Upcoming AD for many more PA-28 and PA-36 wing spars. 100 anomalies and 6 cracked wings found

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xenadu

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xenadu

Dynamic Regulatory System

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Forthcoming AD on Piper wing spars for much of the PA-28 and PA-32 fleet. Of the 2800 eddy current inspection reports from the prior interim AD around 100 "anomalies" and 6 fully developed fatigue cracks were found. The spar was cold formed leading to high residual stress near the bolt hole locations. Piper has changed the manufacturing process to machine the bend to avoid this issue on all new airframes.

The proposed AD has more info but it appears a variety of scenarios can eventually develop into cracks and wing separations due to the cold forming leaving that area of the wing highly stressed. If you give her the beans and load the wing up a bit too much. Or if you take the wing off without fully unloading it with a jack the stress can cause the bolt to leave a mark upon removal or insertion that will eventually turn into a fatigue crack.

YMMV but if I owned a Piper with this spar design I would get it checked, AD or not. The data so far found six time bombs that could have lead to an in-flight breakup at any time just like the prior incidents. That's too many in my opinion.
 
It says, "
(1) Has accumulated 12,000 or more total hours time-in-service (TIS) on a wing spar; or

(2) Has missing or incomplete maintenance records."

Does this still mean "much of the PA28/32 fleet"
(or am I again reading a government publication wrong?)
 
Actually 2 proposed AD's. One affecting the taper wing '28's, Arrows and fixed gear 32's. Another covering the retract 32's, which have a reinforced spar, and the hershey-bar 28's. The former will be life limited to 12,000 hours. There is a reinforcing kit for the non "high performance" PA28's that will extend them out to 25,000. All 28's above 200HP and fixed gear 32s will have to have new wing spars at 12K TIS. This is a big damn deal. I know of at least one Dakota and a few Arrows that this will ground. Going to really hurt the value of those planes as well. The AD covering the retract 32's is for an inspection at 12,000 hours. Both are considered "interim" and subject to change.

I can understand requiring inspections, but it seems like grounding planes that have passed the inspection based on their TIS is a bit extreme.

Tapered wing 28's, all Arrows, and fixed gear 32's (except the '79 300's):

Hershey bar 28s and retract 32s:

Let'sgoflying! said:
It says, "
(1) Has accumulated 12,000 or more total hours time-in-service (TIS) on a wing spar; or

(2) Has missing or incomplete maintenance records."

Does this still mean "much of the PA28/32 fleet"
(or am I again reading a government publication wrong?)
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Yeah. Going to ground a lot of planes.

EDIT: It was pointed out to me on a facebook group that the first AD requires spar replacement at 12,000 CSH, not TIS. CSH accrues at 1/2 or 1/3 of TIS if not in commercial service. So the sky is not falling. Or at least not as fast.
 
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I thought before it was 5000 factored hours which basically is 50 x 100 hour inspections needed to have the eddy inspection. Basically those airplanes used for flight instruction.

Now this seems to be 12,000 total hours in service. Is this further limiting?
 
Jim K said:
Actually 2 proposed AD's. One affecting the taper wing '28's, Arrows and fixed gear 32's. Another covering the retract 32's, which have a reinforced spar, and the hershey-bar 28's. The former will be life limited to 12,000 hours. There is a reinforcing kit for the non "high performance" PA28's that will extend them out to 25,000. All 28's above 200HP and fixed gear 32s will have to have new wing spars at 12K TIS. This is a big damn deal. I know of at least one Dakota and a few Arrows that this will ground. Going to really hurt the value of those planes as well. The AD covering the retract 32's is for an inspection at 12,000 hours. Both are considered "interim" and subject to change.

I can understand requiring inspections, but it seems like grounding planes that have passed the inspection based on their TIS is a bit extreme.

Tapered wing 28's, all Arrows, and fixed gear 32's (except the '79 300's):

Hershey bar 28s and retract 32s:


Yeah. Going to ground a lot of planes.
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Oh wow thanks for the detailed explanation. I mean I don’t want to risk a wing separation in flight, I had some anxiety (oh uh) hearing about the wing separation incident and AD, but then with it being 3 incidents, I was willing to take on the risk. My airplane has 4xxx hours TIS so I don’t think I have to worry about reaching the 12k number. Sad to hear about this nonetheless. You shouldn’t have to worry about your wing falling off in flight.
 
mandm said:
You shouldn’t have to worry about your wing falling off in flight.
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Agreed. I think they are being pretty conservative, as they probably should be. You probably will have to do the eddy current inspection at some point though. Look towards the end of the first link I posted and you'll find a table outlining the various models and the inspection requirements.

