Williams Tour

[wab003]

Very interesting plant to visit. Many thanks to Roy Williams and his employees for an informative day and a yummy lunch. Among the several examples of corrosion he presented, a dramatic example of the value of close annual inspections. One pic of a "normal" flap hinge bracket and a second of a similar but well neglected bracket. Make those annual inspections thorough!

 

[wab003]

He has an entire section devoted to Commander components. One small example of a typical rack.

(Table was set for our lunch)

 

[wab003]

Williams has more Piper wing spars in stock than does the Piper factory. No waiting 9 months for delivery.

 

[wab003]

Rudder spar being repaired by replacement w/ new.

 

[benelong]

Re: Williams Tour

Bill, great report, and you all obviously had a great weekend.
From what you saw, would Williams have the capacity to repair a 114 wing?

 

[wab003]

Oh, without a doubt. The current challenge is if any of the dimpled panels require replacement. Due to a lack of tooling, reproducing the dimpled panels can be pricey. Any of the other components (spars, leading edges, non dimpled skins, ribs, brackets, etc.) are a piece of cake.

COG is currently working on the dimpled panel issue with a few vendors. The key will be obtaining cost effective tooling to form the blanks. There are options for this. Once the profile tooling is available ( wood or plastic ) hydro-pressing the blank panels is available from multiple sources.

The pic below is a fellow at Williams remaking a Beech wing.

 

[gmores]

Re: Williams Tour

Rob - there's pretty much nothing with aluminum that Williams can't do. He even had Roush's Beechcraft Premier wing there for rebuilding.

He had several Commander wings and control surfaces as well. The inventory is amazing as are the tools he had available to manufacture components.

 

[benelong]

Re: Williams Tour

Thanks for the info, great to know there is options.

 

[N4843W]

Re: Williams Tour

Rob, Williams' shipping and receiving area has wings and control surfaces coming and going to and from all parts of the world. These guys are real craftsmen and have a "get it done" mentality. They will tell you how long something will take and you can count on it. You could eat off the floor anywhere in their shops.

 

[usmcs6]

Re: Williams Tour

Soounds like we all need to find a way to get something going with them to produce the control surfaces. Those are the real issues.

 

[davloose]

Re: Williams Tour

He can definitely repair the internals of most control surfaces, skins are the problem. However, he does purchase salvage wings, elevators, and rudders, so sometimes there are good controls that come off those.

 

[gmores]

Re: Williams Tour

We're talking with the outfit that does the skins