SSA response to Blanik L-13 grounding

Volunteers with the Soaring Society of America have been closely
following the recent action by the FAA in ordering inspections of
Blanik L-13 sailplanes. The nature of the inspections required has
resulted in what amounts to a virtual grounding of the L-13 fleet in
the United States.

The good news is that the FAA has been very willing to talk to our SSA
representatives (JIm Short, in particular, has taken the lead on this
one) and has been willing to discuss options. The bad news is that to
some extent the FAA's hands are tied because the problem originated in
Europe and the initial airworthiness directives came out of Europe.

This is a very complex and serious problem for many soaring clubs and
commercial operators in the United States and we want everyone to know
that SSA was on top of the situation from the beginning.
Unfortunately, we were not able to achieve a "quick fix" through
diplomacy. Rather, the problems with the Blanik are apprently quite
real and they require an engineering solution. We hope that there are
technologically-savvy Blanik owners in the US soaring community can
find such a solution quickly and that when they do it can be shared
with the rest of us.

What SSA can do at this point is help facilitate the discussion and
spread of useful information. To that end, we are putting regular
postings of Blanik information on the homepage of the SSA website. I
encourage those of you interested in this problem to check out the
postings there regularly -- as well as the postings on this RAS
discussion site.

Phil Umphres, Chairman,
The Soaring Society of America, Inc.

I don't agree with this.

I was told by Jim that he was "too busy", and it was "up to the
members, you are the SSA"

I was the one who called Gregg this Monday, and turned him around with
the info in the L-13 overhaul manual which has a complete fatigue
analysis.

Another member created this website, on his own out of frustration.
Perhaps the SSA could at least link to it?

https://sites.google.com/site/blanikspar/

Mike Malis
SSA Life Member
Aerospace Engineer

On Sep 1, 9:59*pm, mike malis wrote:
I don't agree with this...

I'm of two minds on this.

On the one hand, I think I perfectly understand Mike's frustration.
This looks like a situation where the SSA is stepping afresh into a
situation where others had been doing the groundwork for months and
years, and then saying (direct quote) "...SSA was on top of the
situation from the beginning...."

Note that I'm not saying it _is_ such a situation, just that it looks
like such. It brings to mind the cartoon of the politician asking a
bystander "Which way did they go? I am their leader, and I must get in
front of them!" But, again, the map is not the territory.

On the other hand, this might be a good time for interested parties to
swallow some pride and rally behind the national organization. The FAA
and the manufacturer need to see a unified front; they won't want to
do a bunch of redundant work with a bunch of small overlapping
factions.

Thanks, Bob K.

The voice of reason. What are you doing hanging around in this crowd?

On Sep 2, 2:00*pm, Pat Russell wrote:
The voice of reason. *What are you doing hanging around in this crowd?

Usually the Bob's (K and W) are good for that. Sort of refreshing, eh?

Touche'...

FWIW, my comment was meant to be reply to sender.

Let's add Voices of Reason to the FAA AD comment page.

186 aircraft, I'll bet at least 5 times that many regular Blanik
pilots, and ONLY 20 Comments?!

BTW, the SSA says "They can't engineer a solution" on their own, and
will need help from the members. I have joined thier message list,
have you?