Aluminum source fraud

[RV7A Flyer]

I doubt this is a concern for any Van's aircraft...I know the aluminum sheets came from Kaiser, but I don't recall the extruded material...and even if it *did* come from these guys, might be a different temper than what was the issue here, etc., BUT...

Anyone *know* if Van's was a customer and/or received any of the suspect aluminum extrusions from these companies?

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alumi...mers-including

According to the companies? admissions, employees at SPI facilities in the Portland area generally altered the tests in one of two ways. First, from in or about 1996 through in or about 2006, an SPI plant manager led a scheme to make thousands of handwritten alterations to failing test results by changing failing numbers that fell below the minimum required test results to appear to be passing. Those numbers were then typed onto a certification and provided to customers. Second, from in or about 2002 through September 2015, Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI?s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing machines or cutting samples in a manner that did not meet the required specifications. Balius pleaded guilty in July 2017 and was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay over $170,000 in restitution.

According to court documents, the SPI employees generally engaged in these practices to conceal the inconsistent quality of aluminum extrusions produced by SPI, avoid the costly scrapping of metal and accompanying production delays, improve SPI?s and SEI?s profits, and receive bonuses that were calculated in part based on a production metric.

[maniago]

Originally Posted by RV7A Flyer

I doubt this is a concern for any Van's aircraft...I know the aluminum sheets came from Kaiser, but I don't recall the extruded material...and even if it *did* come from these guys, might be a different temper than what was the issue here, etc., BUT...

Anyone *know* if Van's was a customer and/or received any of the suspect aluminum extrusions from these companies?

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alumi...mers-including

Wow. Lots of angle AL out there, and an Oregon co at that. I'd hazard that theres a far reaching issue here.....

[rv6ejguy]

Not the first time aluminum suppliers have been found to forge certs and mill tests. I can think of 2 other instances where the docs shows the heat treat was good and but wasn't. Two of machine shops we use went to mill parts and the material piled up on the cutters immediately and broke the tools.

One from the NW US had just photocopied a previous mill test for the same material size (different batch though by many months).

Hope they throw the book at these guys. This is criminal and can kill people.

[BillL]

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

Not the first time aluminum suppliers have been found to forge certs and mill tests. I can think of 2 other instances where the docs shows the heat treat was good and but wasn't. Two of machine shops we use went to mill parts and the material piled up on the cutters immediately and broke the tools.

One from the NW US had just photocopied a previous mill test for the same material size (different batch though by many months).

Hope they throw the book at these guys. This is criminal and can kill people.

Indeed,

For your inbound materials, won't a simple hardness test sort out the worst?

[Discus2b]

?...since 1996...?
A long time, so can anyone recall material failure on a Vans aircraft not attributed to engineering design?
A lot of yanking and banking going on since, any issues would have surface by now.

R

[rv6ejguy]

Originally Posted by BillL

Indeed,

For your inbound materials, won't a simple hardness test sort out the worst?

Yes, and usually as soon as the tool hits the material, you can at least tell if it was heat treated to some degree or not.

It's not something that happens often and is of more concern on structural airframe parts than most of the parts we make.

[David Paule]

It could also be that the alloys used on the spacecraft were not the types we use on our RVs. And it could be that the spacecraft's margins were a lot lower than Van's insists on, since the spacecraft weren't being built by us amateurs.

Dave

[David Paule]

I have a number of lengths of longeron extrusion, 6061-T6, that came with my kit, that I haven't used. The ones that are marked are marked "SAPA." I don't know whether that's a mill or a distributor.

Some others are unmarked.

The sizes are 3/4 x 3/4 x 1/16 or 1/8. I wound up with extras for two reasons. First, I ordered an extra longeron in the kit and I think they sent both sizes. And second, I went and bought, locally, some wider ones so that I could mill them to shape, allowing for extra width in some of the tight areas, as you can see in teh bottom middle of the photo.



Dave

[rjcthree]

SAPA Is an extruder, the company I work for deals direct with them.

[JonJay]

I sold thousands of feet of SAPA extrusions in my Lighting business from various linear lighting companies. They where just housings and pretty low tech compared to rockets or even aircraft.
However, I recall having several critical jobs get held up as the extrusions would not meet quality control.

I would be concerned if I had SAPA extrusions for any critical part in my airplane. How would we know?
Perhaps Vans could tell us if they supplied any SAPA products, what and when.