After speaking to a friend of mine a couple of days ago I was informed that he had the steel pins break on the struts on his new Flash during landing. Since this is the second time I have heard about this I did some research and found that McMaster Carr sells steel dowel pins.

I ordered and just received a box of ten dowel pins for mine that are made from 18-8 stainless steel. I tested one pin with a hammer in a vise to see how they would handle an impact and instead of breaking they simply bend. As a matter of fact you can bend the pin back and forth repeatedly w/o it breaking. I am not sure this is the perfect answer but they do bend instead of snapping off and breaking like the stock pins I have heard about.

They come in a box of ten and are 6mm x 50mm in length which will work for both the mains and the nose struts. They fit perfectly in the existing retract holes and the price is only about $8.00 for a box of ten.
They also sell some hardened stainless steel pins but they only come in boxes of 25 and the cost is $40.00 so I thought I would try the 18-8 stainless pins first and if they are not strong enough I will order some of the hardened pins. The hardened pins are Rockwell 60 hardness which (according to the Rockwell charts I reviewed) appeared to be a medium hardness.

Anyone interested can use part number 91585A177 to order the 18-8 dowel pins directly from McMaster Carr. Even if the 18-8 pins are not strong enough I feel better knowing that they will simply bend and not break in half resulting in damage to the plane. I will be doing the maiden this weekend so I will let everyone know how they work out for me. Gary