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#61
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FAA to ground 80% of Glider Training Fleet... it's just a question of when
I do not see how you correlate a failure of a wood spar glider with the potential grounding of metal spar SGS-2-33s. That is a reach.
Wood spars fail from drying out, wood rot, or failure of an inspection to find cracks. Let's look at all of the wood spar Decathlon issues, yet with inspections, they are still flying. Not worth much, but still flying. How does that correlate to a metal spar glider? Yes we all know of the L-13 issues. If you maintain your aircraft, metal or wood spar, make the decision yourself, or the mechanic will decide for you, when it's time to retire an aircraft. Not the Feds. I'll agree that nice, new(er) all metal training gliders would be nice for a lot of clubs. But not $100K + Euro Plastic. T |
#62
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FAA to ground 80% of Glider Training Fleet... it's just aquestion of when
On Saturday, April 6, 2013 10:50:52 PM UTC-4, Bill T wrote:
I do not see how you correlate a failure of a wood spar glider with the potential grounding of metal spar SGS-2-33s. That is a reach. I do not draw any correlation between the failure of a wood spar glider with a potential SGS-2-33 failure other than the fact that all gliders are subject to age, the occasional hard landing, wear and tear, and unevenness of inspection. Consider the most hard-landed, abused and/or poorly inspected SGS 2-33 in use. That's the one that is the most relevant. As time passes this crappy glider deteriorates more and becomes more likely to fail catastrophically. No one really knows when/if it will actually fail. We just don't know. You can't really inspect it completely without taking it apart and if it fails, the FAA will take some action. Sure, it is engineered and built to last from the start. But those engineering calculations become less reliable predictors as the glider accrues unpredictable and unquantifiable experience and neglect. A while back, the Australian's tested a couple of Blaniks that had used up their factory authorized "service life". They took them apart and did all sorts of inspection and materials testing. On the basis of that evaluation, they extended the allowable service life of that type in Australia. Will that sort of rigorous pre-fatality evaluation ever happen to an SGS 2-33? Probably not. So we are all just keeping our fingers crossed. Are there hidden problems? Who the heck knows? But everything gets old and wears out. My point is not to push a panic button about the 2-33s. I just wanted to restart the conversation about updating the fleet. The current non-plan is pathetic, (plus I've gotten tired of reading about stupid narcissistic s--t on RAS and my glider is still snowed in.) I'm not an aeronautical engineer and I welcome anyone who can correct me if I'm wrong about how this is going to unfold over the next ten years. |
#63
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FAA to ground 80% of Glider Training Fleet... it's just a questionof when
On 4/7/2013 10:16 AM, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Saturday, April 6, 2013 10:50:52 PM UTC-4, Bill T wrote: I do not see how you correlate a failure of a wood spar glider with the potential grounding of metal spar SGS-2-33s. That is a reach. I do not draw any correlation between the failure of a wood spar glider with a potential SGS-2-33 failure other than the fact that all gliders are subject to age, the occasional hard landing, wear and tear, and unevenness of inspection. Consider the most hard-landed, abused and/or poorly inspected SGS 2-33 in use. That's the one that is the most relevant. As time passes this crappy glider deteriorates more and becomes more likely to fail catastrophically. No one really knows when/if it will actually fail. We just don't know. You can't really inspect it completely without taking it apart and if it fails, the FAA will take some action. Sure, it is engineered and built to last from the start. But those engineering calculations become less reliable predictors as the glider accrues unpredictable and unquantifiable experience and neglect. A while back, the Australian's tested a couple of Blaniks that had used up their factory authorized "service life". They took them apart and did all sorts of inspection and materials testing. On the basis of that evaluation, they extended the allowable service life of that type in Australia. Will that sort of rigorous pre-fatality evaluation ever happen to an SGS 2-33? Probably not. So we are all just keeping our fingers crossed. Are there hidden problems? Who the heck knows? But everything gets old and wears out. My point is not to push a panic button about the 2-33s. I just wanted to restart the conversation about updating the fleet. The current non-plan is pathetic, (plus I've gotten tired of reading about stupid narcissistic s--t on RAS and my glider is still snowed in.) I'm not an aeronautical engineer and I welcome anyone who can correct me if I'm wrong about how this is going to unfold over the next ten years. Heh. It can be painful to have future vision..especially when you're likely to be correct! FWIW, this degreed aerospace engineer (wanted to be an aeronautical one, but the space race of the '60s led to "aeronautical" being "upgraded to aerospace, in curriculum naming terms), doesn't sense any points of disagreement with your assessment. Nor do I disagree with Bill T''s prior point of how *individual* aircraft in the U.S. are likely to be determined non-airworthy, i.e. "If you maintain your aircraft, metal or wood spar, make the decision yourself, or the mechanic will decide for you, when it's time to retire an aircraft. Not the Feds." However, should a 2-33 suffer a catastrophic in-flight failure, we've plenty of FAA history to surmise how they might react...and grounding the fleet is always a possibility (e.g. L-13, T-34 spar AD, various other older birds with expensive [effectively, grounding] AD's, etc.). The U.S. 2-seat glider training fleet is - IMO - definitely ripe for "a universal upgrade"...which doesn't - in my mind - necessarily mean a wholesale scrapping of currently flightworthy 2-seaters. Lots of ways to skin cats...and "capital action" of this nature generally begins with discussion, mental effort, etc. Keep at it! Bob W. |
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