Interior Upgrade Question

Don Hammer wrote
My experience is with large transport category Part 25 aircraft and
the burn test requirements are much more severe than Part 23. Read
25.853 sometime.

I have, and it reads exactly the same as 23.853. That should give you
a clue - 23.853 aqpplies ONLY to commuter category aircraft certified
under 14CFR23. Not normal, utility, or aerobatic aircraft. The
standards for those aircraft (as well as those certified under CAR 3)
are much less stringent. Years ago, when AC 43-13 was mistakenly
printed with a paragraph requiring burn tests for all Part 23
aircraft, Rod Farlee (who used to be a regular here) sent a letter to
O'Brien himself, and got a reply stating this - and also stating that
AC 43-13 was wrong and would be corrected. And so it was. I'll be
happy to send a copy of this letter to anyone here.

In other words - everything you said is totally inapplicable to small
aircraft not operated under Part 135. It was nothing but FUD - Fear,
Uncertainty, Doubt.

I am an A&P with IA and haven't done an annual in over thirty years.

Good. We don't need people trying to apply regulations written for
large commercial aircraft to small private aircraft.

Michael

There's an auto upholstery shop in town that is very well regarded and while
talking with him regarding my car I got to wondering if I could pull out my
Cherokee seats and have him leatherize them. FAR 43.100 states pilots can:

(11) Repair upholstery and decorative furnishings of the cabin, cockpit
when the repairing does not require disassembly of any primary structure or
operating system or interfere with an operating system or affect the primary
structure of the aircraft.

Hmmmm. Does "repair upholstery" cover "replace with leather" (or pleather
for that matter)? Does taking out a seat constitute "disassembly of a
primary structure"? I'm pretty sure other people have done this but I was
just wondering how "legal" it is.


-Brian
N33431


I had just been considering the same thing recently. Thanks for
posting the question Brian. And thanks to all who answered.

But I have a couple more that maybe someone out there knows the answer
to. My recently purchased Cherokee 180 is an older model with the
original furniture inside.

Instead of just recovering the seats, I'm considering replacing the
original Cherokee seats with newer models. I'm wondering what the FAA
would say if I wanted to take seats from a newer model Piper (with
height adjustment and nice extras) and put them in my Cherokee. If
the floor rails are the same, it should be a plug'n'play change. Of
course, the weights would have to be calculated to reflect weight
changes. But does anyone know if the FAA would allow this if they
came from another certified plane to my Cherokee???

Come to think of it, I'd love to change the yokes in my Cherokee while
I'm at it. Get some newer models instead of these original bow-tie
yokes. And I guess same question would apply -- would they let me
take from one certified model to another???

Thanks guys.


Chuck
N7398W

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 03:04:42 GMT, Chuck wrote:

I had just been considering the same thing recently. Thanks for
posting the question Brian. And thanks to all who answered.

But I have a couple more that maybe someone out there knows the answer
to. My recently purchased Cherokee 180 is an older model with the
original furniture inside.

Instead of just recovering the seats, I'm considering replacing the
original Cherokee seats with newer models. I'm wondering what the FAA
would say if I wanted to take seats from a newer model Piper (with
height adjustment and nice extras) and put them in my Cherokee. If
the floor rails are the same, it should be a plug'n'play change. Of
course, the weights would have to be calculated to reflect weight
changes. But does anyone know if the FAA would allow this if they
came from another certified plane to my Cherokee???

Don't know about the legalities, but as someone else has stated, get
it through a couple annual cycles and I'm sure it wouldn't be a
problem.

Come to think of it, I'd love to change the yokes in my Cherokee while
I'm at it. Get some newer models instead of these original bow-tie
yokes. And I guess same question would apply -- would they let me
take from one certified model to another???
There is actually an AD on the "bowtie" yokes you have. Every 100
hours they need to be inspected. If you convert to the Ram Horn type
yoke the AD goes away. It's a pricey venture though. There shouldn't
be a problem putting yokes in from another (Piper) aircraft as long as
they are the correct type, but I personally like the bow ties, and
since the AD isn't that labor intensive, would live with it until one
cracked (which may be a really long time). I'd rather spend that
money on gas.

