[Rick6a]

The current classified ad describing a plan to part out a Bonanza prompts me to write this. Several days ago, a local pilot forgot to lower the landing gear on his recently purchased Bonanza.

A salvage hoist was called in. While waiting, I counted 21 slash marks on the runway centerline.

Many hours later, we had that Bonanza back up on its wheels.

After the FAA and almost everybody else left, I quietly helped the owner wheel the bruised Bonanza back into his hangar. The prop is trash and the engine will have to be disassembled, that's obvious. I inspected the lower skins closely and surprisingly, little obvious damage exists other than the belly mounted antennas and nose gear doors, but therein lies the rub. Upon superficial visual inspection, the Bonanza was ultimately declared a total loss. A big reason why the Bonanza was deemed totalled are those nose landing gear doors. The doors are not complicated in assembly and any experienced RV4 builder could cob together an acceptable replacement in less than a day of basic sheetmetal work. Nevertheless, the owner was told those doors cost $4000 each. Thats $8000 for maybe $50-$200 in materials cost. Throw in the labor to remove and replace those itty bitty "BEECHCRAFT" doors and you could buy a couple of standard RV subkits! Upon learning that news, another local Bonanza owner thought it prudent to increase his insurance coverage.
Bottom line for me is this..... experimental aircraft are the pointing the way towards sanity and affordability in the world of general aviation. The world of certificated airplanes has gradually morphed into a grotesque caracature of excess and lawsuits and greed. RV's rule!

 

[RV6_flyer]

I did the prebuy on an RV-6A that replaced a C-182 that had carb ice and was wrecked. The insurance totaled it also. The lower cowl was $22,000 from Cessna. That was JUST the LOWER Cowl. Any RV builder could make the cowl but since it is Cessna, the price is SKY HIGH.

Gary

 

[pierre smith]

Yes, they do

Rick,
I couldn't have said it better! $4000 per door= $3000 for product liability, $50.00 for the aluminum and the rest for labor.

I sold Cessna Agwagons and 'Trucks in the seventies for a dealer and a Cessna rep told me that EACH airplane's product liability was $30,000 for that $100,000 airplane!!

 

[Brantel]

Question for the experts

I may be a dummy for asking this, but can a "Certified" airplane be re-registered as an "Experimental"?

 

[cjensen]

Only if it's being used to test a possible new STC installation, or something along those lines. When the testing is done, it is returned to certified status IIRC.

 

[pierre smith]

Yes

Brian,
There's a guy in Texas who owns a turbine repair facility near Corpus and he installed a PT-6 in the front of a Cessna push-pull. It is now experimental and the rear engine compartment is a luggage area.

 

[Mel]

A certified aircraft CAN be certified as Experimental. But it is not practicle. What category would you put it in? It doesn't qualify as amateur-built. You CERTAINLY don't want it in Exibition. R&D requires periodic recertification. And if you EVER wanted it back in Standard category, you would have to prove that it meets it's type certificate. Not a cheap or easy task.

 

[mlw450802]

I read an article a few years back where some guy had a crunched 182 (I think - fuzzy memory) that required way more effort than the 51% rule. He was able to reconstruct the thing and was allowed to have it placed in the experimental category. It was essentially a stock 182 that he built largely from scratch.

-mike

 

[jcaplins]

make 'em yourself?

what about "owner manufactured parts"?

forgive my lack of providing proof that my statements are true.... but I am under the impression that an owner can manufacture parts themselves as long as they are not redesigned, and the work is inspected by an A&P.

Perhaps a more enligtened individual can shed some light on this matter. I'm sure I saw an article on this in AOPA magazine.


Jeff

 

[Dgamble]

Certified parts cost

This just came up in A&P class last night. The instructor was talking about instruments and how they are located in the panel. At the point he was talking about clocks and their normal proximity to other instruments used in partial panel, he pointed to a Mooney panel and how the clock was in the yoke. He expressed that he didn't know why they had made that design decision.

I offered that the reason was obvious: so they could charge $1000 for a $10 clock. I doubt if I'm very far from the mark.

 

[hydroguy2]

......but therein lies the rub. Upon superficial visual inspection, the Bonanza was ultimately declared a total loss. A big reason why the Bonanza was deemed totalled are those nose landing gear doors. The doors are not complicated in assembly and any experienced RV4 builder could cob together an acceptable replacement in less than a day of basic sheetmetal work. Nevertheless, the owner was told those doors cost $4000 each. RV's rule!

Don't know if this helps, but I know where the is a wrecked "J" model with perfect doors. I am willing to bet it can be had very cheaply.

 

[RV8N]

Gougers!

I did the prebuy on an RV-6A that replaced a C-182 that had carb ice and was wrecked. The insurance totaled it also. The lower cowl was $22,000 from Cessna. That was JUST the LOWER Cowl. Any RV builder could make the cowl but since it is Cessna, the price is SKY HIGH.

If they (aircraft manufacturers) can get aircraft with minor damage declared totalled, maybe soon they will be able to sell a new aircraft to that owner. Sounds like they are inflating prices to help themselves.

Might also be a business opportunity for someone that can fabricate these parts, get and STC and start selling...

Karl

 

[briand]

Actually, the aircraft OEMs do NOT make many/most of the parts that go on their aircraft. Their suppliers have to sell them the parts at what pretty much amounts to a loss most of the time. Then the suppliers get to make their real money in aftermarket spares/repairs sales. ONE example is a CRJ Flap CU which sell to BA for about $20K or to an airline in the aftermarket for well over $100K. One exception though is military aircraft. I could give a hundred more examples but I won't.

