If you need to get a part, you could splash a part from an existing wing.  Are there any other aircraft near you that you could work out a sweat equity arrangement and use their wing as a mold?  It should be pretty easy to do.  It should only take a few days to splash the mold, then you may want to farm it out to get a prepreg and honeycomb lay-up done for you.  What you may be missing then are joggles which you would have to fake as secondary bonds after you pull off the part.  This shouldn't be too hard though.  Is there anything you have left of the old wing?  If you have anything from the original wing, you should be able to do a splashed part.  And you might be able to repair the old part, too.  If may be a bit complicated but still salvageable.  For instance, you may want to splash a mold just to immobilize the part once the coring is removed (if that is needed).  Or build a new section from it and scarf in place the new piece.  I just got through scarfing in the forward 13' of my bow on my carbon fiber race boat after a collision with a whale (well, maybe a whale, it was dark, 2 AM in a gale and it didn't leave ordinary collision marks).  It has no external or internal marks that would show it to be a repair. 

 

The important thing will be that the part must be stabilized at the time you splash it.  If you find a part that you can splash which is lying around loose, you could tack it together with Bondo to a frame to temporarily hold it in place while it gets splashed.  Maybe Lancair will then build the part, too, if you get them a mold to build from.

 

You can give me a call later if you'd like to discuss it but don't despair!  There is a way to make this work and it may cost less than you think!

 

And guys, lighten up on the Lancair thing about not keeping the molds.  It is expensive to have molds sitting around for years doing nothing.  To store molds outside for years and then bring them in and prep them for use after the sun has degraded them takes a lot longer than many might appreciate.  Hell, I have tooling ready to build a kick ass carbon raceboat that I can't get rid of, ( and yet I am reluctant to cut them up so I continue to pay thousands in storage).  I might be wrong but how often are these parts needed?  If they are needed relatively often, maybe someone should offer to buy the molds for aftermarket sales when they wear out.  BTW, Note that a worn out set of molds can still be used typically for one off occasional use but require more work with sealers or mold release films like PVA or PV-6.  If nobody wants to buy the molds, then you can see the problem. 

 

But there are other options.  How about someone offer to store Mr. Bartell's old molds until a customer needs them.  Then you charge him when he builds that part for the customer.  Or reverse that.  You store the molds and whenever the molds are needed, you pay Lancair a royalty whenever you sell and build a part.  Somebody may be able to have a nice little business if there are enough parts needing replacing.  The auto business has many old car part replacement companies.  If storing the molds isn't an issue, then maybe someone can have a job refurbishing the parts when needed.  But if the molds get warped or delaminate, can you really blame him for getting rid of them?  I doubt inside storage would pay for itself.

 

The point is that while we may want Lancair to be family to us, (and many are like family that I've talked to), Mr. Bartells bought this as a business.  And as expensive as these aircraft are, I doubt he is taking his money to the bank in a wheelbarrow.  If he wanted to, he could probably work half as hard as he is now with less sweat and make more money suing people that desperately need it.  And he could do that with almost no risk or big payrolls. He seems to doing a good job and isn't trying to screw anyone that I know, and I hope one day he does make a lot of money in it.  And he may also stub his toes sometimes and make us unhappy.  But I suspect that keeping old molds around isn't what he considers part of his core business and those costs would otherwise be paid by us in higher prices.  And as I said earlier, there are ways to get around needing to use original molds. 

 

Can't we all just get along?

 

Good luck on the wing!

 

Dan Newland