I currently have a matter where a gent did not comply with a prop AD for years and it eventually failed in flight. 

 

Mark Ravinski wrote:

If you've been in a state of blissful ignorance about this AD as I was, you might be in for the bucket of cold water as I got.

 

AD 2006-18-15  effective Sept  25, 2006

....... 

I get piles of AD's that aren't important but not this one.

A couple of additional data points on this AD.

Hartzel (at least a year ago) was offering the discount as long as you replaced your current prop at or before its TBO of 5 years or 1000 hours.  The percentage of the discount has gone up and down over the years.

At least one prop shop quoted $150 for doing the eddy current inspection without removing the propeller from the airplane.  Many people are going that route rather than replacement, especially those who have a few years left on the TBO.  This is the first I have heard of a shop wanting to open a hub for inspection.  I would suggest you ask around to other shops before going that route.

While there is no doubt that the consequences of a prop hub failure can be extremely dire, many people are claiming that after 30+ years of service and 10's of millions or more of operating hours, there are no documented failures and this AD is just an exercise in liability reduction, paid for by the customer.  It is claimed that the technical data to justify the AD was deemed proprietary and never publicly released (I personally never went looking for it).  That has created a lot of skeptics and conspiracy theorists.

You can search the archives of the Mooney mailing list from around a year ago for a heated debate on this subject (http://lists.aviating.com/mailman/listinfo/mooney-tech).  Unfortunately you have to register to access the archives.

Regards,

Hamid