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It Isn't Hard to Assemble a Super Cub Or Is It?

Steve Pierce

BENEFACTOR
Graham, TX
Doing my first annual inspection on a friends recently purchased amphibious Super Cub that was built in 2002 and maintained by the same A&P/IA who signed off the rebuild. 385 hours since the rebuild with new wings, fuselage, 180 hp engine and Wip 2100 floats. Surprise, surprise, surprise. A few phone calls and I find out this was really built by the previous owner and it becomes obvious as you look at my photo album. Here are a few teasers. Photo Album of more pictures.
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https://photos.app.goo.gl/j3dHb5AKjxHLHsYo7
 

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Love that elevator cable pin. How did the flap cable come off, and how did somebody not notice the ton of slop in the system?
 
Interesting all the patches. Was it in a knife fight? :)
 
Wonder what the reason for the bolt through the liner tube? So much wrong with it. The more you look the worse it gets


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hey, that A&P lic. Is only a piece of paper! As I've been told " I've been a home auto mechanic for years and I'm an engineer. " just by the sheer grace of god it's not raining aluminum. It's very good that the owner has brought the plane to you.
 
Hey, that A&P lic. Is only a piece of paper! As I've been told " I've been a home auto mechanic for years and I'm an engineer. " just by the sheer grace of god it's not raining aluminum. It's very good that the owner has brought the plane to you.
Yup. The license means you jumped through all the hoops to get it. Some have earned the right to work on airplanes and some have no business touching one. Only time tells you who the good ones are. Reid
 
Maybe it's the same person who did this on my 180.
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Yup. The license means you jumped through all the hoops to get it. Some have earned the right to work on airplanes and some have no business touching one. Only time tells you who the good ones are. Reid
Actually, and A and P built/repaired plane, is no surety of a good job. It sounds good and it may be good, however verification is a must regardless. It could be built “safe” but lacking on fit and finish, for example.
Or the other way around. There are engineers, engineers with street smarts, engineers without papers who are mechanical geniuses who never had the opertunity to receive formal training. (Some of those people turn out amazing impeccable work). “Common sense” comes into play in the whole thing too, an item that seemingly can’t be taught in schools- you either have it or you don’t.
“Common sense” says “I don’t know what I’m doing so I should stop and ask someone who does.”
Appreciate working with engineers with “street smarts” and those without papers but strong on natural talent and common sense.
Roddy
 
It's like a treasure hunt.

Yep, the gift that keeps on giving.

Don't need any of those special Piper bushings and washers for the aileron pulleys. An old Riv-nut works great.
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Don't need that cotter pin to retain the flap lever liner tube either.
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Wonder what the reason for the bolt through the liner tube? So much wrong with it. The more you look the worse it gets


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just have to drill one 1/4" hole in the liner tube which retains it to the fuselage and rotates on the stabilizers. 8)
 
Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was the opera?

Steve, is there any good news for the owner?

Best for him to just move on and happily the ship is in good hands now.

Kind regards

Stew
 
Steve, is there any good news for the owner?

Best for him to just move on and happily the ship is in good hands now.

Kind regards

Stew

It has a 180 hp factory new engine, airframe and wings. Just needs some going over and correct reassembly.
 
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I was the banquet speaker at Transport Canada's first Atlantic Region Aircraft Maintenance Conference 30-odd years ago. I was also chairman at the time of the Atlantic Fishermen's Record Book Plan, a labour-management program to raise standards and reward deep-sea trawler men for their initiative on Canada's East Coast. I also represented trawler captains of the Fishing Masters Association with corporations and in national and international forums.

I made the point that our AMEs (Aircraft Maintenance Engineers) didn't come near professionalism of our trawler men, whose improving skills and deportment were noted in record books that followed them wherever they went. Incompetent A&Ps and AMEs when fired just pick up their toolboxes and blithely go off to another job. RoddyM's observation above of common sense unlicensed talent is the same as mine.
 
Just my 2C on unlicensed. Mechanic's. I've seen fellows that do beautiful work in many areas , lathe, milling welding Etc, better than I can do. I don't pretend I can do some things and go to professionals in there fields. Now where I see the problem, assembling aircraft is a world in itself and the methods and hardware we use in many cases never surface in other fields. Our work must integrate with all the other systems on the aircraft . These are the areas where they fail or fall short. Also to make things worse I've seen them get angry if anyone points out a problem.
Ps I don't get involved , don't need the hassle, lol.
 
Just my 2C on unlicensed. Mechanic's. I've seen fellows that do beautiful work in many areas , lathe, milling welding Etc, better than I can do. I don't pretend I can do some things and go to professionals in there fields. Now where I see the problem, assembling aircraft is a world in itself and the methods and hardware we use in many cases never surface in other fields. Our work must integrate with all the other systems on the aircraft . These are the areas where they fail or fall short. Also to make things worse I've seen them get angry if anyone points out a problem.
Ps I don't get involved , don't need the hassle, lol.

Even a simple J3 can be a challenge. ;-)

Glenn
 
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Response to my talk was interesting. Transport Canada knew who to call for the conference banquet and did a poll: Half of the AMEs wanted to throw me in the hotel's swimming pool. Granted, I had a tale of woe and everyone knew AMEs I was referring to, the fraternity tight as it is and word gets around.

Like flying the 180 with my son to pick up the SC at licensed shop, settling up with chequebook and logbooks before me, signed off with requisite two signatures, when my son, an AME and corporate chief pilot, walks in and says, "Dad, come out here and look at this."

I don't know how he saw it through the hole in the floor. Cables to the torque tube were attached to the bolts---and not secured by anything, waiting to fall off. I felt the same about half of the Atlantic region's AMEs wanting to dunk the messenger. Complacency is our principal killer.
 
Every trade has hacks in my opinion. To cast a broad sword is unfair to those that do things correctly. I have been fortunate enough to have rebuilt 5 Super Cubs that had never been apart and maintained countless others along with having hundreds of drawings. There are some things that are not called out in the normal Piper owners handbook or parts manual. Sometimes it takes some effort like looking at another airplane to figure out how something goes. The mot frustrating one was when I rebuilt a Luscombe several years ago that arrived at my hanger in many pieces and had been wrecked and repaired a documented 8 times. Their drawings do not match the airplanes and I took thousands of pictures of Luscombes at fly ins etc to make sure I did it correctly. Some people care and some do not. That is unfortunate but true.
 
Question: The IA in this case was clearly negligent. When finding work like this, does the IA community let it slide or it there a mechanism to educate/eliminate these people.
 
Question: The IA in this case was clearly negligent. When finding work like this, does the IA community let it slide or it there a mechanism to educate/eliminate these people.
No one will give me his contact information and a Google search only comes up with sites who want $ for it. In previous cases like this I have called the person who signed the work. Twice they had more excuses that you can shake a stick at and both cases were short of complete structural or control system failure and after getting no where with the mechanic I called the FAA. I have spoken to the FAA in this case but have not followed up with them.
 
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