BAe 125 Series 800
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors; MEL
I am writing due to the situation I had with preflighting this airplane; Aircraft X; a Hawker HS-125-800XP; January 2015 in ZZZ after finishing the maintenance issues on another Hawker-800; Aircraft Y. When I started preflighting Aircraft X; right away I could see the damage on the bracket that attaches to the Nose Gear Strut.  I have already written two company reports on this and have seen this on Aircraft Y in ZZZ three days earlier and another pilot wrote it up on Aircraft Z; another Hawker-800; the same day when I told him about our airplane having this issue. Now on Aircraft X; this time the bracket wasn't completely cracked around the relief hole for the grease zerk like the others; but was instead bent and had the paint worn off and what appeared to be a stress crack on it. It appeared that the bracket had shifted slightly around the strut and on one portion of the relief hole; it had bent around the strut by the zerk [grease fitting].To confirm this I went over to look at both Aircraft Y and Z where a few days prior a new bracket was installed on the strut. On both of these two airplanes; that relief hole around the grease zerk was not bent but straight and set right over the grease zerk and not cocked to one side and bent like on Aircraft X. Now the thing that bothered me was that this airplane had been preflighted three days earlier by two [Flight Test] pilots and I had told these two about the bracket being cracked on Aircraft Y and how [is it] they couldn't see it bent like this; especially after I pointed it out on another plane; [had] surprised me. Either way I wrote this item up. The other issue we had with this airplane [Aircraft X] is that when we tested the toilet; it wouldn't flush. There was no sound of the motor running but we had power in the lavatory and no CB's were out. So even if we hadn't had the Nose Gear Strut bracket issue; there was no [way] we could have done our passenger leg after our ferry to ZZZ1; as we were flying cross country. Or if we did; we would have to stop one or two times at least for myself as my bladder could never make this long of a flight. I am sure this would not have pleased the owners. We also had a couple of other minor MEL issues and addressed these too. Now I point this issue out as this is the 5th time I have written up an airplane over this [nose gear bracket] in the last few months. I feel there is something causing this problem but either way it needs to be addressed by maintenance when we are at a service center. I have been told they have a list of items they check and this should be one of them.
Reporter stated the bracket causing all the turmoil is attached to the upper (outer) nose gear strut housing; the female section of the nose gear. That bracket supports an important squat switch for the wing landing lights and is an option on Hawker aircraft with a three position switch in the cockpit that actually shows 'Auto' and 'Off'. In the Auto mode; the very hot landing lights in both wings should turn off on landing when the nose gear squat switch is depressed and turn on the four Taxi lights in the nose cone. If the Squat switch does not function on landing; the wing landing lights will overtemp due to lack of airflow and cause serious damage to the wing area.Reporter stated the same bracket also has a hole cut into the bracket for a Zerk fitting on the nose gear strut to protrude through the hole and allow Maintenance access to the Zerk fitting in order to grease the strut. Cracks have developed on the bracket edge and near the Zerk fitting hole that are not deferrable; cannot be MEL'd; even though the bracket is structurally sound where it is attached to the strut. So writing up the bracket becomes a real issue for an aircraft in high demand. Hawker has transferred all issues with the aircraft to third party OEM Vendors for Operators looking to get any relief; which takes forever. Getting documentation or revisions for MELs from the OEMs is very difficult. The Hawker-900s use LED lights and do not have the wing heat concerns that earlier model Hawkers have had.
A pilot reports about cracks that develop in a bracket attached to the Nose Landing Gear (NLG) strut that are not deferrable on Hawker HS-125-800 XP aircraft; causing delays and cancellations. Bracket supports a squat switch that controls the wing landing lights and taxi lights.