Poll for advice. I am planning on OH my MT prop (because of engine work in progress and prop already removed, plus the notoriously long time it takes to have this overhaul done).
I normally would go to MT themselves, who do an absolutely perfect job, but they have become painfully expensive and this made me want to examine alternatives in Europe.
Any recommendations? Any advice/ warnings/ bad experiences with OH?
It will be a fairly complex one, 4 blade with de-ice boots and reinforced leading edges.
The last time we had to have an MT prop overhauled we used Brinkley Propellers in the UK. Even including the shipping, they were much faster than MT themselves. We got the impression that they put more effort into manufacturing new propellers than overhauling existent ones. The overhauled (two-blade constant speed with leading edge protection) propeller has been in service for approximately four hundred hours now, without any abnormalities.
I don’t know how exactly Brexit affected Brinkley’s EASA certification and the ease and cost of shipping. We have our own crates for two- and three-bladed propellers which meant that we did not have to pay for the shipping of an empty crate.
Thank you CharlieRomeo. I will approach them.
I am also in touch with a Portuguese company called Aerohelice. Any feedback?
Any recommendations in France?
Aerohelice did a fine job on my props about 6 years ago.
thx aart ( and hello!)
@Flyingfish, Galatea is fine again, isn’t she? Where did you get the prop work done in the end? We are facing the same issues with MT currently: not only are they expensive, they need at least 12 weeks!
Does anyone have any experience how MT props hold up with heavy use? Say 600 hours a year. And what are they like if left outside all the time.
terbang wrote:
We are facing the same issues with MT currently: not only are they expensive, they need at least 12 weeks!
Do you really need to overhaul it? In my personal experience all those “lets do it because the 6 years are over and the plane is grounded anyway” turned out to be a bad and expensive idea.
Bathman wrote:
Does anyone have any experience how MT props hold up with heavy use?
This is again my person experience but we hit a bird, the damage to the prop was quite substancial. I think a metal prop would not have cared much about the bird. Then on another plane with such prop we sucked in some stone and the leading edge looked terrible. Again I think a metal prop would have coped much better. Then remember this German group which went to Africa and some wild animal actually bit off a piece of the trailing edge over night. The good news is you can do a lot of things with epoxy on those props but now we have a metal prop for 5 years and it seems a lot more rugged.
The big advantage of the MT is that when you have a prop strike the engine will be fine as the prop is torn apart before the crankshaft even notices.
Do you really need to overhaul it? In my personal experience all those “lets do it because the 6 years are over and the plane is grounded anyway” turned out to be a bad and expensive idea.
It has been IRANed years ago and I would be happy with another IRAN. However, it starts leaking a little grease and the electrical boots need replacement so there is work to be done. If you can recommend an FAA part 145 shop that does IRAN I would highly appreciate that!
terbang wrote:
it starts leaking a little grease and the electrical boots need replacement so there is work to be done.
I see, we never had the issue with a leak but we had a deice boot replaced. Our shop did buy it from MT and did glue it down. You might ask ACG in Allendorf/Eder. But I have no idea if normal shops will be able to fix such a leak.
