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jkevinl(at)bellsouth.net
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 Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 11:26 am Post subject: The conspiracy to make Gary dislike AG5B's |
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Hi Gary and friends,
I love AG5B's - they fly great, have highly capable modern avionics and they smell good! The ones I fly most often have 500 or less hours on them and are nearly new as aircraft ages go. They are well maintained by True Flight and are beautiful. Kind of a blanket statement and not necessarily true of all AG5B's - and certainly not so for all AA5's, I admit so let's be fair. Do I despise AA's because some of them have cracked cowlings (Grumman should have known that by 2010 that aluminum would be showing wear) old radios and wiring behind the panel that looks like.....say 1976? No that is a function of their place in time. In this world of new media it is important to measure what is posted on the internet as statements that the casual reader doesn't understand can drive down the values of the entire legacy fleet and are used by competitors of our brand as fodder for their sales department. It is amazing how often the questions my team and I are asked at OSH and SNF on a given year are fed to potential buyers by the competition and reflect the latest "gripe" here or on the GG.
Gary, I hope you are to some degree just venting in your post below but I still feel compelled to explain some of these issues as not everyone who reads this list will understand your perspective. I'm not sure I do - but I'd like to. You strike me as a logical thinker when it comes to engineering. You may be too logical to accept the marketing directives that drive some engineering decisions because buying decisions, for most people, are not logic driven. This is an attempt to use humor to make that point. A high risk maneuver, I know.
As I try to explain how some decisions may have been made, I must point out that I was not part of the team that implemented any of these changes but I think it is safe to assure you that none of the things that you personally dislike were done to make your life more difficult or to make the aircraft more difficult for you to maintain. Also realize that in some instances changes were made in anticipation of other future design improvements. You wouldn't believe some of the former company memo's and drawings I have contemplating this or that change to the Tiger - including the engine change you recently asked about. Dave Fletcher likely has some of them too. Some I like - some I don't but it costs big $ to make even a small change so it is safe to bet that the changes that were implemented were all done for a good reason at the time whether or not we agree with their logic. I recall a discussion we had at OSH in '09 where you voiced that there were unreasonable/counterproductive things you had to do to get your cowl STC. Such is life in the world of certified aircraft.
Many issues are consumer driven....padding in the seats....rear seat heat....all in response to customers who looked at brand X, Y, or Z and said I want that in my Tiger. When the consumer demands it, the consumer gets it or buys the other brand. When Jack brings Jill to look at the plane she asks "how comfortable are the rear seats". Jack doesn't care...he's the pilot. Jill thinks about the 2 munchkins that will ride in the back and remembers that Sara cried the whole way from Florida to Lake Michigan in their current plane because her feet were cold. "Does it have heat for the back seats?" she asks..."it better". In reality Jill only flies 4 times a year and the munchkins are only there twice but it weighs on the buying decision as a major factor. OOPS, we may aggravate Gary again but we sold more airplanes! One more Tiger he gets to work on and one more chance for him to stay in business before he has to start working on Mooney's - been there done that - Gary the list of aggravations there is much longer!
Throttle quadrant - again market driven by flight schools planning to buy numbers of aircraft that exceed a years production - one catch - we want a quadrant. Sales dept response: "Done - you've got a quadrant. Please sign here". Want a fleet without the quadrant - you can have that too but we can't tool up for one's and two's.
Want a fiberglass cowl? Sorry the old one was aluminum and helped shape the HERF (high energy radio frequency) data of the aircraft with which the avionics are certified. If you want to make a composite one it better be carbon fiber which is also conductive and more closely mimics the signature of the metal one lest the latest avionics get interference from the engine compartment - not good with the latest G1000 or next gen wiz bang flyometer.
You surely already realize that ease of maintenance and simplicity are only one dimension when decisions are made about the direction chosen. If you truly understand Ockham's Razor you understand that simplicity is only the starting point and a guiding principle - not necessarily the end result especially after adding a heavy dose of government regulation and the need to compete with other brands - not necessarily other Tigers. Everything in aviation is a compromise between competing ideals.
As you have experienced with your cowl project, even a FAA rep or DER's interpretation of a seemingly simple rule can cause major deviations from the plan that would be Ockham's choice. The AG was certified in a very different environment than the AA and reflects that reality. Some of your issues are only true on the earliest AG's so let's not paint them all with the same brush. Some of your concerns are evident only on poorly maintained aircraft such as brake fluid on the floor all the way back under the spar ?? that's just sloppy maintenance.
