John,

Great information.

I've had my MT for almost 2 years now and could not be happier. I have he Nickel leading edges and I've had no issues. I did have some paint peal in the early stages of ownership. John was great in offering some tips to mitigate and correct the problem but in the end the problem just got worse.

John put me in contact with Tiffin Aire in OH. I live in IN so it was not a bad set up. Once at Tiffin they discovered my paint problem was a bit worse than initially diagnosed. I ended up getting my prop repainted, and balanced under warranty. The turn time was less than a week. My prop looks like new to this day with about 300 hours and lots of rain flights. Thank you John!

Last fall I was in Frederick MD, AOPA HQ for a football game. We left early Sunday AM and when arrived home I noticed a nick on the trailing edge of my prop. I should have noticed before we departed but I did not. Bad on me.

Regardless the nick was about twelve inches from the spinner on the trailing edge. Not a common place to see a nick. The only thing I can imagine happened is a line guy pulled the grounding wire from the exhaust and the clip hit the back of the prop. Not judging but thinking out loud nor am I accusing anyone of anything. Suffice to say I had a "ding" on the trailing edge of my prop.

I took some pictures, emailed John and asked for some advice. He pointed me to the MT prop service manual, gave me some tips and told me how to fix my prop. I could not be happier with John and Larry.

Everyone has different experiences even with the same companies John and Larry at Flight Resource have done very right by me. BTW-the prop has been great as they advertise.

MW

I’ve followed this thread with great interest on people’s experiences on getting an MT repaired. After 220 hrs of mostly off airport I finally took a good rock on a gravel/sand blow by Iliamna. It delaminated about two inches of the leading edge and distorted the metal pretty good. I’m pretty bummed cause the first (I heard only) Alaska MT service center I talked to said they can’t do any repairs other than what a normal mechanic could do and they were approved to assemble/disassemble the prop to ship blades. Weeks to turn around and a ballpark $2000-3000 figure without actually seeing the damage exchange blades would be more $$$.
I really like this prop and the best of both worlds a CS offers. Kinda unique on a Cub to boot. It got me worried a bit cause let’s say I ding the hell out of it 400 miles from home. It’s not like “Hey can you send me a spare MT laying around” bolt it on and come home, maybe if money was no object. I always said I don’t need a borer or any fixed pitch as long as I have this MT reversible prop.............till now. If I damage a borer I could have another non borer get home prop on standby to replace it. Bolt and safety wire it on and go. I realize I could plug the crank and slap a fixed on to get home but then I would still be held up due to a specialty prop that needs to be sent out to repair. Our experience with this repair process is just starting so I have no opinion yet on good/bad.
Again I like the prop but for a Cub in OUR case maybe the fixed pitch is a better fit. As much as I like that MT I am going remove it and all the components and make it simple. Not a 100 % sure but right now 92%

Disclaimer: When our family acquired this aircraft it came equipped with the MT reversible pitch prop. Reverse was never used in any off airport landing while on wheels. Comes in handy while on skis.

There is little damage that you can do to an MT that would cause any concern for safety or function. The factory approved an owner to fly his SR22 home 150 miles from where he started the engine with the tow bar attached and did this to his brand new MT prop (see pic below). Blade repair was easy. Same thing happened on a Hartzell Composite a few months later (different plane) and the prop had to be condemned on the spot with no possibility of further use or repair. The .pdf file next shows two extreme examples of damage to an MT that still allowed the pilot to safely land the plane following a gear up approach.

I can tell you from your pics, if this was a metal prop, it would be condemned for sure. If you attempted to fly it on a pounding Lyc 4-cyl engine after a dent like that, you would risk the tip breaking off in flight leading to very serious vibration. This does not happen with the wood core MT props.

