Hi Ultralights
It is good to see that you are doing such a thorough job on your Savannah VG inspection. The corrosion on your aircraft is typical of what one might find on an aircraft poorly protected against a highly corrosive environment. A pity this was not done prior to assembly. We always advocate properly prepping and priming with strontium or zinc chromate prior to assembly for any aircraft to be used in a coastal area. We have a flying school in our coastal area and they end up having to refurbish aluminium components on Cessnas for the same reason. Always keep well out of that salty air zone along the break line when flying coastal. It is fun but very very costly in maintenance. The gear corrosion is common and occurs because the alloy is stressed at manufacture. It is precisely at the stressed bends that corrosion sets in. It penetrates very quickly to the interior where molecular changes take place that are not visible to the eye. To retard this process the same protection needs to be applied to the exterior from the start. Prep, prime and Finnish with 2K.
Replacement of rubber hoses as you say is mandatory at 5 yrs for the Rotax parts and 6 yrs on the rest of the airframe. I will always recommend 5 yrs for all. In fact the Rotax supplied rubber parts are of better quality than those supplied with the kit. We find the Goodyear J30R7 spec fuel hose better quality. PM me for the latest Savannah Maint manual with your email address.
Things like missing rubber gear mounts should have been picked up way sooner at pre-flight and earlier inspections. Spruce have a better quality bungie Mill spec fresh stock P/N 06-01132.
Also have a few mods you might be interested in.
John
