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Proposed AD for PA-28 wing spars

Quick question to any eddy current testers for this PA28 AD.

I was randomly reading about the general process and I know the AD was to do with the bolt holes does this apply or is it in general?

A disadvantage of the testing what does this actually mean?

ECT current always runs parallel to the surface of a material, so a defect that doesn’t come in direct contact with the current can’t be detected—and this means that some defects may go undetected

Thanks

Pilot_DAR wrote:

There’s a new SAIB from the FAA on this subject:

This is the galvanic corrosion I was mentioning on a post in this thread. These steel plates are slightly rusted on many of the PA28s that I’ve looked at.

United Kingdom

We are no longer looking for a right wing.

As we could observe visually, the defect that made the eddy check go crazy is a very small tangential mark in one of the spar holes, likely caused by a bolt thread during installation and tightening of the bolt itself.
We received confirmation from Piper yesterday that this little mark is not a crack nor crack initiation, and does not need fixing. So on with the wing.

Now we just need to overhaul the engine (this plane’s engines had lots of hours left, and was moved to the second plane of the fleet when than one ran out of extensions), but that’s a very simple problem in comparison.

ESMK, Sweden

There’s a new SAIB from the FAA on this subject:

FAA_AIR_21_10_PA_28_spars_June_29_2021_pdf

Home runway, in central Ontario, Canada, Canada

Well just in case, we are looking for a right wing for a -161.

ESMK, Sweden

The last 20 or so years has been an amazing time for people buying used light aircraft, lots of supply, prices often decreasing in real terms. However its right that fleets/schools etc have been using up the inventory and making money (or at least surviving) in doing so, that’s how markets work, and as a result the ‘golden age’ of availability and price for individual buyers may not last forever. I think people like our fellow board participants buying up nice examples of good and popular types for their own relatively low utilization service are probably smart to do so.

I think with PA28s and other types that are primarily used for flying schools (talking UK here, I don’t know about elsewhere) it’s going to accelerate the problem as schools tend to do the bare minimum to scrape through annuals. My previous school leased aircraft from a place which is pretty notorious for dodgy Mx, and much of the fleet were aircraft that have been assembled from scrap. One of the PA28s I flew was so badly out of rig that you couldn’t trim it to fly straight. Another had a misrigged nose wheel that encouraged runway excursions on landing, and another one flew straight and well but the altimeter sub scale was broken (you had to set the qnh on the second altimeter then match the two up) and the stabiliator control had a “klunk” half way through its travel.

It’s good news for owners of nice PA28s though as the prices are only going up for good examples.

United Kingdom

New wings and wing fittings are not impossible to produce. Maintain your stuff, keep it nice, and then it won’t become so degraded that you or a subsequent owner won’t want to maintain it further.

Dimme wrote:

E.g., that’s why for your backups, you should not use the same brand and model of drives. They all might fail at once.

Which happened to the e-mail system at Gothenburg university last year. (It’s much more to the story, of course.)

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

If a significant number of airplanes of a certain make and model has been flying flawlessly for 50 years, that proves just that.

They all might fail and crash during year 51 ± some standard deviation. We don’t know when that will happen until it starts happening.

E.g., that’s why for your backups, you should not use the same brand and model of drives. They all might fail at once.

Last Edited by Dimme at 10 Jun 13:00
ESME, ESMS
135 Posts
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