Aero Advantage closing shop.

Got this Email today in my mail. I found it a big troubling as I just
installed the Dual pump in September last year in my B35.
(Works great BTW)

Does anyone else know the specifics behind the failure of the vanes,
and if there is an AD pending?


Important Information for Customers
Customer experience has uncovered a type of pump failure never
experienced in years of field and laboratory testing of the dual rotor
vacuum pump design, including the deliberate destruction of over 300
test pumps. These failures resulted in malfunctioning of both pumping
chambers simultaneously. The failures are concentrated on the 300
horsepower Lycoming IO-540 engines. We believe that these engines
generate a resonant frequency resulting in breakage of both graphite
rotors. Multiple replacement pumps have failed on three different
engines. At this point, we can't be certain about similar failures
occurring on other engines. A failure rate of 3%, while seemingly
small, is not acceptable for our product. Although the dual rotor
pumps are performing well in the other 97% of installations, shipping
of dual rotor pumps has been halted. The tens of thousands of dollars
of orders on hand will not be filled. Aero Advantage refuses to
continue marketing a product that might not perform satisfactorily for
all its customers.

Aero Advantage was founded, in good faith, to improve safety of flight
and to allow greater peace of mind for its customers by eliminating
sudden loss of the vacuum source. While the precise changes that are
needed to improve reliability may already be in place, they would
likely require between 3 and 9 months to finalize and place into
production. The company can not survive the financial burden of having
no sales for that length of time and is closing its doors. Closure of
the business was an extremely difficult decision for me, the inventor
and company founder, since I have invested five years of work and most
of my life's savings in the business.

Several parties have expressed an interest in procuring the current
technology and continuing the development of the necessary product
improvements.

It is with much regret that I announce the above decision. I believe
it is the correct one for all concerned.

Sincerely,

David A. Boldenow

It is with much regret that I announce the above decision. I believe
it is the correct one for all concerned.

Wow -- that's sad.

It sure sounded like a good idea -- too bad it didn't work out for him.
(And those of you who did the installation on your birds...)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

It sure sounded like a good idea -- too bad it didn't work out for him.
(And those of you who did the installation on your birds...)

It did sound like a good idea. I came close to buying one when my last
vacuum pump failed, but the wait time was too long.

Afterwards, I read the Air Safety Foundation report that everyone cites on
the danger of vacuum pump failures: it turns out that they did not find a
*single* fatal accident from 1983 to 1997 involving a vacuum-pump failure
for a fixed-gear plane flying IFR -- losing control partial panel seems to
be a retractable thing.

Does anyone know of any vacuum-pump-related fatal accidents from 1997-2004
in fixed-gear planes flying IFR?


All the best,


David

It did sound like a good idea. I came close to buying one when my last
vacuum pump failed, but the wait time was too long.

This whole topic drives me crazy, since the idea of a "vacuum system" is
ridiculous in the first place.

I'm stuck with one, and have replaced both of my vacuum instruments in the
last six months. Why? Because the danged electric replacements are
absurdly over-priced, and the back-up battery that would make an
all-electric system prudent (and legal) is even worse.

Personally, I think the fact that we're flying around behind vacuum
instruments in the 21st century is patently absurd.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Vcqnc.11795$xw3.806601@attbi_s04...


Personally, I think the fact that we're flying around behind vacuum
instruments in the 21st century is patently absurd.


Then figure out a way to go to a wet pump. I worry about wet pump failure
as much as I worry about my tires going square.

"Newps" wrote in message
...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Vcqnc.11795$xw3.806601@attbi_s04...


Personally, I think the fact that we're flying around behind vacuum
instruments in the 21st century is patently absurd.


Then figure out a way to go to a wet pump. I worry about wet pump failure
as much as I worry about my tires going square.


Electric would clearly be the way to go. There are some wonderful
advancements in A/C instrumentation that would be a clear advantage to the
recreational aviation crowd. You will likely not see them until sport pilot
and/or some form of simplified certification is allowed. We are flying stuff
certified in the forties simply because there are too many liability lawyers
in the world. If anything fails, for any reason, at any time, ever, somebody
will be sued. I'm all for corporate responsibility, but the situation as it
exists now is deadly for everyone.

Do you know why ultralight piilots are flying Rotax two strokes? Because the
company that makes them has NO assets in the USA, liniting the damage that
can be done to them by silly lawsuits. Same with motorcycle helmets, there
are NO manufacturers wuth assets in the U.S. Want to save american jobs?
Stop frivolous profit oriented lawsuits.

Sorry I didn't mean to get into a rant when I started this letter but I
stand behind every opinion.

zip wrote:

Do you know why ultralight piilots are flying Rotax two strokes? Because the
company that makes them has NO assets in the USA, liniting the damage that
can be done to them by silly lawsuits. Same with motorcycle helmets, there
are NO manufacturers wuth assets in the U.S. Want to save american jobs?
Stop frivolous profit oriented lawsuits.

