That's not accurate. The current standard for the R22 dash 2 blades is
2200 hours whatever the age. The year limit is only in the Robinson
service manual and not the type certification and therefore is not
applicable. Your blades are good for 2200 hours regardless of age.
Many owners (including me) have bought used blades with hours left so
that we wouldn't have to buy the very expensive new ones. I'd never
use 2200 hours anyway. I just spent 5000 bucks on a set of blades
after Robinson representatives told me that it was O.K. to buy them
and a good deal. That was November 2003. Then, a couple months later
the AD comes out making them worthless. At the place I hanger my ship
and take lessons they have to buy 2 new sets of blades for nearly
$60,000 because the blades they currently have are over 10 years old.
One set still has 600 hours left. Talk about a shafting! This AD might
put a lot of training outfits out of business.

There never has been a crash from blade failure in the US and my
research found that for the crashes that I can verify the age (that's
all but one crash) and the same crashes the FAA is using as the basis
for the AD (three in Australia with the last one being the one they
cite in the AD and the one in Israel on the AD) happened on blades
that were younger then 10 (the last crash in Australia the blades were
9 years old and the crash before that the blades were only 4 years old
but rumored to have over 5000 hours on them and I haven't heard yet
about the Israeli crash and when I talked to the FAA they couldn't
give me a firm age either) years.

These blades failed from abuse and would have failed no matter what
the rules were. This is a huge shafting of R22 owners and a windfall
for RHC. Please read the Australian story on this link. It will open
your eyes. Then write your congressman and ask for an investigation.

http://wave.prohosting.com/tcamiga/australiapage1.htm


wrote in message ...
I talked to an A&P about this and he said that its normally 2200 hours
or 12 years whichever comes first. Now the FAA wants to make it 2200
hours or 10 years and only for the blades with certain serial numbers.
Most of the ones he services never get past 5 years before he has to
change them anyway because of the hours.

Dennis.

"Bob" wrote:

OK. Then what's the MTBUR in hours on the blades? Or are you just
suggesting an unlimited retirement life? What has your "research" shown?



Dennis Hawkins
n4mwd AT amsat DOT org (humans know what to do)

"A RECESSION is when you know somebody who is out of work.
A DEPRESSION is when YOU are out of work.
A RECOVERY is when all the H-1B's are out of work."

To find out what an H-1B is and how Congress is using
them to put Americans out of work, visit the following
web site and click on the "Exporting America" CNN news
video: http://zazona.com/ShameH1B/MediaClips.htm