I really hate to see a life limit imposed though.
 
If I'm reading this properly it means my PA28R-200 Arrow will have a wing spar limited to 12k TIS hours? Joy!
Just what I needed to facilitate my move to experimental :D
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
If I'm reading this properly it means my PA28R-200 Arrow will have a wing spar limited to 12k TIS hours? Joy!
Just what I needed to facilitate my move to experimental :D
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I think you're just under the cutoff. The 28R-200's are in group 1, which are eligible for a kit from Piper that extends them out to 25,000 TIS.
 
I’m wondering what the modified wing spar is, and also why Piper has zero responsibility for resolving this. I mean you made it wrong, accepted that by changing your manufacturing process, and now you want people to buy an overpriced repair kit? I mean are you a profitable venture and unable to fix your errors? Fix your stuff….

Butttt I think the calculation is changing to counting your non flight instruction hours as either a third or a half (>200HP aircraft) and starting your inspection at 3000 calculated hours. I don’t think I have many 100 hours in my logs, so I’m still pretty far away from this. But if there is a solution for a modified wing spar that not only checks your spars and increases your wing spar to 25k hours (peace of mind too), that’s not too terrible, well depending on the price.

Are they suggesting a life limit for the spars?
 
mandm said:
I’m wondering what the modified wing spar is, and also why Piper has zero responsibility for resolving this. I mean you made it wrong, accepted that by changing your manufacturing process, and now you want people to buy an overpriced repair kit? I mean are you a profitable venture and unable to fix your errors? Fix your stuff….

Butttt I think the calculation is changing to counting your non flight instruction hours as either a third or a half (>200HP aircraft) and starting your inspection at 3000 calculated hours. I don’t think I have many 100 hours in my logs, so I’m still pretty far away from this. But if there is a solution for a modified wing spar that not only checks your spars and increases your wing spar to 25k hours (peace of mind too), that’s not too terrible, well depending on the price.

Are they suggesting a life limit for the spars?
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You're correct. It was pointed out to me that they are using a "CSH" NOT TIS. The CSH accrue at either 1/2 or 1/3 depending on model if not in commercial use.

The repair kit thing is pretty common. I spent 8 grand to install a reinforcing kit where my main gear attach to the spar a couple years ago. It is a SB, not an AD, presumably because failure of the part results in gear collapse rather than the airplane falling out of the sky. Actually the parts were not that bad*, it was mostly installation. I would expect the spar update to be the same kind of thing.

The 32Rs have an extra flat aluminum bar bolted to the wing spar, which is presumably why they escape the more onerous AD. I wouldn't be surprised if the update kit doesn't consist of much more than that.

*for airplane parts
 
mandm said:
I’m wondering what the modified wing spar is, and also why Piper has zero responsibility for resolving this. I mean you made it wrong, accepted that by changing your manufacturing process, and now you want people to buy an overpriced repair kit? I mean are you a profitable venture and unable to fix your errors? Fix your stuff….
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I hear ya. I have a 1965 Ford Fairlane, the damn floorboards rusted through. And you would think Ford would be responsible for this, after all they made it! And Ford expects me to pay for the repairs myself! The nerve!
 
Given the potential impact I'm hoping Piper charges cost on new spars here, but I can't 100% fault them. This is some black magic wizardry in terms of metallurgy.

The larger issue is I have a strong suspicion this AD will continue to expand over time. They only looked at 2800 airframes in the prior interim AD and found 3.6% with "anomalies" and 0.2% with what I would consider "imminent risk of failure". The cracks were caused by several different issues - anything that mars up the bolt holes in that area may become a nucleation site for a future crack. This smells like they're going to find even more instances of cracks under the more expansive interim AD eventually leading to even more aircraft covered.

Also anyone trying to sell one of these aircraft get ready for every buyer to want new spars or credit for installing new spars. No way this doesn't impact the resale value right?