I will try to address just one of your points to illustrate.
Was convenience the only consideration when deciding the location of the wiring hole in the carry through spar? As you know, after manufacture, drilling any new hole anywhere in the spar makes it unairworthy and illegal to fly. You cannot even drill the AGAC hole in an early spar without making it illegal to fly and I pity the guy who thought the spar was a great place to mount his fire extinguisher with a couple of self tapping sheet metal screws.
So do you suppose AGAC just drilled the hole in an inconvenient location and smiled and said "great - that will really get Gary's goat in 20 years or so!" More likely, let's postulate that the folks at AGAC approached the FAA with a plan to drill a new hole right in the center of the spar - arguably one of the most critical locations on the spar where the forces from the opposing wings are focused and the metal has already been stressed by stretch forming to create the dihedral. Let's see gravity works against lift and drag pushes rearward on the spar - this calculation is getting more complicated...........
Can't we all imagine the group of engineers gathered.... all leaning across a drawing where the only thing different is a new hole in the spar.......OOOOO....what to do?? "We need data!" one engineer quips. "Where are the forces most highly focused?" another asks. "What shape should the hole be and do we chamfer the edges?" quizzes another. "We should perform destructive testing" a fourth demands. Well, this goes on for weeks (or months - Gary you know how that can happen, right?) and it costs $ thousands $ and eventually, the hole has migrated to it's current location - not to frustrate anyone but to satisfy the committee that the spar strength has not been compromised. So much for the production schedule and budget.
So why bother with the hole? Well, because someone citing Ockham's Razor asked why in the heck are we running a conduit down the back of the wing when we already have a great chase pipe (the spar) to run it through?
In summary, True Flight is taking all these items into consideration. I like simple. Really! I like working on Tigers and I don't like to skin my knuckles so if we can reasonably make it simpler, better, and certified, yahoo!! I agree with Gary. But to address the subject line, there is no vast conspiracy to frustrate Gary, make the AG's harder to maintain or less warm and fuzzy 
Clear Skies!
Kevin Lancaster
Former owner of '76 and '79 AA5B
Lover of AG5B's and AA's of all vintage
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't trying to get me" Agent Maxwell Smart
[quote] ---
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teamgrumman(at)YAHOO.COM
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| Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 1:11 pm Post subject: The conspiracy to make Gary dislike AG5B's |
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Hi Kevin,
First of all, you had nothing to do with the AG5B morphisis from the AA5B. Those comments weren't pointed at you.
I've heard a lot of arguments about, say, different ways to install baffles. Some make maintenance more difficult without improving cooling. So, why not think a little deeper into the subject and come up with a solution that doesn't hurt cooling and makes maintenance easier?
I toyed with back seat heat in 1984-85. I built a sample mock up using the side kick panels to act as ducting. On mine, the vent exited the forward kick panels under the spar using a duct that looked a lot like a vacuum cleaner attachment. It was 3/8 inch high and 12 inches long. I added a duct onto the existing heater manifold and directed heat to the kick panels. A later version in 1988 used a one piece aluminum kick panel in the front that went from the firewall to the spar. The entire front kick panel provided heat to the floor both front and rear. That kick panel is still in that plane wherever it went. The rear seat heat on the AG adds a lot of unnecessary weight and doesn't provide a great deal of heat, evenly distributed to the rear seat foot well. On my Tiger, I used the long arm rests to channel both heating and cooling to the back seats. All I'm saying is, "Think about these decisions to change things and how they affect everything else."
I did not say the hole in the spar was a bad idea. It's actually a good idea. It certainly is convenient. But, getting the wires to the spar. Why not use the previous method of going down the center console for those wires instead of along the right side wall, under the spar, and then into the spar? Putting all of those little plastic self-sticky clips in place only works for a short time. Sooner or later, they fall off and then you're left with wires hanging down where they get stepped on and damaged. All I'm saying is, "Think about these decisions to change things and how they affect everything else."