 

[frankh]

Rip the tail off

Apparently (so I was told) the tails are prone to corrosion so rip 'em off before the airplane is crapped...Might buy some nice instruments for the replacement RV10 the owner clearly needs to build.

Frank

 

[brianwallis]

reman

hmmmm... If I am reading the far aim right... then we should be able to take a piece from the Bananna that geared up and fab the rest of the pieces and file a form 337... what do you think Mel? I'm actually a helicopter mechanic and I've never had to do that... Thanks to Uncle Sam... He buys all my parts for my bird...I dont even have to sign a check!
Thanks
Brian Wallis
prior service UH-60L crewchief 9026268

 

[jrsites]

If they (aircraft manufacturers) can get aircraft with minor damage declared totalled, maybe soon they will be able to sell a new aircraft to that owner. Sounds like they are inflating prices to help themselves.

Might also be a business opportunity for someone that can fabricate these parts, get and STC and start selling...

Karl

What you have to understand is that Beechcraft does not have an assembly line running that makes ANY parts for that model. Nor do any other manufacturers continue making bulk quantities of parts for aircraft that they produced decades ago.

To make a new set of those gear doors for that airplane, Beechcraft would have to send someone out to their tooling storage facility to retrieve the original dies the parts were formed on, find some schedule time in their parts manufacturing area to stop production of whatever parts are currently being manufactured, take those dies out, replace them with the 40-year-old forms, run the machine and make the two gear doors for this gentleman, take the forms off, then go back to making whatever they were making before the order for these parts came in. Of course, then the old dies have to be taken back out to the storage facility.

That's a bit of an over simplification, but it explains a good part of the reason that those parts cost that much.

 

[RV7Factory]

I may be a dummy for asking this, but can a "Certified" airplane be re-registered as an "Experimental"?

I know two people that have done this, but it has been for a factory built Pitts S-1S and S-1T. IIRC, both are now "Experimental Exhibition". Lots of limitations.

 

[svanarts]

Silly question but wouldn't part of the declared loss be due to the cost of tearing down the engine? Isn't that required in a prop strike situation? Plust the cost of a new prop... not sure if that one can be repaired? Doesn't look like it. Then your $8k gear doors. Starts to sound a little more expensive.

 

[jonbakerok]

Insurance lesson?

I wonder if the lesson we should take from this is under-insurance. The same thing could happen to an RV: You're insured for $50K because that was the cost of parts (or at least the big ones). You ground loop and the insurance man tells you it would cost more than $50K to pay someone to rebuild your plane, so here's your check. Then they take your $80K airplane, part it out, and pocket the difference.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, since my insurance is coming up for renewal and I'm not insured for the current full market value. I wonder if you're better off not insuring the hull it at all than to under-insure. For a repairable incident, at least you'd still have the plane and you could probably put it back together for less out-of-pocket expense than it would cost to build a new one with the settlement money. Plus, you'd have the use of the couple of grand a year it costs to insure it -- and it's far more likely that you'll never have an incident, anyway. On the other hand, if you crash it bad enough to kill yourself, you'd like to leave at least part of what you had tied up in your big toy to your family. Maybe the answer is just more life insurance, but I'm getting old enough that life insurance is almost as expensive as airplane insurance.

I go through this every year and I always wind up writing out the check, because it seems like the only middle ground. Not that I'm complaining -- airplane insurance is a great buy compared to car insurance. But it's still a huge chunk of change.

 

[airguy]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if you build the aircraft aren't you the only once licensed to maintain/rebuild/repair the aircraft? The insurance company could not hire someone to rebuild/repair the aircraft other than you, so that would keep the charges down considerably. Perhaps an insurance company would be willing to write a policy covering only replacement material costs, with no labor?

 

[frankh]

Not true

The insurance comapany can hire an A&P to fix your (I mean their) airplane.

In reality, A&P charges add up very fast. Think about how long it really takes to do anything on an airplane, even a simple ground loop is likely to be a couple of hundred hours at $60 an hour say makes 12grand and if you bend anything expensive like the prop or need an engine overhaul then its likely not worth the risk by the insurance company to attempt a rebuild.

Thats why at least one of the underwriters will pay YOU $15 an hour to rebuild it yourself...its a good deal for them.

I thinks its really a risk/reward game. Personally I have insured mine for $85 cus thats roughly what it cost me...I.e I can get back to where I started and probably be able to buy the wreck back for the insurance company for a reasonable amount if they declared it a total loss.

If i though I was going to crash it I would insure for $115k because thats the going asking price...trouble with that is they might not want to total it and give you a check for what they consider to be the value of the damage...Thats OK to a point but I would not like to rebuild the bird if it had significant damage...Too depressing for a start!

My thoughts

Frank

7a

 

[az_gila]

Not quite...

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if you build the aircraft aren't you the only once licensed to maintain/rebuild/repair the aircraft? The insurance company could not hire someone to rebuild/repair the aircraft other than you, so that would keep the charges down considerably. Perhaps an insurance company would be willing to write a policy covering only replacement material costs, with no labor?

Any A&P can legally repair/fix your homebuilt.... doesn't even need an IA...

gil in Tucson

 

[mlw450802]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if you build the aircraft aren't you the only once licensed to maintain/rebuild/repair the aircraft? The insurance company could not hire someone to rebuild/repair the aircraft other than you, so that would keep the charges down considerably. Perhaps an insurance company would be willing to write a policy covering only replacement material costs, with no labor?

This was discussed here a while back and I think what I got out of the discussion was that anyone can work on/repair anything on an experimental A/C but only the builder (who has received a repairman's certificate) or an A&P may perform the annually required condition inspection.
-mike

 

[airguy]

Thanks for the responses - learn something new every day!