Raised a complaint with the relative companies, don’t expect too much movement but we have to go through the motions before going fully legal and social.
Will probably get the aircraft moved on a trailer so that it can be repaired more reasonably. If you see a little Grumman trundling down the M6 …… :)
A friend of mine flew this (SEP) on a >30 min flight to ferry to a maintenance facility
Called it “Prop with winglets”!
Apparently plane flew relatively well.
To be clear, not advocating any of that (I did give him a good bollocking!)
If you were certain that it’s a tow bar thing, couldn’t you go to a repair shop and explain just that and have them repair the prop?
If you were certain that it’s a tow bar thing, couldn’t you go to a repair shop and explain just that and have them repair the prop?
The problem is the certification situation. Nowadays, on Lyco or Conti engines, contact with any object other than air is an engine shock load inspection, plus a prop repair. The prop repair itself can in turn trigger new requirements (e.g. on a Hartzell 3B prop, the replacement of > 1 blade forces the scrapping of the hub, so leads to a whole new prop as the only economic solution).
Whether this is an airworthiness situation I don’t know… maybe not.
In reality you could just disregard all this, get the prop sorted and fly. That does happen quite a bit, usually coupled with a lack of logbook entries. Sometimes the owner is “dumb enough” to record the new prop installation which then raises the obvious Q on a prebuy of where is the engine inspection record because the prop TT doesn’t match the engine TT… and there isn’t one.
Engine shops say the vast majority of shock load inspections reveal no damage, but at the same time there is a large number of reports of mysterious crankcase cracks, gear teeth missing, etc… Remember nearly all of this never gets posted because owners don’t want to compromise their re-sale value.
On a homebuilt you can disregard all this, but a buyer who is clued-up will still ask the same Qs and will look for a discount.
Hmmm. So time to replace the Mcauley with a cheaper Sensenich? ( More suited to the 160 hp upgrade which would require a top end teardown and fitting new pots and pistons with the opportunity to examine the innards at the same time ……………. ) just sayin’ !
Noe wrote:
If you were certain that it’s a tow bar thing, couldn’t you go to a repair shop and explain just that and have them repair the prop?
Nope. There are directives from Lycoming that mandate a teardown if the prop touches anything solid, engine running or not and any maintenance organisation here in the UK is going to have to adhere to that. They would not sign the aircraft off with a repaired prop without the engine rebuild.
In addition Lycoming says the engine is now too old to be repaired, it needs a full overhaul.
So I’m looking for a 3/4 life engine replacement ‘on condition’ and a used prop or something along those lines.
In addition Lycoming says the engine is now too old to be repaired, it needs a full overhaul.
I am sure that is made up on the spot, although it may well be the Lycoming position if you use them for the engine work.
would require a top end teardown and fitting new pots and pistons with the opportunity to examine the innards at the same time
That won’t work because a shock load check involves doing NDT (dye penetration test etc) on a load of parts, and you can’t do that with just the cylinders removed. You have to dismantle the engine. It’s a big job because e.g. once the crankcases are separated, they have to be stripped down and washed and degreased otherwise the sealing “gasket” (it’s not a real gasket) cannot be applied with any assurance of not getting an oil leak.
Normally, people do everything possible to avoid opening up an engine, because no reputable shop will put it back together if they find certain things (corrosion is one of them). But in your case you have to open the engine.
On a homebuilt you can disregard all this, but a buyer who is clued-up will still ask the same Qs and will look for a discount.
Why on a ‘homebuilt’ can you disregard ‘all this’?
Welcome back to EuroGA, 2greens1red 
Why on a ‘homebuilt’ can you disregard ‘all this’?
The airworthiness related positions relate to aircraft with an ICAO CofA.
On some there are additional constraints e.g. on G-reg where you won’t get the annual LAA signoff. But most European regs don’t have this “CAA” involvement, and stuff like SBs, MSBs, SLs, ADs are not mandatory airworthiness issues.
Nimbusgb wrote:
Hmmm. So time to replace the Mcauley with a cheaper Sensenich? ( More suited to the 160 hp upgrade which would require a top end teardown and fitting new pots and pistons with the opportunity to examine the innards at the same time ……………. ) just sayin’ !
Why not yes. Any prop which is valid for this airplane will do just fine.
Nimbusgb wrote:
In addition Lycoming says the engine is now too old to be repaired, it needs a full overhaul.
Where does Lycoming say that? The normal TBO recommendation of 12 years is just that, a recommendation. It may be better to fully overhaul on a cost/result base but I have not ever heard that a 3/4 time engine needs to be overhauled just because of age for private ops. Sure, it would still be on condition afterwards, but heck, who cares.
BTW, why do you have to put the whole plane on a trailer? The engine fits into a trunk of any larger car and the prop is only good for decoration in some aviation pub anyhow. So what you need to do is if you have the engine overhauled or repaired to take it off and ship it to wherever it needs to go (or drive it there as I did) and have the replacement prop shipped to you and installed locally once it arrives. If you source a different engine, wait until it gets there and then have it changed on the spot. That is work for about 4 hours.
Your broken Prop btw is not entirely worthless, you should announce it on e-bay or similar for decoration purposes once you don’t need it anymore. Quite a few people are looking for such props and would be willing to pay some money for it.
But you are absolutely right, it needs to be repaired now. In fact this process should have started the moment the assessor had documented the damage.
Talk to your broker and the engine shops in the UK if any of them have a suitable engine for you. I recall a friend who had a similar problem (totalled engine however) and 3 phonecalls to the local overhaulers got him a replacement within a week.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Your broken Prop btw is not entirely worthless, you should announce it on e-bay or similar for decoration purposes once you don’t need it anymore. Quite a few people are looking for such props and would be willing to pay some money for it.
Think it will go on my own man cave wall as a gentle reminder to me! :) :)
The maintenance organisation quotes CAP 747 GR24 pp3 p 5 as grounds for a mandatory rebuild. -
Which in my read of it says it could be put back into service if the shockload tests are OK but in theirs says it can’t.
Nimbusgb wrote:
Which in my read of it says it could be put back into service if the shockload tests are OK but in theirs says it can’t.
I read it as you do. Which means someone is trying to screw you here. You should find a shop that works with your interests in mind and discard this one. It’s a huge warning sign if they make things such as this up as they go, and from “determine if it is practicable to restore” directly jump to “has to be overhauled” without the “inspect the engine” part first.
