Mark628CA
July 29th 14, 10:23 PM
I am holding in my hot little hand a letter from Jacqueline Jambor, a Manager with the FAA's Project Support Branch, ACE-112. It states that the FAA has accepted the request submitted by my friend and hangar partner, airshow pilot Bob Carlton, for a Global Alternate Method Of Compliance (AMOC) that will raise the current 3,000 hour life limit on Centrair Pegase 101, 101P, 101A and 101AP gliders to 4,500 hours based on a statistical analysis of the life of the 400+ Centrair Pegase gliders currently in operation in France.. The data analyzed in a "Zero-Failure Reliability analysis applicable to composite structure," came from the French DGAC and was augmented by written statements from the manufacturer (S.N. Centrair, Type Certificate holder) confirming that there has been "no structurally significant disbanding of composite wing components due to fatigue in the affected fleet of gliders."
Interestingly, there is no date on the letter, but it is in response to the request Bob submitted on May 28, 2014. Pegase owners in the United States owe Bob a heartfelt THANK YOU for the hundreds of hours he spent researching, collating and presenting a vast amount of relevant data pertaining to the obviously flawed original Airworthiness Directive issued in 2005 that made Pegase owners cross out reference to the factory-authorized 3,000 inspection process in the Maintenance Manual and ground the aircraft when the 3,000 hour "limit" was reached.
Bob and I found many errors in the original AD implementation, including outright violations of the US Administrative Procedures Act, which is intended to protect the public from arbitrary and unwarranted actions by Federal Regulatory agencies, including the FAA. There were also numerous violations of the FAA's own Airworthiness Directive implementation manual, false and misleading language in the original Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) and the subsequent AD, a shockingly short public comment period and many instances of outright false statements from the AD's author. In addition, our Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request was a blatant waste of time, in that none of the information we requested concerning the AD's implementation was released, and the results from the FOIA request was a collection of redacted (blacked out) pages, along with a bunch of stuff that had no bearing on the issue as it related to what we had asked for.
It is my opinion that our original request to have the AD rescinded, that included documentation of the glaring errors and omissions in the AD implementation shocked the FAA into issuing the Global AMOC rather than have to admit making a mistake and backing down on a badly flawed AD. There were any number of easier solutions rather than go with the Global AMOC based on a statistical analysis, such as changing the AD to allow continued operation under the glider Experimental Category Guidelines (8130.2G) adopted in April of 2011, but the FAA would not consider this lest it be perceived that they had made a mistake by issuing this ridiculous AD. It is worth noting that the AD's author is no longer in the Certification Office, probably because of this glaring example of bureaucratic overreach.
Much of the data we collected on the FAA's process in issuing the AD can be found at www.savethepegasus.org. In particular, check out the Petition to Rescind section, the FAA FOIA section and the Timeline. There are links to all of the documentation we found in the FAA's manuals, the Federal Register and The US Code of Federal Regulations, along with letters from the FAA, Centrair and New Mexico Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, who helped prod the FAA into opening this discussion after previous efforts were ignored..
Once again, thanks to Bob for all of his efforts, which began after the Soaring Society of America abandoned any further attempt to correct this situation, basing their decision on verbal and written statements from the AD's author and his superiors that nothing could be done, even though the FAA knew full well that the situation was not only open to interpretation, but exhibited grievous errors and falsehoods.
More information on this situation will be available when Bob returns from performing demonstration flights at OshKosh in the new SubSonex Jet.
Mark Mocho
Owner, Pegase 101A #154
N628CA
Interestingly, there is no date on the letter, but it is in response to the request Bob submitted on May 28, 2014. Pegase owners in the United States owe Bob a heartfelt THANK YOU for the hundreds of hours he spent researching, collating and presenting a vast amount of relevant data pertaining to the obviously flawed original Airworthiness Directive issued in 2005 that made Pegase owners cross out reference to the factory-authorized 3,000 inspection process in the Maintenance Manual and ground the aircraft when the 3,000 hour "limit" was reached.
Bob and I found many errors in the original AD implementation, including outright violations of the US Administrative Procedures Act, which is intended to protect the public from arbitrary and unwarranted actions by Federal Regulatory agencies, including the FAA. There were also numerous violations of the FAA's own Airworthiness Directive implementation manual, false and misleading language in the original Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) and the subsequent AD, a shockingly short public comment period and many instances of outright false statements from the AD's author. In addition, our Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request was a blatant waste of time, in that none of the information we requested concerning the AD's implementation was released, and the results from the FOIA request was a collection of redacted (blacked out) pages, along with a bunch of stuff that had no bearing on the issue as it related to what we had asked for.
It is my opinion that our original request to have the AD rescinded, that included documentation of the glaring errors and omissions in the AD implementation shocked the FAA into issuing the Global AMOC rather than have to admit making a mistake and backing down on a badly flawed AD. There were any number of easier solutions rather than go with the Global AMOC based on a statistical analysis, such as changing the AD to allow continued operation under the glider Experimental Category Guidelines (8130.2G) adopted in April of 2011, but the FAA would not consider this lest it be perceived that they had made a mistake by issuing this ridiculous AD. It is worth noting that the AD's author is no longer in the Certification Office, probably because of this glaring example of bureaucratic overreach.
Much of the data we collected on the FAA's process in issuing the AD can be found at www.savethepegasus.org. In particular, check out the Petition to Rescind section, the FAA FOIA section and the Timeline. There are links to all of the documentation we found in the FAA's manuals, the Federal Register and The US Code of Federal Regulations, along with letters from the FAA, Centrair and New Mexico Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, who helped prod the FAA into opening this discussion after previous efforts were ignored..
Once again, thanks to Bob for all of his efforts, which began after the Soaring Society of America abandoned any further attempt to correct this situation, basing their decision on verbal and written statements from the AD's author and his superiors that nothing could be done, even though the FAA knew full well that the situation was not only open to interpretation, but exhibited grievous errors and falsehoods.
More information on this situation will be available when Bob returns from performing demonstration flights at OshKosh in the new SubSonex Jet.
Mark Mocho
Owner, Pegase 101A #154
N628CA