Padding on rear seats is one thing. Not accommodating the utility factor in being able to lay the seat down is another. You don't need 4 inches of padding in the space between the seats . . . . other than for aesthetics. The corners of the seat bottom do not need padding either. No one sits there. My guess, and it's only a guess, some guys were sitting around and said, "Hey, let's double up on the padding on the rear seat to make it LOOK more luxurious. I spent a lot of time with the upholsterer in an attempt to make my rear seat as nice as possible without detracting from utility and maintainability of the seats. Come to California and sit in the back seat of my plane. My rear seats are very comfortable. All I'm saying is, "Think about these decisions to change things and how they affect everything else."
Why was the brake line shape changed (where it goes under the spar)? It chafes on the rear kick panels. All I'm saying is, "Think about these decisions to change things and how they affect everything else."
Cost is certainly a big issue when it comes to making changes. I would only be investing in change of a previous design if it lead to better maintainability and reliability. Spending money on comfort comes second.
And weight. Most of the decisions for changes on the AGs are for aesthetics and market appeal. They only add weight, not function. And cost. The Tiger was not intended to compete in the C-182/Mooney/Arrow category. The current AGs are in the neighborhood of 1550 lbs. Weight hurts everything in the performance and handling categories. My AA5B weighs 1432 lbs.
If an experimental version were available, I would use my carbon fiber canopy, control surfaces, wing tips, and a host of other things and shoot for an empty weight under 1400 lbs. It's possible. That would make the Tiger climb like a home-sick angle on it's current engine.
You mentioned the decision to make changes because flight schools wanted this and that. It's nice to be able to capture the training market, but, is that your intended market? You are competing against flight schools buying LSAs. Piper sold stripped down, no frills, Arrows without rear seats to flight schools. Are the flight schools you want to sell to interested in buying $250,000 luxurious, fixed gear, fixed pitch, carbureted planes with leather seats and no bond lines? Just curious. I've never been involved with flight schools beyond the ones here with 70's era 172s.
Thanks for listening Kevin.
From: Kevin Lancaster <jkevinl(at)bellsouth.net>
To: teamgrumman-list(at)matronics.com
Sent: Mon, September 27, 2010 12:23:53 PM
Subject: The conspiracy to make Gary dislike AG5B's
DIV { MARGIN:0px;} Hi Gary and friends,
I love AG5B's - they fly great, have highly capable modern avionics and they smell good! The ones I fly most often have 500 or less hours on them and are nearly new as aircraft ages go. They are well maintained by True Flight and are beautiful. Kind of a blanket statement and not necessarily true of all AG5B's - and certainly not so for all AA5's, I admit so let's be fair. Do I despise AA's because some of them have cracked cowlings (Grumman should have known that by 2010 that aluminum would be showing wear) old radios and wiring behind the panel that looks like.....say 1976? No that is a function of their place in time. In this world of new media it is important to measure what is posted on the internet as statements that the casual reader doesn't understand can drive down the values of the entire legacy fleet and are used by competitors of our brand as fodder for their sales department. It is amazing how often the questions my team and I are asked at OSH and SNF on a given year are fed to potential buyers by the competition and reflect the latest "gripe" here or on the GG.
Gary, I hope you are to some degree just venting in your post below but I still feel compelled to explain some of these issues as not everyone who reads this list will understand your perspective. I'm not sure I do - but I'd like to. You strike me as a logical thinker when it comes to engineering. You may be too logical to accept the marketing directives that drive some engineering decisions because buying decisions, for most people, are not logic driven. This is an attempt to use humor to make that point. A high risk maneuver, I know.
As I try to explain how some decisions may have been made, I must point out that I was not part of the team that implemented any of these changes but I think it is safe to assure you that none of the things that you personally dislike were done to make your life more difficult or to make the aircraft more difficult for you to maintain. Also realize that in some instances changes were made in anticipation of other future design improvements. You wouldn't believe some of the former company memo's and drawings I have contemplating this or that change to the Tiger - including the engine change you recently asked about. Dave Fletcher likely has some of them too. Some I like - some I don't but it costs big $ to make even a small change so it is safe to bet that the changes that were implemented were all done for a good reason at the time whether or not we agree with their logic. I recall a discussion we had at OSH in '09 where you voiced that there were unreasonable/counterproductive things you had to do to get your cowl STC. Such is life in the world of certified aircraft.
