The Aircraft Owner’s Friend For Continued Flight
McFarlane Aviation Products is a unique company in that they intentionally look for obscure parts needed by aircraft owners to maintain their birds and keep them flying. A recent visit to the McFarlane display at Sun-n-fun 2023 found a wonderful smorgasbord of new parts long forgotten by the original manufacturers.
McFarlane offers such things as new shimmy dampers to keep that wayward nosewheel well-heeled to upgrades in propellers, trim control wheels, and other parts the OEMs have abandoned but are much needed in our aging fleets.
Also of note, and somewhat unusual in the aircraft shopper/customer experience, is the knowledgeable help staffing the McFarlane booth. Having visited their display as a customer I have found the attending persons not only knowledgeable about the McFarlane offerings, they are knowledgeable about your aircraft and its particular idiosyncrasies and why and how the McFarlane product solves your particular problem, often exceeding the OEM design either in performance or durability.
McFarlane is well known to offer many solutions for many different brands, having received STCs for their products as necessary, a difficult and time-consuming endeavor given the nature of dealing with the FAA. The McFarlane catalog is chock full of everything one might need to maintain their aircraft, the number of products carried and available rivaling the other large and well-known aircraft suppliers.
However it is the in-house development of their own brand of products, reverse engineering and manufacturing those products, and improving upon the OEM parts that is most impressive. McFarlane searches the industry, listens to pilots and owners to determine what products are needed in the community, researches those products, and develops and manufactures their own products, obtaining STC or PMA approvals. This makes using their products an easy proposition and often a better choice than finding that obscure piece among the salvage yards and wondering what quality you’re getting in picking thru those used parts.
