Horn AD

[David Pyle]

What is the current prospect for the AD following Piper SB 1189? Opinion would be appreciated.

Initial timing and required compliance has sellers and buyers hanging fire.

[Chief]

Hard to have an AD without certified kits to fix!

[David Pyle]

Chief,

There is later information about the horn situation in the Jan. 2011 Comanche FLYER.

[Chief]

Hey David,

I read it. Thanks

[tomburke1]

Hi David. This might be a bit off point, but the Aussie Horn is available and it eliminates the SB, and if the SB becomes an AD it eliminates that as well. I have ordered mine already. I will be installinbg it after my trip to Australia in April.

[Chief]

Hey Tom,

You may want to re-read the SB, "new horn on new torque tube" is what suffices. Someone other than me would have to tell you if Aussie Horn is recognized by FAA, not sure on that, but the SB clearly states, "new Piper horn on new torque tube".

But, I will say, an Aussie Horn is better than a non-compiance horn and a plane flying is more fun than one sitting!!!!

[tomburke1]

I might be wrong in my interpretation, but I feelm that if you do not have the Piper Horn in your aircraft no part of the SB is relevant, as the SB refers to the Piper part. Anyone else have a differing opinion?

[Chief]

unless it becomes an AD, then you end up doing it again.

it is very frustrating for the FAA to issues SB without OEM support, that I am sure we can all agree on!

[tomburke1]

Would the proposed AD be relevant if the Piper part was not in the aircraft? That is the question. In my opinion it would not.
An example was, as I remember, the AD on the Lycoming bolt that secured something in the accessory case. If you had a Superior part or an ECI part in your engine it was not applicable.

[Chief]

Tom,
I sent an email to the FAA to clarify their position on all this. Here is what they said in regards to this statement on their Airworthiness Concern Sheet on the front page of this website (NIAR Survey). Here is what it says......."Piper has issued SB 1189 to replace and /or repetitively inspect the horns on all single (PA-24) and twin (PA-30, PA-39) Comanches. Stabilator torque tubes must be replaced when a new Piper horn is installed."

It clearly states a new horn on a new tube.

Here is what the FAA said in summary today after I contacted them,
The SB says that the balance arm must be replaced. It does not currently state the torque tube must be replaced. However, after a fit check of the SB, Piper is aware that practically the torque tube will also have to be replaced. It would also make economic sense because of the common steps involved in the inspections and replacements for both.

Piper was working on some SB revisions (1189 on the horn and 1160 on the torque tube) and re-kitting of parts. The FAA rep. just wanted to put that info out there even though it's not currently in the SBs.

Hope that clarifies to some degree

By the way, Dave Fitzgerald and Hans are very involved with the FAA on this, so we should all be thankful for their hard work!!!

Let's hope the Aussie Horn is FAA-approved or Piper starts making some Torque Tubes and Horns, quickly!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Zach Grant L1011jock]

Chief,
Everyone is actually working together on this, Piper reluctantly has relented some of its hard line positions on changing the SB (with the proding of the FAA). Don't go jumping off a bridge just yet. This will probably be the most sensible AD in history when it comes out, due to the amount of attention it has drawn from multiple groups. Parts will be available, but doing anything now as far as speculating what will be the final wording, what applies/doesn't apply, compliance and AMOC, would be irresponsible at best. Lets all be thankful that this is an understood phenominon, and not something that is going to get an overly "enthusiastic" shotgun approach to fixing it.
-Zach

[Chief]

10-4, you guys know way more than me. I think we all need to fight for OEM support. It frustrates me as a two year Comanche owner to have so many issues where parts are needed for SB and AD compliance. Parts are hard to find. It is one of the leading reasons our Comanches are losing value. You can put technology in any plane. Any Comanche on the market can have the same technology as the most sophisticated modern plane. Good avionics, good autopilots, backup systems, etc. Just pay the money and a good Avionics shop you are good to go. We all love and appreciate the Lycoming 540 engines for their performance and reliablity, we all love the usable payload of a fully fueled Comanche and we all love it's speed and flying characteristics. BUT, BUT, to hear fellow Comanches pilots struggle to find landing gear motors, Torque Tubes, Horns, landing gear parts, simple interior parts, etc, it saddens and disappoints me how our OEM (Piper) and our goverance body (FAA) have not managed such issues with the fleets best interest at heart. It is really hard to understand. At the end of the day, it devalues our planes. Talk to A&P about Commanders, Grunmams and maybe someday Mooneys. They sit in hangars, unable to find parts.

I'll be optimistics and wait to see how this all works in regards to this latest curve ball. A curve ball that seems to be be brought on by improper maintenance more than true stress and flight fatigue.
I'll tell you this, I am extremely proud of ICS, its solidarity, leadership and depth of pilots, such as yourself that fight to keep our Comanches' flying.

A big thank you!!!! Keep it up!!

