Piper SB 1161

On 31-Mar-2006, Jack Allison wrote:

Feedback from a guy (Dick Russ) of the Cherokee Pilot's association is
that the inspection would take approximately two hours and the repair,
if needed, would be about 30 hours of labor plus $500 and change for the
kit.


Well, I'm not sure I believe the two hour figure for the inspection. Seems
kind of optimistic for the actual inspection (dye penetrant) AND the time
for disassembling and reassembling the gear side brace on each wing. And
this assumes that the plane is already on jacks and that the gear has to be
swung anyway (i.e. during the annual). However, even if it's more like 3
hours it still would be hard to justify undertaking the 30 labor hr "repair"
prophylactically. But as your situation demonstrates, you sure want to
catch any cracks before they propagate to a point where repair is not
feasible.

-Elliott Drucker

Jack, please post photos to alt.binaries.pictures.aviation so we can all
view them.

If you're interested in pictures, drop me an e-mail. I have photos of
our cracks on the side of the ribs opposite the side brace bracket. I
can also send you a picture of what Dick Russ's cracked rib looked like.
His was on a Lance and he had one crack on the side brace/bracket side
of one rib.