But mostly I wanted people to know that this is not theoretical. They found six airframes with actual full-on cracks. The wings were going to come off those aircraft sooner or later.
 
xenadu said:
They only looked at 2800 airframes in the prior interim AD and found 3.6% with "anomalies" and 0.2% with what I would consider "imminent risk of failure". The cracks were caused by several different issues - anything that mars up the bolt holes in that area may become a nucleation site for a future crack.
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I'd love to know how many of those cracks were caused by removing wing spar bolts for inspection. When this all started with the ERAU crash there was a panic to do the inspections. Many stories of mechs using hammer and drifts to drive out the bolts vs properly unloading the spar.
If this was as bad a problem as implied, Cherokees would be falling from the skies. Of the three - Pipeline plane at about 12k actual hours of getting the crap kicked out of it, ERAU plane which had questionable maintenance and a flight history that allegedly included aerobatics and finally the P-town one that flew into a thunderstorm. All this over the course of 50 years.
Maintenance Induced Failure is a real thing. I'm way more comfortable continuing to fly my PA-28 than having someone start messing around with wingspar bolts unless there is way more compelling evidence than what is in this document.
 
Where does it say in those NPRM’s about 12,000 being the number for max hours on the spar for life limit, or did I read the comments wrong.
 
Skymac said:
Where does it say in those NPRM’s about 12,000 being the number for max hours on the spar for life limit, or did I read the comments wrong.
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It looks like 14,500 is where paragraph (j) comes into play from the table, and perhaps never for personal use planes. I may be reading it wrong, though.
 
It seems the “missing or incomplete records” pertains only to determining

whether the inspection has been previously accomplished.

Lack of records on a low time aircraft is of no consequence here as AD

is strictly on TIS?

Any connection with replacement or repaired wings?
 
Magman said:
It seems the “missing or incomplete records” pertains only to determining

whether the inspection has been previously accomplished.

Lack of records on a low time aircraft is of no consequence here as AD

is strictly on TIS?

Any connection with replacement or repaired wings?
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I hope that’s the case. I am missing some logs, but can substantiate that my plane was never used for instruction or commercial and its total hours are under 5,000.
 
Hang 4 said:
I'd love to know how many of those cracks were caused by removing wing spar bolts for inspection. When this all started with the ERAU crash there was a panic to do the inspections. Many stories of mechs using hammer and drifts to drive out the bolts vs properly unloading the spar.
If this was as bad a problem as implied, Cherokees would be falling from the skies. Of the three - Pipeline plane at about 12k actual hours of getting the crap kicked out of it, ERAU plane which had questionable maintenance and a flight history that allegedly included aerobatics and finally the P-town one that flew into a thunderstorm. All this over the course of 50 years.
Maintenance Induced Failure is a real thing. I'm way more comfortable continuing to fly my PA-28 than having someone start messing around with wingspar bolts unless there is way more compelling evidence than what is in this document.
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My initial reading of the AD seems to imply that it is not purely an age or life experience issue. To put it more simply maybe your spar will crack at 30,000 hours. Maybe 10,000 hours. It is very difficult to tell because that part of the spar is under stress and the smallest imperfection can kickoff a fatigue crack, as can other things.

"If this was as bad as problem as implied" - IMHO be cautions when using thinking like this. It is entirely possible the swiss cheese lines up here and we are starting to enter the window of time where the oldest spars not subject to excess stress as well as younger spars subjects to such stress are expected to start failing. It bears repeating that field reports from the prior AD found six aircraft with actual cracks: wings living on borrowed time.

The AD supposedly contemplates the risk of maintenance-induced failure and determines the risk of wings ripping off is higher even accounting for excess failures caused by A&Ps horsing on the wing or hammering out bolts, though it does specifically call out that you must use Piper's procedure to avoid triggering a failure. I don't think the sample size is large enough to determine if any of the 6 cracks or 100 anomalies were maintenance-induced and of those which were potentially triggered by prior inspections.


Will these things start falling out of the sky? Obviously not. I always urge caution when motivated reasoning is involved. Get-there-itis is often driven by potential inconvenience or potential disappointments. Similarly it is really easy to dismiss something like this on the basis of how much it might cost or how inconvenient it would be but the spar doesn't care about your wallet or how long your aircraft might be grounded. Look at the data and make a decision based on actual risk and potential consequences according to your preferred risk level. Personally I would no longer put this in the "low enough risk to be ignored" bucket.
 
Is the FAA counter-intuitive in their approach, or I'm misreading something?

