it that the early Citation 500's are in line for it next, as are 421s.

-Jason

[hharney]

Originally Posted by Skymaster337B

Perhaps Cessna should just "buy back" the remaining Skymasters still out there....just like Beachcraft did with the Starship. Or perhaps the wing mounts are just fine...until they start falling out of the sky. As I remember, the entire 337 lacks zinc-chromate, except the wing mounts. So, why would Cessna all of a sudden be worried about corrosion?

Only the military aircraft were zinc chromate'd (I think Reims did theirs also), Cessna was cheap.

Detected corrosion could, in most cases, indicate potential metal fatigue. The typical corrosion program is initiated to visually detect the possibility of future issues. That is why the CPCP program, if initiated, will eliminate the need to perform the SIDs on an calendar time frame and only require the SIDs on a hourly time frame.

But it's really a non-issue for Part 91 operators because we won't be required to comply in the USA unless further action is taken by the FAA.

[CO_Skymaster]

Herb,

Since I'm a part 91 operator, I should not have a problem. I tend to be cautious; can any type of inspection be done with out the wing removal? Just to see if there is a potential problem.

Karl

[hharney]

This is where the CPCP (corrosion program) comes to play. These CPCP inspections are visual and are designed to detect a potential issue before it happens. Again, these inspections will not affect you but may give us some useful tools to perform on our own as a PM program.

[Skymaster337B]

So I was looking thru AC 43.13-1B "Acceptable Methods, Techniques, and Practices. It states that Eddy current inspections can be used to find corrosion. So I wonder why the big wing removal?

[hharney]

Cessna believes that each aircraft need to have an extensive inspection in these areas because of the age of the fleet and no history of corrosion program. The engineers have tried to develop an alternate method of inspecting the wing and strut attach points without removing the bolts but this effort has not yielded another process other than eddy current. The only way to achieve positive results with the eddy current in these specific areas is to remove the bolts. The SID inspection is detecting cracks and signs of metal fatigue where the corrosion inspection is a visual inspection.

[hharney]

After reading Mac's opinion on aircraft manufactures support I have to decide how I will post a comment. I don't know if I can agree with him concerning the charge for services, of an item that a company produces, based on the items age. If Beech produced the product and sold it with no limitations then they should at the least provide customer service for this item. Think about our situation with the potential SID documents, there are some similarities here. Revenue. Take a look at the story below.


Left Seat
By J. Mac McClellan

The Economic Life of Airplanes
Airplanes, particularly in general aviation, are living longer than anyone could have imagined 40 or 50 years ago. To most of us, an A36 Bonanza, for example, built in 1970 is still a perfectly good and useful airplane. And there are many airplanes, particularly piston singles, still regularly flown that were built a decade or two before 1970.

For some reason when it comes to airplanes we count time in dog years. The 1970s, or 80s seem like yesterday when assessing the age of an airplane. But do the math. We're talking 30 to 40 years ago. If an airplane were any other type of vehicle, it would be enshrined in a museum by that age, or at least awarded historic license plates by the owner's state DMV.

But airplanes cannot continue to live forever without significant economic investment in their longevity. Hawker Beechcraft reminded us once again of the high cost of keeping airplanes airworthy when it announced a new plan to charge for technical support of airplanes it built many years ago. Now when you call the Hawker Beech technical support people with questions on part numbers, service instructions, serial number searches and so on you will have to pay for that information that had been previously provided at no charge for an airplane of any age. The new policy applies to airplanes that have been out of production for nearly 30 years, such as the V-tail Bonanza series and the Musketeer family, but also to older airplanes even though the models are still in production such as the King Air 90 and 200.

Since my Baron 58 has a serial number low enough to fall into the "legacy" category for which technical support charges will be made, I expect to possibly feel some financial pain in the future. But I do understand the position all of the manufacturers are in when it comes to support, whether they build airplanes, or the engines, avionics and accessories it takes to make the airplanes fly. The manufacturer sold the airplane or component many years ago and earned some level of profit then, but the revenue stream has dried up. It costs a great deal of money to keep the technical experts employed to provide the necessary support and that money has to come from somewhere.

There is, of course, profit in selling spare parts, but why should an airplane owner who needs no technical assistance, just a replacement part, pay for the staff who is researching information for other owners? I think the new Hawker Beech support policy for older airplanes is logical and fair, and I wouldn't be surprised to see other aviation product manufacturers follow the lead. Hawker Beech is doing the right thing by not cutting back on support, or walking away from its legacy airplanes, but is simply asking owners of older airplanes to pay for their upkeep. Our airplanes really can live almost forever, as long as we are willing to spend the money it takes to keep them in airworthy condition.