The Hartwell H2532-13 exterior door handles are the ones with the disintegrating plastic housings. The same ones that came DOWN to $550 at RAPID last year. I have been working with AEC to come up with a more durable PMA alternative, made from aluminum.AEC is almost ready to have a batch of housings made. They have been rather badly burned by the lack of purchase volume on the landing gear cushion discs (donuts). They are not willing to just run off a large batch of the handles, only to sell a dozen or two over the next couple of years.
If there are enough of you who are really waiting to buy the better handles at a much lower price, please send me an email to mike at rellihan dot com, and ask to go on the waiting list. I can only guess at the approximate price, as it will depend on volume among other things. It will probably be in the range of $200 to $250 per handle; roughly 40% to 50% of the Beech price. Of course, this will probably be the last handle you have to buy, as they should also be far more repairable than the plastic ones.
I will run the list up until next Friday, February 17. I think that it’s safe to say that if we only have commitments for a dozen handles, or something like that, we can kiss this project goodbye (as well as any future ones with them).
The plastic exterior Hartwell handle housings were used on the following planes:
On the baggage door itself, on all the airframes with the large baggage door (Models 24 and 76)
MB617 and after (Sport)
M1485 through M2233, except M2224 (Sundowner)
MC181 through MC701 (Sierra)