Having one set I intend to use soon is not hoarding.

Having 10 sets I intend to sell at elevated prices would be.

Mike C.

Not true. I ordered them when I was told the lead time would be 12-15 months and I would need them about that far into the future.

They came in 8 months. I have a few more months left on my tires and then they go on.

Since when is good planning for spares I intend to use myself the same as being a "hoarder"?


Textron is where I bought my tires. They didn't require any such picture from me, nor did I send them one.

Also, if what you said is true, that is making the problem WORSE. Once cords show, the tires cannot be retreaded, so those cores are now scrap. If you stop before cords show, then the tire casing can be retreaded and put back into service, which would ease the tire shortage.

I suspect your information on this issue is incorrect. Nobody on the Citation forum corroborates what you said.

I plan to replace my tires early enough they can be retreaded thus saving me money. By alternating two sets of tires, I can always have a retread set available. In this way I am helping the tire shortage way more than the owner who buys new tires every time.

Mike C.

Not true. I ordered them when I was told the lead time would be 12-15 months and I would need them about that far into the future.

They came in 8 months. I have a few more months left on my tires and then they go on.

Since when is good planning for spares I intend to use myself the same as being a "hoarder"?


Textron is where I bought my tires. They didn't require any such picture from me, nor did I send them one.

I suspect your information on this issue is incorrect. Nobody on the Citation forum corroborates what you said.

Mike C.

In aviation we transitioned to a limited inventory / order as needed / get it the next day model. Unfortunately, the world was shut down and that break created shortages, once the shortages happened, the hoarding started, just like toilet paper, there may have been enough to go around if everyone didn't stock up all at once.

BUT... then the really problems started, not only did manufacturers miss months of production, but they laid off skilled workers, many didn't come back. Then the shortages hit, shortages at the component level, chips that Garmin needs to build avionics, metal that an Israeli company needs to build precoolers, and Carbon black that's needed to make tires, to name just a few.

It's also important to remember that aviation is LOW VOLUME when compared to other industries. I'm learning more than I ever wanted to know about how precoolers and windshields are made. Let's just say they aren't mass produced!

Copied from another thread, sorry for the cross-post, but it was relevant here.

My wife had a gig flying an LJ60 that had tires that were getting to their limit around the end of 2021, couldn't find any. In that case they discovered that Bombardier had acquired all stock and required documented evidence that you needed some in which case they'd only ship them to your mx shop.

My wife had a gig flying an LJ60 that had tires that were getting to their limit around the end of 2021, couldn't find any. In that case they discovered that Bombardier had acquired all stock and required documented evidence that you needed some in which case they'd only ship them to your mx shop.

Bombardier was doing the fleet a great service by doing this. They became a central resource so that tires did the most flying and the least sitting or hoarding. This maximized tires in the air.

Textron is doing the same for tires as well. They have them, but their website says no stock. It seems that people with worn out tires do get them from Textron when they ask. Hoarders are kept from cornering the market by buying up the tires.

In my case, Textron said 12-15 months and I ordered them about 12 month in advance of need, give or take. They came in 8 months. I don't know of any Citation currently AOG for tires. Now intercoolers and other parts are another matter.

In the microchip market, we don't have a similar central resource metering out parts. Instead, hoarders and scalpers are buying everything up and stuffing warehouses with the parts. They end up selling some parts for 10x markup, maybe 20x in some cases, so they don't care if they have loss or idle parts. They can afford to throw away most of their inventory and still make a profit.

Very frustrating.

I'm hoping the market bubble bursts at some point and parts flow freely again. But then the problem will be a glut as hoarders dump inventory, leading to order and production slow down, and we cycle right back into shortages. Arg!

Mike C.

Last winter I was shopping for a Concorde RG24-15, Textron was the only source I could find with stock. They would only sell it to me if I paid the AOG fee and overnight shipping. The customer wasn't in that big of a hurry so I placed a backorder with Spruce.

Thread was split and removed at the point where the discussion turned political (no longer primarily aviation related).

Back to the supply chain, I just called a bunch of companies and nobody including desser is recapping Citation tires anymore

Does Wilkerson?
They do many warbird types, migs included.

Does Wilkerson?
They do many warbird types, migs included.

Did anyone you ask explain why?

Mike C.

We received word from Textron on Tuesday that we should have precoolers for the Mustang we have in prebuy, by mid-April.

Hopefully this is one component line, where the supply chain was broken, abandoned, rebuilt and is now functioning properly again.

When I was at Cessna we had classes on new ways of doing business, such TQM and Just In Time delivery. The general consensus was Just In Time would equal Not In Time.

One of the problems in Engineering was that the guidance on obsoleting versus maintaining parts for spares was pretty much undecipherable and haphazard. This was not as much a problem for such things as tires as much as it was for things like structural parts.