Friend of mine has C182RG an he recently had to purchase a landing gear part for $17000 This part was $5000 a few years ago. He ask if things are any better at Beechcraft. He is thinking of finally switching to brand B. For years he has make comments as to high cost of maintaining a Bonanza. Anybody have any comparable as to what beech landing gear parts cost. The part in questions was a piece of milled aluminum that his gear rest on in up locked position.

I used to think that Mooney parts were so much cheaper than Beech parts but so far I have not seen a big difference, it may be the Beech parts are a bit less now.

The switch happened when the Mooney factory quit making planes and then became a parts company. Since they did not have to get new sales, my thought is they could squeeze on the parts side. If you still make planes, then parts have to be reasonable or you run off sales.

In the case of Brand C, the legacy airplanes may not impact new sales and if the part is no longer needed for current production, well then, too bad.

I had some landing gear/steering doodad that I could make on a lathe in a few hours from $4 of material that Beech wanted something like $1500 for, and that a CNC lathe could make in 5 minutes. We found one from another supplier for $400-500, but I would say that the whole Goldman Sachs/China/receivership didn't do anything to make parts more available, nor cheaper.

Selling an RG182 for an A36 because parts/maint will be cheaper is false economy I think. That's trebly true if the RG is well known and well sorted.

Hi Joe,

When I was a member of the CPA, there were a couple of horror stories about landing gear parts. Saddles and actuators were the biggest culprits, I want to say.

I also seem to recall that there is also a swivel fitting the brake lines that is wickedly expensive, but can be fixed with a few dollars of material (Teflon gasket material), but some A&Ps/IAs wont sign off on it because of some paperwork related issue.

Their version of wing bolts, I suppose.

Best,
Rich

There's a guy on the red board who is nonstop on how great the 210 is. Then one day a couple years ago he taxis over a simple crack in the pavement(his words) and the nose wheel collar fell apart. Not the fork, not the retract mechanism just the steering collar. It took $20K to repair. I laughed and laughed and made sure he knew what a pile of crap he had. If I had to replace the entire nose gear assembly I don't think I could spend anywhere near that.

I've had my Bo for 8 years now and have yet to need a part from Beech. Maybe their parts prices are cheap, maybe expensive. I don't see how it matters.

Yep Cessna parts expensive. Main landing gear fairing for 182 could be made for very cheap. Couple feet of thin aluminum. Fifty bucks at most. Cessna price 1,000 dollars. Just ridiculous. Are these people not aware the legacy airplanes can be had for two landing gear parts? Do they care?

Anybody got a good source for Cessna parts?

I knew a flight school that geared up their 172RG. The lower cheek cowls were 34K from Cessna.

As a supplier there is no spares from vendors in stock, I offered a complete seal kit for the 300/350/400 model and informed that it would be no chrage on there shelf until sold..

I drop ship seals to various Cessna service centers..

Its the new Cessna ( people ) and there just in time inventory,

No stock, less discount higher prices they all dont care

Give a discount to a dealer and he will stock the part and you will sell more parts, make it 10 % and you will nobody stock and there will be more profit for aog items.

I have been in this game since 1982

GB

Previous Cessna management was entirely replaced by the new guy. New guy comes from GE. He has no love whatsoever for GA. Keeps no parts, sees pre-restart Cessnas as a liability. What I always wonder is why they don't outsource his management position too: Any geriatric party official from China well versed in the execution(s) of the cultural revolution would be even more efficient than him in making Cessna "new". And if they want to go real cheap, I am sure that "Kampuchea" has a brother or two to replace him too.

I started gearing up to make cessna parts about 6 months ago
nose bowl parts, cowl flaps, wing ribs, etc--Cessna pricing is crazy stupid
I can make this stuff and sell it for 10X my cost and still be 1/10 the cost of getting it from cessna

Kevin,

We are rooting for you and will support your company.

Interesting discussion.

Once a product line reaches "end of life" as far as the manufacturer is concerned, you would think that there would be significant monetization of intellectual and real property by selling specs, drawings, tooling and jigs. Take the money and run, and let someone else deal with it.

But lets say Brand XYZ doesn't seem interested in selling airplanes, and they've got to know even if they did, they'll never capture any significant part of the market at $500k a copy. They've got legacy models that people and businesses would line up around the block to purchase new, but they have no interest in making them, nor are they interested in selling the IP to allow others to build or support them.

It's as if they want to simply wave a magic wand, write off ALL of the assets, and make those products disappear, despite the significant real value.

If I was a guy want that wanted to make that happen, I would:

1) Jack the prices on parts and support up so as to eliminate as many units in the fleet as possible.

2) By providing parts (despite the price and long lead time), I demonstrate to the FAA that the units are still "supported", thus reducing the possibility that the FAA would be lenient on 3rd party PMA efforts.

3) Allow the units in the field to attrit due to simple economics. When the numbers get low enough, issue a "killer" AD and just park them all.

Whenever something weird like this trumps "making money", its either politics or "legal" reasoning behind it. Accountants and a lawyers making the calls, not engineers or airplane builders.

Best,
Rich

even if they outlaw planes in the U.S.
there are enough cessna 172s and 180 series cessnas in the rest of the world to keep people like me going for 20 years
Kevin

John Frank, owner of the Cessna Pilots Assn, had an article this month about Cessna Parts. Basically says what we see above. Previous cultural commitment to making legacy airplane maintainable in a timely, affordable fashion has gone. Every part now basically needs a viable business case. The $17K landing gear part isn't a joke. Parts are increasingly non available or can be ordered with a 80 week leadtime, etc.

An A36 might end up being a better deal than a 182RG. There are a lot more Bonanza airframes out there to support than 182RG's.

Maybe better if Cessna will just totally abandon the legacy airframes and sell the business to someone who is interested.