Thread: CTsw Matco Break install...

I am no expert and nor do I claim to be…

But, it’s always been my desire here at the CT Forum to offer up the best advice and most help possible to keep everyone enjoying their flying time - hopefully it’s in a CT!!

I’m not going into detail but a year ago I had an incident in my CTsw. We later found out that it was very likely due to the new Matco breaks that were recently installed.

Now listen up – the bottom line here is with the pilot and I take full responsibility BUT… knowing what I found out later I felt it necessary to share some information with you.

In searching the web I found that some of the folks that have installed Matco breaks have had a sticking problem. Does that mean all of them? Probably not – but it’s been enough to be issues in “airplane folks” conversations on forums. My new left break was found to have a sticking problem. I’m fully convinced that a sticking break helped cause or caused my incident.

When I brought this up with the seller/installer it was “brushed off”. Maybe rightfully so, but I certainly didn’t think so!

Bottom line – if you’ve had Matco breaks installed on your CTsw – keep an eye on things, do some research and hopefully you won’t have the same problem I did. It might even save your life!

Many thanks in participating and sharing your thoughts and enjoyment here at www.ctflyer.com

Thank you very much for the info. I'll not be upgrading now.

I have some little rituals that I do every 50 hours, along with new pads every 150 and the old style brakes are now doing fine.

I'd really like to hear about what you had to do to get your plane fixed.

Jim,

It took an awful long time to get my plane fixed - more then probably necessary but with that said I can't say enough on how good a job Lone Mountain Aviation in Las Vegas did in fixing my plane. Instead of getting a three hundred and fifty hour plane back it was like I got a zero hour one back. On pickup there was a couple of very minor issues but they got addressed quickly. Bottom line... they did incredible work.

Obtaining parts was not a problem as Flight Design USA has almost a half million dollars worth of inventory in stock in Connecticut. There were a few that had to come from Germany and that did take a little bit but really didn't hold up the progress.

Matt's the "glass" guy there and he's truly an artist with this stuff. There was some minor damage inside the cockpit and he matched the "speckle" paint perfectly. It's hard to tell were the "old meets the new".

So - if you mess one of these up (hopefully you don't) there is salvation in knowing there are some really good folks around the country that can do a really good job of getting you back in the air!!

I'm one happy camper!!

Roger H

Good news on the repair!
Matco - 'had mine for about 2 years; Never a problem - just better braking and no pumping! Didn't FD start delivering all planes with Matcos a year back or so?
Did you go back to the old-style brakes?

No I still have the Matco's although one of them is new. I'm very happy with their performance over the old factory installed. They certainly do a better job. I just ended up with a defective one and upon some investigation I found out I'm not the only one. Doesn't mean they don't do the job - just stay on top of them is all.

And yes, FD installs them on the new LS's...

Thanks for the note and thanks for the participation...

Roger Heller

I am with Jim. I have a little over 120 hours and no problems with the original brakes. I have no special rituals though. At least not related to the brakes. I am sorry to hear the problems you were having with the plane.