It's an easy problem to fix, if you American voters cared enough to make it
an election issue: just revise the law so that punitive damages in a law
suite go to the government instead of the plaintiff. For example, if I get
injured by someone, and the judge and jury determine that my injuries are
worth 500K plus legal costs, then I get 500K plus legal costs. If they also
decide to award 50M punitive damages to teach the defendant a lesson, that
money should go to the government like any other fine would. If lawyers
cannot hope for a cut of the (enormous) punitive damages, they'll be less
likely to take on trivial litigation.

Another alternative is the system that we have here in Canada (and, I think,
in the U.K. and other Commonwealth countries, though I'm not sure). The
loser in a civil case normally pays the winner's costs, so I'm not about to
go out and sue Lycoming or Piper unless I'm pretty sure I'll win: otherwise,
they might send me a bill for millions in legal expenses. That one might
not go over so well, though, since it discourages people from suing even
when they do have a legitimate case.


All the best,


David

Jay Honeck wrote:
This whole topic drives me crazy, since the idea of a "vacuum system" is
ridiculous in the first place.
I'm stuck with one, and have replaced both of my vacuum instruments in the
last six months. Why? Because the danged electric replacements are
absurdly over-priced, and the back-up battery that would make an
all-electric system prudent (and legal) is even worse.
Personally, I think the fact that we're flying around behind vacuum
instruments in the 21st century is patently absurd.

I suspect it's a lot easier to get a gyro to spin at 10 or 15,000 RPM (or
whatever) using vanes and vaccum, than it is to design a reliable electric
motor to spin the gyro at that speed. It can obviously be done, but I
suspect the parts neccessary to do it might be a little more exotic and
expensive than vaccum gyro parts. Add to that the immense liability that
a manufacturer of such devices are taking on, you start to see why all of
these devices are expensive (even the vaccum devices, really).

Turn coordinators spin a gyro with an electric motor, but I bet the fact
that horizons have to pivot in two directons (roll and pitch) makes the
internal design way more complex.

--- Jay


--
__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino ! ! !
http://www.oceancityairport.com
http://www.oc-adolfos.com

There certainly are good ideas out there for changing our civil
liability system, but doing anything about punitive damages is not
likely to change anything. Punitive damages are awarded in less than
5% of the cases where plaintiff wins (which means it's an even smaller
percentage of all cases) and the median punitive damage award is
$50,000. Hardly "enormous". Do you wonder why large punitive
damages are so newsworthy? It's because they are so rare.

I do think some modification of the second part of your idea would be
a good thing.


On Sun, 09 May 2004 16:55:31 GMT, David Megginson
wrote:

zip wrote:

Do you know why ultralight piilots are flying Rotax two strokes? Because the
company that makes them has NO assets in the USA, liniting the damage that
can be done to them by silly lawsuits. Same with motorcycle helmets, there
are NO manufacturers wuth assets in the U.S. Want to save american jobs?
Stop frivolous profit oriented lawsuits.

It's an easy problem to fix, if you American voters cared enough to make it
an election issue: just revise the law so that punitive damages in a law
suite go to the government instead of the plaintiff. For example, if I get
injured by someone, and the judge and jury determine that my injuries are
worth 500K plus legal costs, then I get 500K plus legal costs. If they also
decide to award 50M punitive damages to teach the defendant a lesson, that
money should go to the government like any other fine would. If lawyers
cannot hope for a cut of the (enormous) punitive damages, they'll be less
likely to take on trivial litigation.

Another alternative is the system that we have here in Canada (and, I think,
in the U.K. and other Commonwealth countries, though I'm not sure). The
loser in a civil case normally pays the winner's costs, so I'm not about to
go out and sue Lycoming or Piper unless I'm pretty sure I'll win: otherwise,
they might send me a bill for millions in legal expenses. That one might
not go over so well, though, since it discourages people from suing even
when they do have a legitimate case.


All the best,


David

In article ,
(Jay Masino) wrote:

Jay Honeck wrote:
This whole topic drives me crazy, since the idea of a "vacuum system" is
ridiculous in the first place.
I'm stuck with one, and have replaced both of my vacuum instruments in the
last six months. Why? Because the danged electric replacements are
absurdly over-priced, and the back-up battery that would make an
all-electric system prudent (and legal) is even worse.
Personally, I think the fact that we're flying around behind vacuum
instruments in the 21st century is patently absurd.

I suspect it's a lot easier to get a gyro to spin at 10 or 15,000 RPM (or
whatever) using vanes and vaccum, than it is to design a reliable electric
motor to spin the gyro at that speed.

It's easy to build an electric motor which spins a disk at 10,000 RPM.
It doesn't cost much either... http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3120560/