PA28-235 spinner issues

paul.eric.renner@gmail.compaul.eric.renner@gmail.com
in General Discussion

I recently lost my second spinner in flight. The back story: Initial purchase of plane with aluminum spinner that had been welded. Held up for a good long while then developed a crack. Had it welded again and flew for some time. It developed another crack larger than I wanted to have repaired, so I looked for another spinner. Found no used ones at the time. Found a TCB composite spinner and purchased that for 1800. I flew with that one, having had the prop dynamically balanced for 235 hours. Then on my way from Montanan to Kansas city at 10K feet I lost it. As it exited the plane luckily it did not hit anything but it did rip the aluminum bulkhead. Replaced the bulkhead and talked to TCB composites. They sent me another spinner indicating that they had a batch of spinners that had some thinness issues. Not thinking too much about it I put the new spinner on, dynamically balanced the prop and went on my way. 240 hours later (note the similarity in number of hours) somewhere over eastern missouri a farmer is wonder what the heck this egg shaped thing in his field is....(you guessed it, another spinner departed the plane). This time I saw it leave but fortunately enough again it did not damage anything else on the aircraft aside from some paint on the prop. I called TCB. They don't want to send me another one, too much of a risk. To my knowledge there are no other suppliers of spinners for a pa28-235 part number 65209-00 for a fixed pitch propeller. I can't find one in the salvage yards....what is a guy to do? For the time being I have found out that I can fly it without a spinner. Looking for any other experiences folks might have similar and how they might have gotten past this. Thanks in advance.

Eric - N8573W

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