HTH.
z

In article ,
Chuck wrote:

Come to think of it, I'd love to change the yokes in my Cherokee while
I'm at it. Get some newer models instead of these original bow-tie
yokes. And I guess same question would apply -- would they let me
take from one certified model to another???

I don't know about the seats. But the old bowtie yokes can indeed
be replaced by the new rams horn yokes. Look at the control wheel
AD that applies to the bow-tie yokes. Notice that a terminating action
is to replace them with the rams horn yokes. (I recently did that to
my cherokee 140).

--
Bob Noel

If you don't mind my asking Bob, what did you have to pay for those
yokes???

Chuck




On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:43:36 GMT, Bob Noel
wrote:

In article ,
Chuck wrote:

Come to think of it, I'd love to change the yokes in my Cherokee while
I'm at it. Get some newer models instead of these original bow-tie
yokes. And I guess same question would apply -- would they let me
take from one certified model to another???

I don't know about the seats. But the old bowtie yokes can indeed
be replaced by the new rams horn yokes. Look at the control wheel
AD that applies to the bow-tie yokes. Notice that a terminating action
is to replace them with the rams horn yokes. (I recently did that to
my cherokee 140).

In article ,
Chuck wrote:

If you don't mind my asking Bob, what did you have to pay for those
yokes???

I can't find my record of that - it was about two years ago.
I'm pretty sure I got them from Wentworth. I think I paid $135
to powdercoat them. The parts required (bolts, joints, etc) were
a chunk of money, and then the A&P needed about 19 hours of
labor to replace the yokes.

In other words, it wasn't cheap - but one of my yokes failed
the AD for cracks.

--
Bob Noel

: a chunk of money, and then the A&P needed about 19 hours of
: labor to replace the yokes.

I don't know if necessary for that job, but my mechanic has replaced the
universal joint in the yoke of an older Arrow he had. Aside from the ridiculous
liability of the stupid little 1/2" thing, it's a bitch to install too from what he
said. Something about special tapered bolts and needing some custom machining on the
new one to put it in. Nineteen hours might seem excessive, but with operations like
that it wouldn't surprise me.

-Cory

--

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
************************************************** ***********************

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 02:18:52 GMT, Chuck wrote:

If you don't mind my asking Bob, what did you have to pay for those
yokes???

Chuck

Hopefully you can find them cheaper than this. If you really want to
change them, you might want to call some salvage companies for prices.

http://www.avion.com/Products/AvionC...trolWheel.html

HTH.
z

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 03:16:39 GMT, zatatime wrote:

On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 02:18:52 GMT, Chuck wrote:

If you don't mind my asking Bob, what did you have to pay for those
yokes???

Chuck

Hopefully you can find them cheaper than this. If you really want to
change them, you might want to call some salvage companies for prices.

http://www.avion.com/Products/AvionC...trolWheel.html

HTH.
z


OUCH !!!

Nice looking set and very practical with the dual PTTs on each 'horn'
of the ram's head yoke. But a bit pricy too! How in the world do
they get off asking almost $1,000 for a pair of yokes? I could
probably have yokes custom made for that price. And since they
advertise STC "pending" -- it would be exactly the same. I'd have to
go thru the same 337 nonsense with the FAA whether I use theirs or
build my own...

Thanks for the link though. At least I know there are companies
making them.


Chuck

The seats need to be changed on a field approval. Talk to the FSDO before you
start, or for that matter before you even buy the new seats.

Changing the bowtie yokes to Ram's horns can be done with a log book entry
citing the service bulletin cited in the Airworthiness Directive as a means
of terminating compliance. You have to make sure the part number of the
yokes you install matches that in the service bulletin.

Chuck wrote:

Instead of just recovering the seats, I'm considering replacing the
original Cherokee seats with newer models. I'm wondering what the FAA
would say if I wanted to take seats from a newer model Piper (with
height adjustment and nice extras) and put them in my Cherokee. If
the floor rails are the same, it should be a plug'n'play change. Of
course, the weights would have to be calculated to reflect weight
changes. But does anyone know if the FAA would allow this if they
came from another certified plane to my Cherokee???

Come to think of it, I'd love to change the yokes in my Cherokee while
I'm at it. Get some newer models instead of these original bow-tie
yokes. And I guess same question would apply -- would they let me
take from one certified model to another???

Thanks guys.

Chuck
N7398W

--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email
http://www.andraka.com

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