Legacy Spotlight - Cessna Flight Control Cables

Flight Control Cables for Cessna Aircraft

Choose Your Cessna Model
120	140	150	152	162
170	172	175	177	180
182	185	188	190	195
205	206	207	208	210

McFarlane quality is second to none!

Cables available in galvanized or stainless steel
Cables are sold in kits or separately
When you order cable and terminals from McFarlane you will always receive a certified product!
Our large volume purchases give you great prices
We are one of a few DOD QML-6117 certified manufacturers of aircraft cable assemblies!

Stainless Steel or Galvanized Steel Cable?
Stainless steel is corrosion resistant and works well in environments such as salt air, water saturation, or agricultural chemicals. Galvanized carbon steel and stainless cables are soaked in a Mil-SPEC rust preventative and lubricating compound. In normal environments the galvanized cable will not suffer from corrosion damage for decades. How to Determine Flight Cable Composition

The advantages of galvanized cable are its wear resistance and cost. Galvanized cables resists abrasion wear four or five times longer than stainless steel. Stainless steel wire is high in nickel and much softer than the carbon steel wire. Stainless steel cable will show signs of wire wear at pulleys and fairleads much quicker than the galvanized carbon steel wire. Stainless steel cable costs about 30% more than galvanized steel cable. We recommend using galvanized steel cables except in coastal geographical areas, agricultural aircraft, float planes, and other applications where the cable is exposed directly to water. Only McFarlane has FAA-PMA approved galvanized cables for the new production Cessna aircraft.

The majority of cables for Cessna aircraft follow a numbering system to designate the cable as stainless steel or galvanized steel. Cables with a dash number from 0 to 99 or from 200 to 299 are typically galvanized steel. The equivalent stainless steel cable is typically found by adding 100 to the dash number of a galvanized cable. For example, part numbers MC0510105-16 and MC0510105-208 are galvanized cables and MC0510105-116 and MC0510105-308 are stainless cables. There are exceptions to this system. AG-CAT and Cessna 188 Series ag-aircraft cables are mostly stainless steel, and any cable with a dash number that includes an S or CS is also stainless steel.

All Beechcraft cables are made from galvanized steel cables and coated with MIL-PRF-16173. This is the same process used on Beechcraft original cables. It provides additional corrosion protection beyond the standard MIL-SPEC rust preventative oil. This provides both exceptional wear resistance and corrosion protection for many years. Same superior corrosion protection as the original!

Buy Complete Kits and Save!
McFarlane has compete flight control cable and trim chain kits required to service most single engine aircraft from the Cessna model 120 through model 210 and cable kits for most Beechcraft and Piper single engine airplanes. Most of the light aircraft fleet has seen many years of service and have endured many flight hours. Worn, rusty and frayed cables are now common. It is a tedious, time consuming job to research the part manuals for all of the cables required for a complete aircraft. McFarlane has done the research and has all of the part numbers for your aircraft.

We stock kits in either galvanized or stainless steel. All applicable Cessna cable kits contain four MC0422280 aileron bellcrank bushings, which should be replaced when replacing aileron cables. If you can't find the cable you are looking for, McFarlane offers Custom Cable Fabrication services.

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