First they write this:
"A potential solution to this would be to continue to increase the frequency of inspections to ensure a crack is found before reaching a critical length; however, frequent and increased inspections are not a practical or safe approach due to the inherent risk in repeated bolt removal and reinsertion."

Then they have this: (I'm a grp1 airplane / 1440 CSH, hence using this table)
1727203313512.png

Which seems to suggest we do exactly that: more frequent/shorter interval inspections despite them saying it'd be impractical and unsafe?
 
Jim K said:
There are two different docket numbers, 2142 & 2143
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Thanks. On my phone it was coming up looking the same.

Jim K said:
I really hate to see a life limit imposed though.
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I think they are very weak on substance for the life-limit. If it were me, I would try and get the narrative changed from a life-limit to a higher level inspection requirement. But unless every affected owner makes an appropriate comment on one or both of these NPRMs, the feds will do what they think they need to do. But getting 10,000-20,000 comments on an NPRM would have the tendency to get noticed at the proper levels in my experiences with less comments.

Regardless, since the core issue appears to be an original design/build process issue with the "cold bending" of the spar to obtain dihedral and an established track record of failure, it simply won't go away in the night. And Piper switching to a machined spar dihedral moving forward pretty much verifies that.

ArrowFlyer86 said:
Which seems to suggest we do exactly that: more frequent/shorter interval inspections despite them saying it'd be impractical and unsafe?
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FWIW: I took the context to mean 100hr/12 month inspections vs 1750 CSH, 700 CSH, etc. inspection intervals.
 
I have a PA-28-180, so the first NRPM doesn't apply to my plane. Hurrah! The second one had me riled up until I noted that the applicability section says that it only applies if the wing-spar hits 12,000 service hours OR the aircraft has incomplete maintenance logs. I have complete logs, so looks like I'm good to fly another 9,000 hours on my wings before screwing around with that inspection!

I did submit a comment about their $85/hr rate estimation though. I doubt there's a shop in the country charging that low and it significantly lowers their cost of compliance estimate by probably a third of what it would actually be.
 
Doc Holliday said:
I hear ya. I have a 1965 Ford Fairlane, the damn floorboards rusted through. And you would think Ford would be responsible for this, after all they made it! And Ford expects me to pay for the repairs myself! The nerve!
Click to expand...
Oh no!! Ford instaled a faulty airbag inflator in my car, that when activated will potentially send sharp metal bits into my face, seriously injuring or killing me or my passengers. How dare I think Ford should be held accountable for this, and that they should provide the parts and labor for free to fix this issue on my out of warranty car. Oh wait, they issued a recall for all affected vehicles and replaced the airbags! Free of charge!
 
AV8R_87 said:
Oh no!! Ford instaled a faulty airbag inflator in my car, that when activated will potentially send sharp metal bits into my face, seriously injuring or killing me or my passengers. How dare I think Ford should be held accountable for this, and that they should provide the parts and labor for free to fix this issue on my out of warranty car. Oh wait, they issued a recall for all affected vehicles and replaced the airbags! Free of charge!
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Here’s the deal. Those airbags were on vehicles produced in this century.

Complaining about something that was produced over a half century ago and expecting a manufacture to warranty a product indefinitely is ludicrous.
 
I don’t think anyone is expecting a check? But we are also not expecting Piper to profit on this. A car breaks you pull over, a wing falls off, well that’s no good.
 
mandm said:
I don’t think anyone is expecting a check? But we are also not expecting Piper to profit on this. A car breaks you pull over, a wing falls off, well that’s no good.
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Sorry "expecting a check" was hyperbole, I don't think anyone actually thought they'd pay us or offer compensation :)

What I really mean is that Piper could probably just as soon not make the part at all: let the FAA implement their rule, let good spars become unobtanium, and then the fleet dies off. Then we can all go buy new Pipers and support them in the 21st century.
As a biz model, I don't think when they built the planes back in the Vietnam War era they really intended to support them into perpetuity free-of-charge (i.e., not making a profit on new parts).

And by making this part and selling it, they're taking on fresh liability risk for a 52 year old plane (in my case). In a situation like that, I'm going to be realistic in that they're going to make a profit, probably a big one, on us in order to make any of this trouble even kind of worth their while.

