Club Homepage Forums Classified Ads Buy & Sell - Everything But Airplanes Letter to Caulkins Aero Service

Hello,

I just emailed the following message to Caulkins Aero Service in Houston Texas. I thought some of you, especially those in the Houston area, may be interested:

Dear sir,

With this latest discrepancy that we just discovered, I believe that you needed to be notified. Some history.........

I purchased a Cessna 150/150, (N999ED), last year. During the sales process, your company performed an annual on this aircraft. I then had the aircraft ferried to me here in Oregon.

When the plane arrived, the spinner was showing damage due to excessive rubbing on the cowl. (Going back and taking a closer look of the pictures I received during the sales process showed where the cowl was being worn by the spinner at that time!) Further examination discovered totally worn and sagging engine mounts. Which were immediately replaced. When the cowl was removed, we discovered severely worn, or missing, engine baffling, and missing cowl mounts. Also immediately repaired or replaced. The steering rod boots were torn. The fuel valve and gascolator were leaking and required new seals. Plus, various other smaller items which were addressed over the year. Now, when one purchases an aircraft sight unseen, one expects to find some problems, so I just chalked these findings up to being lucky that nothing more serious was wrong with the aircraft.

Well, during the annual we just performed recently, we did find there was indeed something more serious over looked during your annual inspection of the aircraft. When we removed the shroud off of the muffler, the muffler walls were completely eroded through in large areas. Damage that just could not have happened in the single year since your company inspected the aircraft. I literally got sick when we found this, knowing how lucky my family, as well as the pilot I hired to ferry the aircraft, has been to still be alive.

I just thought you should be advised of what type of work your mechanics are putting out the door with your name in the logbook.

Very sincerely yours,

William R. Fyfe

I could write a letter like that to Atlas Aviation. Wait, no I couldn't - I can't keep my cool even when writing to an outfit like that. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Did I mention I had an aileron close to falling off?

Or the aileron rod ends that were about to give?

They had been like that for a while, and I had them do a nice overview inspection when I first bought it and they annualed it once. Took less than an 8 hour shift.

Oh yeah! Cherry Max rivets in the landing gear? Not installing my starter right, and when the gear got chewed up they refused to change the oil and inspect the filter?

All to "save me money!"

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> It ticks me off to see shops like that not give a flying funk about the safety of their customers.

Well written.. I'm wondering if they'll respond. Since there wasn't any acutal accident or liability from their lack of maintenence acumen, they might.

If there had been an accident, this letter would have been forwarded to their attorney in anticipation of a lawsute...

It's good to be so familiar with the plane you own!

Don't want to be diffrent, but in May of this year, I had the tail pipes off my 150,, I had them in hand looking at them, they were fine. 2 weeks ago,, I'm looking at them again,, would you beleive that I now have pins holes in them now, where the bend is on the other part of the bend,, this would be after 25 to 30 hours or so.

I've become fairly familiar with the landing gear in my 150, but where in the world (or how in the world) is there a place where someone could put Cherry Max rivets in the gear? Got a picture? I mean, the gear legs are fairly thick and it would take a monster of a rivet.

Where the box rivets to the belly skin just below the gear legs.

Yep.

Sounds a lot like what I had to deal with on Mary Lou - piss-poor work paid for with good money.

Yep.

The pathetic outfit in Concord, North Carolina that installed the radio... lousy job...

which was fixed down here.

Don't get me started.

And they wonder why G.A. is just hangin' on.

I had the same crappy experience with Bishop Aviation (Indiana) with my C-150G I bought site unseen last year. The "decent" paint was crap. Same senario, worn out motor mounts ,torn steering boots, radio needing work, leaking fuel sender gasket,worn out cowl mounts,worn out front tire,numerous oil leaks,multiple poor repairs on the upper and lower nose bowl, and a brand new annual stating that the aircraft had been inspected and was in airworthy condition.Incidentally, I asked the person selling the aircraft directly about the condtion of most if not all of these items before commiting to buy .Naturally ,I could not truly verify the condition until it was too late. The sad fact is you cannot trust that an annual inspection has even been done in most cases. The moral of this story is ,even if you trust your mechanic, do a through prebuy inspection and be there to inspect it yourself. Trust,but verify. There is no other way. Jim B.

Are we confusing "pop-rivets" with true Cherry/Huck blind rivets? The latter are approved structural fasteners (MS/NAS) and are plenty strong.

PLEASE! FWD a copy of the letter, and copies of the logbook pages to the local FSDO that is in the shop's area:
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/field_offices/fsdo/hou/contact/
Always include the IA's name and certificate number, as well as any mechanic who also performed the "work".
In your correspondance to the shop, at the bottom should have the statement
CC: Houston FSDO
(just so they know they could expect a visit from the friendly FAA)
That is guaranteed to get everyone's attention.
-Brian