Service Bulletins 19-08-26 and 16-05-23 Published - Nose gear leg and fork

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

Originally Posted by greghughespdx

A question has come up regarding at what point during an active construction project the nose gear retrofit kit should be used, rather than obtaining and getting the version of the new gear leg that is included in kits now being shipped. While we have already described the reasons a retrofit leg is required, I wanted to provide the specific steps in the plans to refer to if you are currently building and have already started work on your finishing kit.

The determining factor is whether or not one has already attached the nose gear and the engine mount, and then match drilled the firewall using these parts as guides. For RV-12iS this is covered in Section 46iS-05, Steps 1-7; for the original RV-12 this is covered in Section 46-08, Steps 1-3.

If the holes described in those assembly steps have already been drilled, the retrofit kit is required. If they have not yet been drilled, the kit version of the gear leg is needed.

A gear leg identification photo and more details are also available at this link.

I have the finishing kit and apparently Section 46 does not come with the finishing kit. My nose gear and wheel, however is on, which I believe is Section 35 of the finishing kit (I'm going by memory, don't quote me). Two holes on the mount through the firewall are not yet drilled.

I've let Jessica know, who, by the way, appears to be working on a Sunday.

Bob

[lon@carolon.net]

I just received an email from Van?s telling me that the nose gear and fork I ordered last Thursday will be shipped in 8 to 10 WEEKS! Nice that Van?s is working on Super Bowl Sunday. But really, 8 to 10 weeks to ship parts that are required by mandatory Service Bulletins? Van?s knows how many RV-12s are affected by the SBs. It couldn?t have gotten an earlier start on manufacturing the parts, or a later start on issuing the SBs? Is this any way to run a business?

[NinerBikes]

Originally Posted by lon@carolon.net

I just received an email from Van?s telling me that the nose gear and fork I ordered last Thursday will be shipped in 8 to 10 WEEKS! Nice that Van?s is working on Super Bowl Sunday. But really, 8 to 10 weeks to ship parts that are required by mandatory Service Bulletins? Van?s knows how many RV-12s are affected by the SBs. It couldn?t have gotten an earlier start on manufacturing the parts, or a later start on issuing the SBs? Is this any way to run a business?

Relax... if your plane is E-LSA, you don't absolutely have to get the new fork and nose gear installed before your next inspection. Read above, only S-LSA is mandatory.

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

Originally Posted by lon@carolon.net

I just received an email from Van?s telling me that the nose gear and fork I ordered last Thursday will be shipped in 8 to 10 WEEKS! Nice that Van?s is working on Super Bowl Sunday. But really, 8 to 10 weeks to ship parts that are required by mandatory Service Bulletins? Van?s knows how many RV-12s are affected by the SBs. It couldn?t have gotten an earlier start on manufacturing the parts, or a later start on issuing the SBs? Is this any way to run a business?

We're spoiled. It's absurd to question how Van's runs a business. Is there a problem with flying your RV-12 in the next 8 to 10 weeks?

[funflying]

Talk about spoiled, I received an email from Vans this morning updating me on my SB order for a nose gear replacement and was advised l?m 1-2 weeks out from receiving the parts.

I would want to get started sooner too, but was appreciative of the communication, and I know Vans staff would like to get these orders filled ASAP.

I was very close to finishing my condition inspection, and was disappointed this SB was issue. I decided to do a couple of other things and included this SB to be part of this inspection. Oh well, it?s winter here in the Denver area anyway.

[Hotscam]

I got a lead time of three months today. Pfff

[greghughespdx]

I don't often answer questions like this one simply because doing so can be seen as reactionary or come across as upset. Please understand that's not the case, and we certainly recognize that people get frustrated when their plans are disrupted. We have no issue with the question. Underlying the obvious frustration is a question that's not completely unreasonable to ask. Some of us are newer to RVs and experimental aviation than others, so maybe this is a good time and place to add even more background and color as to how complex and significant one (relatively) small decision such as this can be, and how important it is, in the grand scheme of things

Originally Posted by lon@carolon.net

I just received an email from Van?s telling me that the nose gear and fork I ordered last Thursday will be shipped in 8 to 10 WEEKS! Nice that Van?s is working on Super Bowl Sunday. But really, 8 to 10 weeks to ship parts that are required by mandatory Service Bulletins? Van?s knows how many RV-12s are affected by the SBs. It couldn?t have gotten an earlier start on manufacturing the parts, or a later start on issuing the SBs? Is this any way to run a business?

To make sure everyone understands, the SB is mandatory at or before your next condition inspection. The word "mandatory" is regulatory for SLSA aircraft. For ELSA and EAB, we as a manufacturer cannot force someone who owns an experimental aircraft to replace parts, but we view it as an important change that we classify as "mandatory." Our obligation to communicate the importance of available changes and parts is something we take seriously.