[tomburke1]

The key to this entire discussion is in the following sentence. " Stabilator torque tubes must be replaced when a new Piper horn is installed." Can anyone tell me what it is?

Hint: It has to do with the word, Piper.

Enough suspense,,,

It says IF a new PIPER horn is installed the STABILATOR TUBE MUST BE REPLACED. Well, if you have an approved substitute part such as the "Aussie Horn", (which is supposed to be approved fairly soon), then the SB and the future AD does not apply to your aircraft. The Aussie Horn replacement instructions do not have the replacemet of the stabilor tube in it's instructions.

In response to yor statements aout part availability, as a 26 year and over 3000 hours of flight time Comanche owner I find it hard to agree with you. I have not really had many problems acquiring the parts I have needed to keep my plane flying. Many of the parts you quote as being hard to find are around. You just have to put some work into finding them. Throwing your hands up and crying that there are no new gear transmisions around, doesn't help. networking with other owners, calling around to parts yards, looking on Barnstormers.com, etc, are things that get you the parts you need. In the past year I have seen at least 2 advertisements for Hoof Valves on Barnstormer.com. I have seen at least 6 gear transmissions there as well. I purchased a Hoof Valve there for $200.00, and a Dura Transmission that has a yellow tag from a renowned Comanche shop with it for $800.00. Even EBAY has some parts for Comanche. A year or so ago, a Hoof valve sold there for $186.00 as removed.

And, yes I agree with your statement that alot of the problems come from lack of or improper maintenance. If you are saying that the Stabilator Horn problem is caused by this, there I have to disagree. Improper assembly at the factory is the likely problem there.

And , I agree totally and emphaticaly with your statements regarding the Comanche Society. I have yet had a request for help that someone didn't answer me with a solution, or at worst a direction to travel to find a solution.

[Zach Grant L1011jock]

I'll just add a little something here. I recently had an incident happen that shows how well we are actually doing when if comes to parts support. In this case it involved a PA32R Lance, arguably a still in production aircraft (this was a 1976 model, but no one has called it orphaned by Piper). The long story short, it had a failed fuel pressure gauge. A quick call to DMFS got the ball rolling. New replacement gauges were available (I should hope so, only every fuel injected Piper single built from 1968 to 1996 has the same gauge) for $307. HOWEVER, the nice man says, it won't work in your plane. Ok, what's the catch? It's a Rochester gauge, not a Stewart Warner like what you have, and you will have to buy a new cluster mount for it to work. Great, how much is that? List price, 847 bucks...but listed as NLA in the parts supply. Great, what to do. Can you guess what the suggested course of action from the Piper dealer was? Get the new gauge, and get a new cluster mount made, and install as owner produced part, or find someone who could maybe overhaul the existing gauge. Being that the airplane was stuck away from base AOG, I didn't like either of those suggestions. I called every scrap yard I knew of, no luck. I called every instrument overhauler that I knew of, no luck, but several including Air Parts of Lockhaven would overhaul it in about 10 days for a reasonable $135. Getting on parts base, I bound 12 parts houses that had the part number listed. Called all of them, no luck, they were all Rochester gauges. The last place I called said they had 9 on the shelf. I asked them to look if one was smaller than the others, and he's said they had one that was smaller by about 3/4 inches and didnt have Rochester printed on it. Great send it!

Mind you, this whole story took almost 3 days to actually play out! Maybe it is just me being extra tuned into the Comanche series, but I have NEVER worked so hard to get any Comanche back into the air! I think we actually have benefitted by not being totally reliant on Piper for replacement parts. We as owners and members of the ICS have found multiple new supply chains whenever needed, and we will continue to do so as the need arrises. We may not like the price, or the lead time, but as Tom said, once something is sourced, networking with ICS and other owners will get the word out, good or bad.

Zach

[Zach Grant L1011jock]

Tom,
As to speculating what the AD is going to say, you are doing just that, speculating. As far as talking about the current SB wording, yes, that is how it is worded, and simply, it makes sense as the holes were match drilled, and when replacing the horn, need to be match drilled again. I really don't know how you do that without replacing both if you expect to keep the slop out as intended. Using close tolerance bolts only works when you have close tolerance holes! Call me a pessimist, but, as I applaud the gents from down under for coming up with a solution, I am not convinced it will be without problems, especially in the area of installation with regard to the imperfect and often out of stated tolerance existing Piper parts. In the big airplanes, there is a whole group of engineers in what is called the "interchangeability" department, whose entire lot in life is to figure out what parts will fit what aircraft based on known and sometimes unknown manufacturing or modification differences. Being that so far we have found many different differences between the same airplanes, as they were rolled out of the factory, I am afraid that just replacing the horn, especially with one of a different design no matter how good it is, could lead to further yet unknown issues. The devil you know, is certainly preferable to the devil you don't...

Zach