On Aug 21, 4:24*am, Don Johnstone wrote:
Is this alarming?
In 1971 the Design Authority issued an Airworthiness Directive mandating
the replacement of wing spigots on the Grob 102, following a failure on
the Grob 103. Aircraft manufacturers/Design Authorities do not issue
directives, which by their name are mandatory, for the fun of it, in fact
doing so indicates that have screwed up. The work mandated is essential.
Unless I have this completely wrong the FAA decided they knew better and
did not pass this on.
My concern is, how many other AD issued by Design Authorities have been
ignored by the FAA and is it really safe to fly in a glider, or any other
aircraft on the USA register? Can we be assured that essential safety
maintenance has been done?
Looking at the evidence of the Grob 102 the answer has to be no.
Have the FAA ignored other ADs issued by European manufacturers, Airbus
Industrie perhaps?
Scary!!!!!!!


Well, if the European/German equivalent of the FAA issues an AD then
the FAA pretty much automatically issues one as well, but since Grob
only issued a service bulletin, the FAA did not automatically issue an
AD.

Todd Smith