So if the new spar costs $10k, 15k, 20k, 25k, I will be 0% surprised. They already know we spend twice that on engines, so why not extract some money on the airframe side of things. <-- That's my GA cynic side shining through :D
 
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ArrowFlyer86 said:
Sorry "expecting a check" was hyperbole, I don't think anyone actually thought they'd pay us or offer compensation :)

What I really mean is that Piper could probably just as soon not make the part at all: let the FAA implement their rule, let good spars become unobtanium, and then the fleet dies off. Then we can all go buy new Pipers and support them in the 21st century.
As a biz model, I don't think when they built the planes back in the Vietnam War era they really intended to support them into perpetuity free-of-charge (i.e., not making a profit on new parts).

And by making this part and selling it, they're taking on fresh liability risk for a 52 year old plane (in my case). In a situation like that, I'm going to be realistic in that they're going to make a profit, probably a big one, on us in order to make any of this trouble even kind of worth their while.

So if the new spar costs $10k, 15k, 20k, 25k, I will be 0% surprised. They already know we spend twice that on engines, so why not extract some money on the airframe side of things. <-- That's my GA cynic side shining through :D
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The issue is that realistically, it doesn't matter what the spar costs. The labor to put it in will make it a rounding error. The entire wing is built around it & attached to it. You're basically building a new wing from scratch. It might be economical for some newer planes, and maybe some Six-300's, but the older ones will just get scrapped.
 
Doc Holliday said:
Here’s the deal. Those airbags were on vehicles produced in this century.

Complaining about something that was produced over a half century ago and expecting a manufacture to warranty a product indefinitely is ludicrous.
Click to expand...
Those airbags were on vehicles that were more than 15 years old in some cases. That's just as ancient as our planes, in automotive terms where we're expected to replace our car every 5 years.

Back to the planes. I'll have to read the NPRM again, but it seems that Archers manufactured in the 21st century will be impacted as well. Those owners will also get the shaft and nothing else.

Realistically, I know we can't expect Piper to do this for free. They'd go bankrupt in a day. But here's a draft approach worth considering:
They should build a few more sets of wing jigs and spread them across the country, allowing owners (private or flight schools) and A&Ps access to them (use a scheduling program) to replace the spars. And they should consider providing spars at (or slightly above) cost and tech support to allow that to happen in a timely manner. Maybe have a number of wing shipping crates available as well, with discounted rates to ship wing sets to wherever those jigs would be located.
That way, a 30k+ spar replacement (which would probably mean the end of that airframe) might become an affordable option.

Their way of handling this will have an impact on future sales, so you'd expect them to at least attempt to do the right thing. But I won't hold my breath.

ArrowFlyer86 said:
So if the new spar costs $10k, 15k, 20k, 25k, I will be 0% surprised. They already know we spend twice that on engines, so why not extract some money on the airframe side of things. <-- That's my GA cynic side shining through :D
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Could happen. That could also mean plenty of potential buyers will never buy a Piper again.

One number that I would like to see is the calculated fatigue life of the spar (original and replacement). That number is not infinite, that's a given.
 
Jim K said:
The labor to put it in will make it a rounding error.
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Not only that, doubtful there are many A&Ps that would even be interested in tackling that kind of project. Any if you happen to find one, guaranteed it will be long and drawn out.
 
Jim K said:
All 28's above 200HP and fixed gear 32s will have to have new wing spars at 12K TIS. This is a big damn deal. I know of at least one Dakota and a few Arrows that this will ground. Going to really hurt the value of those planes as well.
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What Arrows are over 200 HP?

200 is not above 200.
 
AV8R_87 said:
…That could also mean plenty of potential buyers will never buy a Piper again.
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Quantify plenty. The vast majority of Piper SELs go directly to a pt 141 fleet purchase. As long as the math pencils on hourly rentals, those purchasers don’t care if the airframe is disposable or not.
 
AV8R_87 said:
Those airbags were on vehicles that were more than 15 years old in some cases. That's just as ancient as our planes, in automotive terms where we're expected to replace our car every 5 years.

Back to the planes. I'll have to read the NPRM again, but it seems that Archers manufactured in the 21st century will be impacted as well. Those owners will also get the shaft and nothing else.

Realistically, I know we can't expect Piper to do this for free. They'd go bankrupt in a day. But here's a draft approach worth considering:
They should build a few more sets of wing jigs and spread them across the country, allowing owners (private or flight schools) and A&Ps access to them (use a scheduling program) to replace the spars. And they should consider providing spars at (or slightly above) cost and tech support to allow that to happen in a timely manner. Maybe have a number of wing shipping crates available as well, with discounted rates to ship wing sets to wherever those jigs would be located.
That way, a 30k+ spar replacement (which would probably mean the end of that airframe) might become an affordable option.