Let us try to explain -- in the best way we can -- why we are doing this and what's involved. Hopefully, it will help people better understand the bigger picture. We've been running this business successfully with an eye on safety for nearly 50 years. We're not perfect, but we do care. A lot. And we try very hard to do what's right.

The failure that we described in the SB occurred during the first few days of June 2019. Once we were aware of the incident, we immediately started investigating and began an FEA analysis (described earlier in this thread), which fairly quickly identified the root cause of the problem. At that moment we ceased shipment of all nose gear legs in RV-12 finish kits and threw away many thousands of dollars worth of parts inventory. We then began planning what we knew would be a complex, multi-month process to create and deliver a new gear leg. Note that we did not make a decision or take any action to ground the fleet. While this was an important problem to fix and get onto new and flying airplanes, the risk was not so severe as to warrant that drastic of an action. It was a serious enough problem, however, to create a replacement part and take action that will help ensure it gets installed across the fleet within a reasonable period of time, given the issue and potential consequences.

Our next set of tasks required us to design a fix, manufacture prototypes, perform testing, then plan and start production of the new parts. This takes an extensive amount of expensive time and effort. In addition, the actual production process for the gear leg parts is quite involved:

• We order and receive from a subcontractor a specially-crafted straight nose gear tube that is threaded on one end and has four opposing holes drilled on the other
• We install an inner tube that traverses the location of the stress concentration and tack weld it in place
• It goes from our welding shop to our bending machines, where the upper and lower bends are created
• It goes back to our welding team, where the inner tube is rosette welded and the previously manufactured upper and lower attach plates are welded into the final configuration
• It then is installed onto a heat treat holding fixture that prevents it from warping during heat treating
• It then goes to our heat treat contractor
• When returned from the heat treat contractor it is removed from the fixture, goes thru our quality control (QC) check and is sent to our cleaning contractor
• Once returned from the cleaning contractor it goes through our QC check again then sent to our powder coating contractor
• Upon return, the parts go through the last QC check and are put into warehouse stock for shipment

The whole process is quite complex and takes lots of handling. But, this is our process to ensure quality parts that meet our specs. The time required to design, test and manufacture the new gear legs meant that we did not start receiving the first shippable parts until late December. All of the finish kits we had shipped from June until December had their nose gear legs back-ordered. Thankfully, we've been able to work down that list down quickly and ship the new legs with all finish kits. We had nearly 100 of the new retrofit gear legs in stock as well as several of the new non-retrofit kit legs to install before we published the SB last week. We have a batch that is approximately the same size currently in process, and many more coming. We tried to determine how many we'd need before publishing, and our orders slightly exceeded the stock on hand. The next set of legs is coming.

We reviewed and investigated many manufacturing alternatives to see if there was a way to speed up the process and/or reduce the impact of this change on all of the other work we're doing at Van's. The fact of the matter is this: designing and testing to assure the necessary results takes time. We cannot send these parts to just any welder, for example. Heat treating facilities that can handle this work are not common. We found the best combination of manufacturing processes to ensure the new part is good to go.

Unfortunately, we cannot please all of the people all of the time. We wish we could. But we will do our part in whatever way we can to keep people -- both the ones who are pleased and the ones who are not -- safe in their airplanes.

Thank you for your patience with us. We really do have - and work hard to act with - the best interests of our customers in mind.

[Wolfgang]

Greg, I fully understand Van's situation and fully appreciate the way you are handling it. I don't mind waiting a bit.
er

John at Salida, CO

[dpemmons]

Thank you Vans for taking issues like this so seriously and issuing a fix. Us Vans owners are spoiled; so many other kit manufacturers basically wipe their hands of things as soon as a kit is out the door, leaving their building communities to figure things out by themselves. No new aircraft design is perfect, but most of us appreciate all the work you do to continually improve new kits and create fixes for old ones. Keep it up!

[lon@carolon.net]

Greg,

I'm the guy who asked "Is this any way to run a business?" I asked the question impulsively, out of frustration, in part because I'm still waiting for my mechanic to replace the circlips that a Rotax SB required months ago. I'm not confusing Van's with Rotax, and I know that the circlips issue has nothing whatsoever to do with Van's. It's just that the delay in installing new circlips is due to the length of time it took Rotax to distribute circlips, after it released its SB. So when I received an email telling me Van's didn't have enough gears and forks on hand for all who ordered them, it triggered a "Not again!" gut response. I should have taken a deep breath and waited until today to post my reaction, because maybe I would have been more understanding. In any event, your latest post really does explain how Van's "does business" -- that is, how it goes about deciding how and what to do when an issue arises. For that, I thank you.

Lon