Review the details of the MT Service Letter (SLE-32) for Owners to inspect and perform their own repairs to an MT prop blade. You will learn how to do a coin tap test to determine the amount of area under the leading edge that may have lost the bond. If the results are inside of that spec, simply get out your sander, epoxy and clamps and fix it. Then when time permits, have Dominion replace the leading edge only...no need for any other work or expense. That can be done w/o the need to even re-paint, but I would ask for re-paint of all the blades so they all look nice and match.

If you need help or a copy of this document, please call me.

Thanks for your input and I do realize that even a metal prop would have been damaged pretty good to. It flew just fine for the flight home. I talked with the guy at Lake Hood who has the MT Logo on the side of his shop. I emailed Dominion pics and have yet to hear if they can do it in house. The lady I talked to on the phone said they were still not certified yet to do certain repairs on MT props. I am very familiar with SLE-32 as I have already used it to make the epoxy repairs on various parts of the blade in the past. Those were all within the defined limits unlike the debonding and dent size of my rock ding. Yes I am familiar with the coin tap procedure for finding delaminations and debonding.
With all due respect I realize you distribute this product and stand behind it 100% and have a great reputation. So what would you ballpark the downtime and cost IF these blades have to be sent out of state.
One has to pay to play so to speak in using a plane to hunt and fish in remote areas of Alaska, every once in a while you get some rock damage. I made it over 200 hrs on this particular prop till I dinged it. I am worried about extended down time. My time off is valuable and so I really don’t want to be grounded for weeks. I could have 2 new fixed props for the price of an MT and have minimal ground time. I grew up and flew almost 10,000 hours in the Bristol bay region in many types of aircraft and off airport ops. I would like to think that I’m pretty good a using all available methods to avoid prop damage or keep it to a minimum.
A certified repair station with exchange blades on hand in Alaska would be great and minimize down time. And that downtime, If you live in the state of Alaska is the only negative I have heard from other owners. For the sake of this whole discussion I am ONLY talking about a PA-18 Supercub with a constant speed prop. Gonna pull the prop and head today or Monday to Dominion/Seaplanes North and today to see what they can do and begin my experience with this repair process.
Don’t take any of this personally, MT is a outstanding product but as a consumer I have a choice. If I don’t like what I hear up here I will be in contact with you soon and thanks for quickly replying to this post shows you care about the product.

For those of you that wonder how much the O-320 reversible MT prop setup weighs.

MT PROP MTV-15-C-C-R(M)
Spinner/hardware/flange bushings. 55.3lbs

Oil hose/governor/governor pad and drive gear
Firewall extension box/control cable/annunciator/
Switch/breaker and air/speed switch. 9.9lbs

Total 65.2lbs

The weight of the Borer 8243 all hardware and components to convert to fixed pitch added up to 36.7lbs.

Not a ton of weight savings but everything is a trade off. A little less airspeed means more sightseeing.

We love our MT but at 1100 hours we have had leaking blade seals and a small crack in the fibreglass on the in board trailing edge of one blade that was taking in moisture. No biggie and easy enough to repair, but just saying.

A lot of good information in this thread and overall the MT sounds promising. Have many people here had their MTs for 2400 hours/72 months or whatever the TBO is without a prop shop visit for one thing or another?

chedrick wrote:A lot of good information in this thread and overall the MT sounds promising. Have many people here had their MTs for 2400 hours/72 months or whatever the TBO is without a prop shop visit for one thing or another?

Not 2400hrs, but 1,500hrs and over 72 months, no visit to the prop shop needed.
Not a single issue, always a great performer and it has been used hard in mud, rocks, sand , gravel, and grass most of its life.

No personal experience with MT (I decided to go with a Hartzell Trailblazer for my Husky and love it) but my buddy has an MT on his skywagon and loves it. No issues.

motoadve wrote:Not 2400hrs, but 1,500hrs and over 72 months, no visit to the prop shop needed.
Not a single issue, always a great performer and it has been used hard in mud, rocks, sand , gravel, and grass most of its life.

Thanks for the report! Seeing you fly into some of the places you go with the MT makes me feel a lot better about them. Nice to see it has a good bit of time on it and has proven itself.