Many issues are consumer driven....padding in the seats....rear seat heat....all in response to customers who looked at brand X, Y, or Z and said I want that in my Tiger. When the consumer demands it, the consumer gets it or buys the other brand. When Jack brings Jill to look at the plane she asks "how comfortable are the rear seats". Jack doesn't care...he's the pilot. Jill thinks about the 2 munchkins that will ride in the back and remembers that Sara cried the whole way from Florida to Lake Michigan in their current plane because her feet were cold. "Does it have heat for the back seats?" she asks..."it better". In reality Jill only flies 4 times a year and the munchkins are only there twice but it weighs on the buying decision as a major factor. OOPS, we may aggravate Gary again but we sold more airplanes! One more Tiger he gets to work on and one more chance for him to stay in business before he has to start working on Mooney's - been there done that - Gary the list of aggravations there is much longer!
Throttle quadrant - again market driven by flight schools planning to buy numbers of aircraft that exceed a years production - one catch - we want a quadrant. Sales dept response: "Done - you've got a quadrant. Please sign here". Want a fleet without the quadrant - you can have that too but we can't tool up for one's and two's.
Want a fiberglass cowl? Sorry the old one was aluminum and helped shape the HERF (high energy radio frequency) data of the aircraft with which the avionics are certified. If you want to make a composite one it better be carbon fiber which is also conductive and more closely mimics the signature of the metal one lest the latest avionics get interference from the engine compartment - not good with the latest G1000 or next gen wiz bang flyometer.
You surely already realize that ease of maintenance and simplicity are only one dimension when decisions are made about the direction chosen. If you truly understand Ockham's Razor you understand that simplicity is only the starting point and a guiding principle - not necessarily the end result especially after adding a heavy dose of government regulation and the need to compete with other brands - not necessarily other Tigers. Everything in aviation is a compromise between competing ideals.
As you have experienced with your cowl project, even a FAA rep or DER's interpretation of a seemingly simple rule can cause major deviations from the plan that would be Ockham's choice. The AG was certified in a very different environment than the AA and reflects that reality. Some of your issues are only true on the earliest AG's so let's not paint them all with the same brush. Some of your concerns are evident only on poorly maintained aircraft such as brake fluid on the floor all the way back under the spar ?? that's just sloppy maintenance.
I will try to address just one of your points to illustrate.
Was convenience the only consideration when deciding the location of the wiring hole in the carry through spar? As you know, after manufacture, drilling any new hole anywhere in the spar makes it unairworthy and illegal to fly. You cannot even drill the AGAC hole in an early spar without making it illegal to fly and I pity the guy who thought the spar was a great place to mount his fire extinguisher with a couple of self tapping sheet metal screws.
So do you suppose AGAC just drilled the hole in an inconvenient location and smiled and said "great - that will really get Gary's goat in 20 years or so!" More likely, let's postulate that the folks at AGAC approached the FAA with a plan to drill a new hole right in the center of the spar - arguably one of the most critical locations on the spar where the forces from the opposing wings are focused and the metal has already been stressed by stretch forming to create the dihedral. Let's see gravity works against lift and drag pushes rearward on the spar - this calculation is getting more complicated...........
Can't we all imagine the group of engineers gathered.... all leaning across a drawing where the only thing different is a new hole in the spar.......OOOOO....what to do?? "We need data!" one engineer quips. "Where are the forces most highly focused?" another asks. "What shape should the hole be and do we chamfer the edges?" quizzes another. "We should perform destructive testing" a fourth demands. Well, this goes on for weeks (or months - Gary you know how that can happen, right?) and it costs $ thousands $ and eventually, the hole has migrated to it's current location - not to frustrate anyone but to satisfy the committee that the spar strength has not been compromised. So much for the production schedule and budget.
So why bother with the hole? Well, because someone citing Ockham's Razor asked why in the heck are we running a conduit down the back of the wing when we already have a great chase pipe (the spar) to run it through?
In summary, True Flight is taking all these items into consideration. I like simple. Really! I like working on Tigers and I don't like to skin my knuckles so if we can reasonably make it simpler, better, and certified, yahoo!! I agree with Gary. But to address the subject line, there is no vast conspiracy to frustrate Gary, make the AG's harder to maintain or less warm and fuzzy
Clear Skies!
Kevin Lancaster
Former owner of '76 and '79 AA5B
Lover of AG5B's and AA's of all vintage
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't trying to get me" Agent Maxwell Smart
[quote] ---
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http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?TeamGrumman-List |
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