Very Important Manufacturer Support Notice

Very Important Manufacturer Support Notice:

Below is a very important manufacturer support notice. You can also read about the full story as to why today we are repudiating the Duc Helices Company. Or you can find more detailed information including photographs in the Service Bulletins page.

We formally informed the DUC Helices company the 23 March 2010 that we would no longer sell their products until they remedy breach, which they haven't.

DUC Helices (French manufacturer of the Swirl and Windspoon propellers) is not responsive to any of our mailings about customers having design and manufacturing flaws issues. To date, 24% of the goods supplied by the company DUC Helices have generated some sort of after sale issues, usually due either to the lack of quality control or the manufacturer’s inexperience in term of local regulation, product ageing, foreign markets, technical documentation, reference numbers, propeller/engine compatibility and we have had cases of in-flight breakages etc. We have received many complaints from customers claiming their unit failed to provide the claimed performance or presented delaminating issues before the end of the guarantee term supposedly provided by the manufacturer.

Along the past few years, all these problems were always pointed out promptly to the manufacturer by our technical support team, supported by suggestions to correct the issues and prevent them for occurring again. Overall, DUC’s replies were in the line of "Not to worry and that there is no problem". Since then we have sold many of their units and many customers are very unhappy with their purchase. It’s sad to say that DUC is now not replying to any of our mailings to get goods and stock refunded and cover shipping costs to the customer for the replacement of known faulty items. Even worse, DUC has obtained some goods from our customers for alleged technical inspections, but is now holding illegally these goods which aren’t their property, not giving any reply to our customers and not providing any refund for these goods. This being a theft, we can now say that after misleading and deceptive conduct we are now dealing with criminal conduct.

It goes without saying that during these years of collaboration, the DUC helices company failed miserably to comply with their obligations as set out in the dealership agreement they had written themselves, including standing by their structural guarantee, providing technical information within the framework of sales, technical support or aviation safety, taking back unused stock, informing us on the availability of new products and references etc. In particular, the DUC Helices company has had a series of in-flight breakage of their propellers, and did not advice us of the accidents and the subsequent change in propeller model for direct drive engines so as to avoid such accidents from occurring again. As a result, we kept selling the wrong product, without knowing an in-flight breakage could occur and despite the DUC Helices knew about it for months. We found on an internet forum by coincidence. This was for us the wakeup call as it made us realise the criminal conduct of the DUC Helices company wasn’t limited to commercial matters but could potentially have consequences on aviation safety, cause death, and involve our public liability as distributor.

We now know, to the distress of customers, that the Duc Helices Company has been selling products for years without having conducted real life testing of their products, instead taking advantage of the total absence of regulatory body in the French microlight industry to use their customers as guinea pigs: Serious design flaws were jeopardizing aviation safety. One wrong design is related to the draping of the blades (way the carbon fibre sheets are laid on): This lead to in-flight breakages on Jabiru engines. Another design flaw is related to electrolytic corrosion occurring at the blade root, another one is related to the inconel insert which is delaminating after a few hours, this results in the inconel leading edge then winding up around the blade forcing to stop the engine and carry out an emergency landing, another one is related to the epoxy insert at the tip of the blade breaking up: if occurring on the ground a passerby may be seriously wounded by shrapnel, if occurring in the air the propeller becomes out of balance, generating heavy vibrations leading to an emergency landing. There is no evidence these manufacturing flaws have been corrected.

Love4aviation.com Ltd has taken this issue very seriously and has decided to lodge a formal complaint to LRQA, the audit company that has –mistakenly- given the ISO9001 certificate to the DUC Helices company. It is ironic that LRQA gave an ISO9001 certificate precisely when the DUC Helices company was displaying the most appalling customer service and quality control ever seen during the many years of collaboration with them, and that since they have the ISO9001 certificate they are allowing themselves criminal conducts at a level unimaginable for a commercial body. Only the distance to their overseas customers can explain their feeling of impunity.

We have spent a considerable amount of time trying to help the DUC Helices company understand what customer service and quality products were about and improve their reference numbers, technical documentations, marketing strategy and understanding of foreign markets regulations and needs, but more than ever the DUC Helices company is burying its head in the sand. Their ongoing dishonest conduct is matched only by their commercial immaturity which shows in the way they treat customer complaints and refunds. Serve your customers right: next time maybe it will be best to make a quality product first and then try to build a following based on good customer experience, better luck next time.

-------- Warranty Period ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*6 months or propeller lifetime which depends on the engine: 600h for direct drive engines (Jabiru, UL Power, Continental O200, Volkswagen, Limbach...) and 800h for reducted engines (Rotax, HKS...)
** Warranty Provided by DUC Helices SARL Direct
Chemin de la Madone - 69210 LENTILLY - FRANCE
Tél. : + 33 (0) 4 74 72 12 69 - Fax : +33 (0) 4 74 72 10 01
E-mail : contact@duc-helices.com - www.duc-helices.com
------- Complaints against DUC Hélices ----------------------------------------------------------------
Mr Guy Jardri
Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance
LRQA France S.A.S.
Tour Swiss Life
1, Boulevard Vivier Merle
69443 Lyon CEDEX 03
FRANCE
Email: Guy.Jardri@lr.org
Tel: +33 (0)4 72 13 31 41
Fax:+33 (0)4 72 13 31 40
Website: www.lrqa.fr
LRQA stands for Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance. And it doesn’t provide any assurance of quality.
Think LRQA is auditing with impartiality and integrity? Think again...read this

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From the Director of Love4aviation.com Ltd

I personally am very saddened by this breakup of our lengthy relationship. After many years of doing business with this company, providing technical support and customer data to them to try to make a better product and service, they now have finally decided to act just like the most appalling small supplier imaginable by not taking any responsibility for their wrong doings and not providing any service nor value to their distributors and customers.

Their decision not to support our customers has already cost us thousands of dollars in labour, stock and recalls. Whatever our opinion toward this company, we are determined to find a positive outcome for our customers still waiting for their goods or their refunds for more than a year for some of them. We feel that we need to do this because we are now fully aware of these faulty equipments and criminal conduct problems that our customers are encountering. Unfortunately it is unlikely that DUC Helices will support us in our desire to provide better products and support to our customers. We must highlight that the problems herein described ARE NOT representative of the behaviour of other French manufacturers. We are dealing with a lot of French manufacturers for half a decade and the DUC Helices company is the only one displaying this criminal conduct and total commercial immaturity.

Above was a very important manufacturer support notice. You can also read about the full story as to why today we are repudiating the Duc Helices Company. Or you can find more detailed information including photographs in the Service Bulletins page.