Xray for struts

[jim cooper]

purchased a 46' T-craft, 65 hp last fall. It was completley rebuilt last year. It looks great. Engine, 250 hrs. looks, runs good. Logs show that struts were xrayed last summer by professional company in eastern ny state. Findings were, no rust, solid, ok. Question: Is this ok? Is this the normal way they are checked? Comments or suggestions please! Thanks JC

[VictorBravo]

Re: Xray for struts

Logs show that struts were xrayed last summer by professional company in eastern ny state. Findings were, no rust, solid, ok.

Yeah, your fine for a few years on the struts if not forever. Keep the airplane inside a hangar (or at the very least) covered with a good solid waterproof set of covers that keeps water o ff the damn airplane, and you are 80% of the way there. The other 20% is keeping a good coat of LPS anti-corrosion or Boeshield or Corrosion-X or whatever o n all that stuff. Make sure all of the small drain holes on the whole airplane, including the landing gear diagonal downstrut, are open and clear.

As for the OTHER AD, you may have to have the tube cluster at the lower strut X-rayed or inspected too. So far I think it is only a visual inspection but you gotta do it. The good news is you can probably have it X-rayed on the airplane like we did here, and have it counted as an alternate method of compliance.

Find someone with a small borescope that fits into the lower fuselage bolt hole. It is worth the effort for you to find one of those tools to use.

[jim cooper]

Re: Xray for struts

I recently sold a 7eca, before that a champ. Why is the T-craft AD so much stricter than these two? Is it overreaction to an accident or what? I appreciate the answer so far. JC

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Xray for struts

Amazing how fast someone without the actual history of our strut mess can see immediately exactly what happened.
You hit it on the head. An accident involving an improperly maintained airplane pounced upon by an unscrupulous supplier, who pushed the FAA into an unnecessarily restrictive inspection, from which all of us were forced into unnecessary expense and delay. It's pretty much over now, but there are a lot of angry owners out here over the whole thing. Danged if I will throw out my perfectly good struts! They are stored in my hangar, nice and dry for future use when the world comes back to its senses.

Hank

[gfortin]

Re: Xray for struts

I second that. I have my old struts in a nice dry place in tubes waiting for a better time.

[jim cooper]

Re: Xray for struts

bear with me....If your storing the struts and they are perfectly good why did you get new ones? Why didn't you use them? Sorry, I'm slow. JC

[3Dreaming]

Re: Xray for struts

New sealed struts get rid of the AD. Otherwise you have to do the Xray inspection every 4 years. In the long run it saves money to get the new struts. Tom

[jim cooper]

Re: Xray for struts

The company that did my struts was: Syracuse Executive Air Service, 211 Tuskegee Road, Syracuse, NY. 13211 Phone 315 455 5957, Paul Staskowski, Director of Maint. Hope this is of help. JC

[gfortin]

Re: Xray for struts

I didn't want to deal with the issue anymore. I agree it probably was foolish to spend all that money when the struts passed. I guess I was feeling flush when I ordered them. They are probably worth something to someone. I hope.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Xray for struts

Mine will be going to my 45 (if I ever get it done). It's a rare one and would be worth keeping completely original (OK, it's worth a lot to ME to keep completely original).
Hank