Anyone see the AD on the doorpost cracks? I ordered a repair kit for my 182 last month, it was about $1100. My buddy has the same year and model and wanted me to order him a kit just in case, the price went up to $7000. What gives. All I saw was some doubler plates and rivets. Is an alternative means of compliance possible or did I get lucky. SK 182-115.

It's not an AD yet, but might be headed that way... https://www.federalregister.gov/documen ... -airplanes

RE: The cost of the kit, thats pretty much par for the course for all Cessna parts now that the company has been sold. Try to buy ANYTHING now and the price has at least tripled. I just bought cessna skylite frames for a customer. What cost $150 ea in 2014 is now over $700. We get the front seat for the slow demise of GA...

Another thread on this: https://backcountrypilot.org/forum/cess ... cern-20427

Like $750.00 for a 30" strip of .050 aluminum bent with a curve? Cuz that's what I had to pay for a Station 90 stiffener

I collected NOS bulkheads from the backside of the baggage door to the tail for my 54 180 back in the 1990's. Got them from Preferred Airparts for just in case. Might not have been a bad investment.

I will speculate that the reason for the jump in some Cessna parts is that they have some old stock priced accordingly to what it cost to produce. When that stock reaches a trigger number of remaining units or is exhausted they put in an order, sourced either internally or for bids to supply. This results in dramatic increases in price, rather than a long linear increase over several decades. Then again I could wrong.

Tim

Yes, the stocking issue is probably the case. But the pricing for the kit is likely 10x over and above what it would take to hire a Cub Scout in Beverly Hills to whittle the part to specification out of a hunk of aluminum with a toothpick.

I've come across quite a few pretty good field repairs for stuff like this over the years when the Cessna prices were purely for comic value. It will be interesting to see how owners manage this issue as well.

The price Cessna is asking for parts is a joke. Not even worth entertaining.

But I think there is somewhat a light at the end of the tunnel for lightly loaded parts. The company I work for just bought a 3D printing machine that prints parts out of a material, for which has actual test based statistical data. That means we can make parts like skylight frames fairly easily. We're not in the business of small GA but the 3D printing machine would be perfect for that application (ultem 9085).

The rudder bellcranks from Cessna, when I looked, were 1800+ per part. Rude joke. I CAD'd them up, CNC'd them, and wrote an engineering report that a buddy (DER) signed off. Total cost for two was less than half of one part after machining, material and bushings.

As for repair doublers, that cost 7k, Again its a rude joke. An A&P should be able to do that kind of work per SRM. Otherwise find an engineer and ask for their help. A DER would not cost that much to design or approve a repair (if you need one in Denver shoot me a message) and it sounds like any A&P should be able to fab the part.

Also try this guy: http://www.robairrepair.com/
It looks like he makes the doorpost kit for the 206 for roughly 2k

Good thing that McFarelane exists!

BazzLow wrote:The price Cessna is asking for parts is a joke. Not even worth entertaining.

But I think there is somewhat a light at the end of the tunnel for lightly loaded parts. The company I work for just bought a 3D printing machine that prints parts out of a material, for which has actual test based statistical data. That means we can make parts like skylight frames fairly easily. We're not in the business of small GA but the 3D printing machine would be perfect for that application (ultem 9085).

The rudder bellcranks from Cessna, when I looked, were 1800+ per part. Rude joke. I CAD'd them up, CNC'd them, and wrote an engineering report that a buddy (DER) signed off. Total cost for two was less than half of one part after machining, material and bushings.

As for repair doublers, that cost 7k, Again its a rude joke. An A&P should be able to do that kind of work per SRM. Otherwise find an engineer and ask for their help. A DER would not cost that much to design or approve a repair (if you need one in Denver shoot me a message) and it sounds like any A&P should be able to fab the part.

Also try this guy: http://www.robairrepair.com/
It looks like he makes the doorpost kit for the 206 for roughly 2k

Good thing that McFarelane exists!

I contacted him, he told me to expect pricing to be roughly 2k for both the 207 and 182 kits, didn't ask for the 172 kit but since they are similar parts itll probably be in that range. I was looking into it casually just to avoid future AD's, other posters are right Cessna sure is quick to raise the prices for an AD required part on affected planes.

Ya'll don't forget Owner Produced Parts. It's legal for the Owner to contract with a party to produce a part that is hard or impossible to find.

gunny

I've got the FAA Definition letter for FAR 21.303 (b) (2) if anyone is interested.

Gunny wrote:Ya'll don't forget Owner Produced Parts. It's legal for the Owner to contract with a party to produce a part that is hard or impossible to find.

gunny

I've got the FAA Definition letter for FAR 21.303 (b) (2) if anyone is interested.

If you could post a link to that letter, it would be greatly appreciated.

I just sent the PDF to Zane and asked him to post it to the Knowledge Base. Probably easier than emailing it individually, and better for the community.

gunny

And, I wouldn’t blame the Chinese for these price hikes, Cessna has been playing this game for decades.

MTV

Gunny wrote:I just sent the PDF to Zane and asked him to post it to the Knowledge Base. Probably easier than emailing it individually, and better for the community.

gunny

Thanks!