PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Why does the PA-38 Tomahawk have a wing life of 11,000 hours?
Old 12th Dec 2013, 21:54
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BeechNut
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Canada
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I had a Beech Skipper for a while and it too had time-limited wings, I think 12k hours if my memory's not too far off. It was a contemporary and competitor to the Tomahawk. I'm glad my current plane, a Beech Sundowner 180, doesn't have such a limit as it has 10.5k hours on the airframe

I come from an era and country that mandated spin training and have never been afraid to spin an aircraft if it was certified to allow intentional spinning. But that Skipper was quite violent as well compared to a Cessna or even compared to my Sundowner (I have a rare aerobatic model with the spin kit), and I only spun it once. I can say however that I've spun all the aircraft I've ever owned (C150, PA28-140, Beech C23 and Beech 77, currently own the C23, others long sold).

BTW I don't know if anyone's looked at aircraft values in Canada lately but they've sunk something awful. My Sundowner is now only worth about half what I paid for it 10 years ago. So much for all the jokes about "flying my retirement fund". Granted my engine is high-time (1750 hrs on a 2000 hr TBO), but it's basically worth no more now than a C150. I had been thinking of trading back down to a 2-seater now that the kids are grown but I think I'll hang onto it a while longer. Sorry for the rant/thread drift.
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