Peter wrote:
with really good QA you don’t need traceability because you can be sure nobody will get bad parts
Not true, I’m sad to say.
I don’t know if when you say QA you mean inspection, or if you mean quality systems, but in the electronics industry it is impossible to “inspect quality” into a chip for example. We have had major semiconductor manufacturers ship us parts that are marginal, or even outside specification. It is not possible to test “edge of the envelope” characteristics on every part you make, it is necessary to actually believe that if you have checked it’s the right part number it is as per the specification.
So when one of the big boys has fouled up you need to know exactly where every single part has gone; potential failures are poisonous to brands and it’s important to zoom in, correct the fault and move on quickly. That’s expensive, so in knowing exactly what you have out in the field is important to control the costs of such issues.
We recently had a minor situation like this, we were able to identify it was less than 200 parts affected out of the 6500 we had made that week. We will end up replacing the 200 or so at a cost running into high tens of thousands for the whole exercise. Without traceability it could have cost a 7 figure sum.
@LeSving wrote:
Even if it costs you US$ 1k or at max 3k for a set of brand new all punched parts replacing every LCP part, this is peanuts in the big picture.
By continually saying things like this it highlights that you really don’t understand the complexity of the issue. Do you really think 3k is going to cause this much of a problem for people spending 150k+ on their build?
I know that it may seem like people just want Van’s to fail but that is not true. What is true is there are people that would like to see Van’s continue on even if they have multiple serious QA issues and safety concerns. You would hear a lot less from the “unreasonable” customers if there were not so many unempathetic people that aren’t affected, but only concerned about Van’s survival so they can have future parts, even if Van’s is a bad company. I personally would not like to see this happen to future costumers.
Yes we know that QA and traceability costs money and will increase kit prices. You can save your breath when kit prices go way up. It’s like @peter said, “there is a cost in not having QA”. Now Van’s has to pay for QA and to attempt to fix this problem. However, I still don’t see how they manage to avoid bankruptcy.
Peter wrote:
IMHO in this case one can deal with everything by visual inspection; the rest is aluminium you buy in in sheet form
What a naive, ingenuous and marvellous view 
It could even be refreshing if it wasn’t for the seriousness of the whole subject…
Of course, people not affected by any of these issues will take a lighter look at this mess. To those I suggest building your next aircraft, dreaming of it for months or years, falling in love with it, saving the dough to buy either material or kit and tooling, then spend years sanding, or riveting, building in some obscure workshop whilst juggling with life as it is. Believe me, the building of an aircraft is, in the best of cases, a huge commitment.
Now add those bogus aircraft parts, and some people will be loosing hundreds of hours of dedicated work, and large sums of $.
Another thing to remember is that most homebuilders are not well off. Building an aircraft is quite often the only way to enjoy owning a new aircraft, and not some crappy flying jurassic bird or a million new Cirrus. Add the benefit of lower operating and maintenance costs which generally make homebuilts much more affordable.
Peter wrote:
the rest is aluminium you buy in in sheet for
Ok, now tell me the price for say a typical Alclad 2×2m 2024-T3 alloy sheetmetal, or some 6061-T6 3/4 angle 3m long shipped to your door? Cheap?
I agree with all you say Dan; my earlier point was merely that these parts have probably not been subject to any visual inspection in the first place.
Peter wrote:
I agree with all you say Dan; my earlier point was merely that these parts have probably not been subject to any visual inspection in the first place.
Peter, did you mean by the builder or by Vans?
Dan wrote:
To those I suggest building your next aircraft, dreaming of it for months or years, falling in love with it, saving the dough to buy either material or kit and tooling, then spend years sanding, or riveting, building in some obscure workshop whilst juggling with life as it is. Believe me, the building of an aircraft is, in the best of cases, a huge commitment.
Now add those bogus aircraft parts, and some people will be loosing hundreds of hours of dedicated work, and large sums of $.
The best way I heard a fellow affected builder express their sentiment was:
“I fully expected challenges, setbacks, expensive mistakes and lessons, mountains to climb, things that would push me to the very brink of sanity and cause me to lie awake at night wondering why I even bothered. I just thought the cause would be my mistakes.”
Dan wrote:
Ok, now tell me the price for say a typical Alclad 2×2m 2024-T3 alloy sheetmetal, or some 6061-T6 3/4 angle 3m long shipped to your door? Cheap?
Probably not the case for a good few years now, but it used to be said that Van’s parts pricing was so low that if you needed some 2024-T3 sheet for general use then the cheapest source was to buy wing or fuselage skins from Van’s and cut them up.
LeSving wrote:
Since when did anodized main wing spars and punched holes become widely accepted throughout the aviation industry?
You responded to my question with a question (PIVOT! Sorry, just saw that Friends episode… had to go there 
), but you did not actually answer my question.
It is my understanding that anodized aluminum has been widely used in the US aerospace industry since before 1937. That said, I cannot speak to industry-wide anodizing of wing spars; however, the Van’s contractor has used Mil Spec A-8625 Type 2 anodizing for spars for more than 30 years, and I understand Van’s accounted for the decrease in fatigue life of anodized parts by increasing the overall strength of the spars. Punched holes have been in use for quite a long time as well. To be fair, punching holes to final size (a la RV-10 & RV-14) may not have as much history and perhaps leaves open a reasonable question around fatigue life.
I consider myself properly admonished for not framing the question more carefully.
Kit set A consists of final-sized punched parts (as advertised), that are not known to immediately present cracks visible to the naked eye when dimpled.
Kit set B includes 317 parts that have been produced using a method resulting in final-sized holes wherein more than 90% of which present cracks visible to the naked eye immediately when dimpled.
Which set of kits would you choose?
did you mean by the builder or by Vans?
Vans.
ccarlson wrote:
I understand Van’s accounted for the decrease in fatigue life of anodized parts by increasing the overall strength of the spars
No, they just decreased the overall life of the wing spar by 20-30 %. Of course anodizing is used a lot, but never in critical structural parts. It’s well known and you can google lots about it. It has been discussed at VAF pages up and down as well. But according to mil spec whatever. They aren’t doing this themselves, in the same manner they weren’t laser cutting themselves. If the laser cutting were done after Vans specs, none of this would have happened. You get the drift?
Punched holes were done for the first time in Italy I think. ICP and/or Tecnam I believe, but not sure. My Savannah has punched holes in 6061
It’s all about compromise in making better kits. Anodized spars vs corroded spars. What will happen first in 50 years, fatigue or corrosion? Proper corrosion protection of non-clad high strength aliminium isn’t necessarily something you can do in your garage just like that. Punched holes vs errors in building. Punched holes offer many advantages, same as laser cutting (when done right). Sonex using 6061 and SS rivets (lots of benefits). All of this is way out of the usual aircraft metal work best practice manuals, but is done to:
According to Vans, the laser cutting was after a Boeing procedure, used by them. Just too bad the subcontractor didn’t do it properly, for whatever reason.
