Ameri-King in Trouble with FAA

[Av8r_Sed]

I just came across information on another forum that the FAA has issued an Unapproved Parts Notification letter against Ameri-King Corporation.

"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has determined Ameri-King Corp., located at 17881 Sampson Lane, Huntington Beach CA 92648, manufactured, sold or distributed parts and articles for installation on FAA type certificated aircraft, which did not conform to an approved design, but were represented as FAA approved."

The FAA letter can be found here: http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/safety/p...13NM460018.pdf

The landing page for Ameri-King indicates the web site is temporarily closed??? http://www.ameri-king.com/

It appears at the moment that any products manufactured by them after Dec 28, 2015 cannot be installed on type certified aircraft. Further, the FAA is investigating older products and may issue an Airworthiness Directive if they are found to be unsafe.

This could turn out to be another gotcha for a lot of us. I've just got their SK 350 encoder, but a lot of folks have one of their ELT's.

[Av8r3400]

I've got one of their 406 ELTs in the mangy and an old one of their 121.5 models in the yellow plane.

I saw this on AVWEB too...

[Dave S]

AV8R_Sed,

Interesting.......back in January I posted a question in this section of the List titled "Encoders" (I believe you responded to it), which was inspired by failures of two different Ak-350 encoders in our kitfox. The first one, purchased when our Kitfox was built went way out of calibration and could not be re-calibrated by my avionics shop. The second one was installed a bit less than 2 years ago and went out of calibration this winter (per my post of 1/2016). On the second one my shop was able to adjust the "low" setting to meet requirements. Both of the AK-350's I have had experience with were manufactured within the last 10 years. I know another list member had one that has held up for around 25 years - mileage varies.

What I am curious about, and what is not included in the FAA Unapproved Parts Notification on Ameri-King is if the failure to comply with the parts approval is a technical paperwork issue or flat out junk component parts used in the product that can affect performance and durability.

For the two encoders I had screw up - they failed in between two year periods for routine inspection.

Sincerely,

Dave S
Kitfox 7 Trigear
912ULS Warp drive
St Paul, MN

[PapuaPilot]

The FAA document says that they were not confident that the parts were being manufactured in accordance with their approved design. This would not be a paperwork issue. Rather, it is alluding to poor quality manufacturing, poor QC or components not meeting the approved design specs.

It is a rare move for the FAA to shut down a company for multiple products. This didn't happen because of a bad batch of products or subcomponents, in that case the FAA would have made and AD with a specific date or serial number range which would need to be removed from service or inspected.

The avionics guys where I work say that the inside of the AK products have very poor/horrible workmanship.

I feel bad for all of you that have AK ELTs and encoders. It makes me glad that I ended up with an ACK ELT.

[jdmcbean]

We have used this as well... for some time.. We changed over to the ACK about 3 years ago..

We are a dealer for ACK.. so if your looking to replace give us a call.

[herman pahls]

I had my condition inspection Friday and learned that my 3 year old Ameri-King
ELT had died (121.5 only).
Probably in my best interest to go to a 406 since who is monitoring 121.5 ?
I have to ask who is monitoring the 406's or whatever the frequency is?
Do the replacement batteries for the ACK E-04 406 really cost $150 and do they need to be replaced yearly?
Is it a mistake to go with a EBC 502 that transmits on 121.5 and 243.0 MHz?
I had one in my other Kitfox for 21 years and it still works and easy to install.
Who monitors 243.0 MHz?
I will appreciate any advice on ELT's.
Thanks
Herman