Thanks Maj,
Yesterday I replaced all the Gates fuel hose with Dayco made in USA SAE30R7 hose which the local supplier had to get in for me.
Whilst none of the Gates hoses have ever leaked, all were cracked and hardened, although this was never obvious except at the ends. When flexed, there are both radial and lengthwise cracks of the outer exposing the weave. At the ends the cracks go right to the centre in straight lines.
The kit is a Zenair 701 supplied from CZAW and as far as I can tell the small amount of hose that came with it was same spec.
I will do some more research but Aeroquip and ACS do not appear to supply this type of hose.
As for the Cessna which I operated for 12 years, I never did any work on it that was the domain of the LAMEs, just that I noticed from the logbooks that none of the wing root hoses nor the one to the carb had been looked at and I asked about this (knowing full well I'd be up for at least $500 too) .... but the response was .... they are fine, nothing should be changed. But what i'm quoting was 10 years ago and anyone that still has a small fortune to run a Cessna round here must have started their aviation exploits with a large fortune because everything now must be replaced by the mntce manual dates so I think its seatbelts, hoses every 5 years (and landing light switches) I sold the Cessna so I could build the 701.
I'd really like to hear what people are using or not using for their replacements on microlights. Gates does not cut it anymore for me, whether it be cars, JetA or Avgas, its cracked everywhere, and hardens in as little as 6 months
Ralph