Their way of handling this will have an impact on future sales, so you'd expect them to at least attempt to do the right thing. But I won't hold my breath.


Could happen. That could also mean plenty of potential buyers will never buy a Piper again.

One number that I would like to see is the calculated fatigue life of the spar (original and replacement). That number is not infinite, that's a given.
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Realistically the majority of the aircraft affected were built 25 to 65 years ago. Yes, there are a few late model aircraft built between 2000 and today, with most going to flight schools.


Piper never intended on these planes being around forever. If they could go back in time, I’m sure they would life limit the airframes.

Warranty on a 50+ year old airframe that’s had 20 plus owners, questionable maintenance, stored outside and other factors is not even realistic.


For the ones of us that have done major airframe maintenance, you also begin finding other problems once you disassemble these things. While you suggest $30k cost to fix the spar issue, that could easily escalate to $100k with other repair issues that arise. Should Piper pay that as well?

Bottom line, the majority of owners aren’t going to fork out $30k+ to repair these old airplanes. And Piper is not going to go into massive debt in order to try to save them.

Look for prices to start dropping.
 
There are Records that are “lost” because they contained damage history

which is not conducive to a sale.

I’m particularly concerned with Tip Strikes which would impose

loads on the Main Spar.

There has been at least 1 PA-28 that flew with the Forward Attach Point

torn right out. Tip vs Hangar = slight plastic cracks but inboard damage was

much more extensive. Airframe Components ( Williams) has excellent vids

that illustrate the failure problem. They also have a pic of a fitting that was

severely elongated. These were aluminum and are now steel IIRC.

It would seem to me that a EC inspection should be accomplished on

Wings that had been damaged. Is the “ Lost Records” heading in that

direction?
 
Sounds a lot like "Retirement for Cause" which I help institute for the USAF Turbine Engines and Airframes back in the late 60's for airframes and the late 70's for engines.

Basically, you inspect a part (disk, spar, whatever) at an interval below which an unknown imperfection/crack (below detectability) will grow to critical length and fail. This is applied to a part that if it fails, it is catastrophic, like a engine disc or a wing carry through. Theoretically, the "Fracture Critical" parts could last forever in service assuming it doesn't corrode, fret, etc and be rejected for that.
 
TCABM said:
Quantify plenty. The vast majority of Piper SELs go directly to a pt 141 fleet purchase. As long as the math pencils on hourly rentals, those purchasers don’t care if the airframe is disposable or not.
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If I own a 141 school and I have a choice between a manufacturer that stands behind its product and one that says "sucks to be you", it will be an easy decision. That's why major OEMs quietly arrange a program to rectify things with their customers, that benefits both parties.
Think of a 141 school with a Piper fleet. At the end of their useful life at the school (which is shorter than what you'll see in private or part 61 school ownership), they recoup some of the cost by selling the clapped out plane to someone else. If you can't resell it, that poses a problem, money-wise.
The sole private owner of a 30-50 year old airframe? He's hosed.
Doc Holliday said:
Piper never intended on these planes being around forever. If they could go back in time, I’m sure they would life limit the airframes
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100% agree. That's why I was wondering what the actual design fatigue life is for those spars (old and new).
Doc Holliday said:
While you suggest $30k cost to fix the spar issue, that could easily escalate to $100k with other repair issues that arise. Should Piper pay that as well?
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Wild guesstimate, the number being where I would consider the average owner would give up on that airframe.
If I tear the plane apart for the spar but the rest of the wing is corroded because it sat out in the open on the Florida coast, that's on me, not Piper.
Doc Holliday said:
Bottom line, the majority of owners aren’t going to fork out $30k+ to repair these old airplanes.
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Yep. They'll be looking for serviceable wings the same way Bo owners look for ruddevators.
 
My Arrow had one wing spar replaced as part of the prebuy, I was told it was around 20k and it took probably 4 months.

Has anyone asked Piper how long they expected their airplanes to last for?

Not saying Piper should go bankrupt over this, but it should be looked into what solutions could be done. The kit for example is a start. Also I’m sure they (Piper) have insurance to cover mistakes. To put everything on the airplane owners themselves isn’t exactly fair either. We have a reasonable expectation to safe products.
 
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