Brooks Cambium Fail

[Louis]

Just to clarify the aircraft analogy, unless we're talking about buffet-induced fatigue, 5 seconds at an elevated static G level doesn't do a whole lot more fatigue than 5 hours (although it would be pretty tough to get significant time at high G's in a single maneuver).

If we're talking Loads (as opposed to Dynamics), one load cycle is one load cycle, whether it's applied at 1 Hz or 0.0001 Hz.

[JMacII]

Originally Posted by Louis

Just to clarify the aircraft analogy, unless we're talking about buffet-induced fatigue, 5 seconds at an elevated static G level doesn't do a whole lot more fatigue than 5 hours (although it would be pretty tough to get significant time at high G's in a single maneuver).



If we're talking Loads (as opposed to Dynamics), one load cycle is one load cycle, whether it's applied at 1 Hz or 0.0001 Hz.

Fair enough. It wasn't a perfect analogy. My (imperfect) point was just that hard use through a couple hundred hard mounts could put more wear on the item than a decade of "straight and level" use.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by JMacII

Fair enough. It wasn't a perfect analogy. My (imperfect) point was just that hard use through a couple hundred hard mounts could put more wear on the item than a decade of "straight and level" use.

Absolutely agree. Both in terms of the number of load cycles and the magnitude of those loads.

[kobetsang]

I have the c17 and c15. No problems so far

[benford]

Originally Posted by JMacII

Every material has a fatigue life. Some uses essentially put no fatigue on the part. Think of an aircraft in straight and level flight. Almost zero fatigue on the main structure. But, put the same airframe into a 7G turn and fatigue builds fast. One minute at 7G might put more wear on a component than 1000 hours straight and level. And one hard mount might put more strain on a saddle than 100 or a 1000 regular mounts. So multiply that across a working courier mounting and I mounting dozens of times a day and I can see how that leads to failure. I don't think it's a product defect, it's just an unusual amount of hard use on the product that is cycling it past its normal range and causing failure.

You make a good/valid point. I realize I'm harder than most on just about any piece of equipment that I use. But it just seemed a little quick for a saddle to deteriorate that quickly. I've used other saddles for the same length of time and they're still in one piece. Hopefully Brooks can eventually update this issue, as it's still a great idea and saddle!