B: RE: Re: RE: My Response Dwerlk/Harrad Reports

[George Braly]

Jim,

Thanks for the offer.  We did that in the T-34 situation and it worked well.

Just for some background,  about half of all the T-34 owners put up about $500 bucks each and that money was used to fund that difficult and uncertain two + year R & D effort.  When we got through,  all of the folks that had contributed were able to buy the repair kit at about $1K discount to the price that everybody else had to pay.  It turned out to be a win-win situation for everybody.

In this case, we are funding it all internally at GAMI.   If it gets complicated,  we may do something like the T-34 effort,  but I don't think it is going to require that.

The only thing we have asked from ABS is that they try to get an appropriate meeting scheduled with the key FAA people to review the status of this matter, and to go over their engineering reports and the work in progress to date and our testing plans.

We asked them to do that back in late October or very early November.

For one reason or another,  the ABS declined to do that at that time.  I still don't know why or what the reasons were.

Two weeks ago, today, I  again asked for the support of the ABS in getting that meeting scheduled and accomplished.  

Late last week,  and in the absence of any response at all to our last request to ABS, we went ahead and formally asked the FAA to put together such a meeting and to invite ABS, AOPA, and RAC to attend.  That request has now been forwarded from the K.C. small airplane directorate down to the ICT  Aircraft Certification Office, and I hope it will take place sometime in early January.

Finally, on Monday of this week, I received a very short note from ABS stating they were still considering our last discussions, two weeks ago.   However, so far, there is nothing positive, substantive, or supportive that has come out of that more recent request.  On the other hand,  there has been no negative reaction,  so I am hopeful that the ABS is just suffering some bureaucratic inertia and that we will eventually receive the support in moving this forward that has been requested.

Regardless we are proceeding.   The ABS's recent  RFP was not particularly helpful, and it was, in my judgment,  seriously ill-advised in its nature, scope, and purpose.  (I think Dick Wilson and I agree on that point.)   

There is virtually the equivalent of a medical "protocol" for how to accomplish a good solution to  one of these types of structural issues.

We have done that drill rather successfully and know how to proceed to get it done, again.

In this particular case,  it certainly looks as if there is  a straightforward path to get from "here to there" with a solution that is vastly simpler and a fraction of the cost of the Beech solution and one that absolutely solves the problem without putting the airframe at risk.

We have one of the best DER's with an enormous amount of successful experience in the military and the civilian world workin with issues of structures, fatigue, and crack growth analysis.  He arrived at the same appreciation of the loading mechanism that we had observed, and that the two engineer-consultants for the ABS had observed - -  all independently of the thought processes of the others.  That is reassuring, but not conclusive. 

Dick Wilson has reached another view of the matter.

We may all be wrong.

Right now,  they are all just informed opinions.  As I noted,  one test is worth a thousand opinions and lot harder to get!!! The data needs to drive where this is going.

Once again,  thanks for the offer to help.  The offer is appreciated.

Regards,  George 




-----Original Message-----
From: beech-owners-bounces at beechcraft.org [mailto:beech-owners-bounces at beechcraft.org] On Behalf Of Jim_SB
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 11:12 AM
To: beech-owners at beechcraft.org
Subject: B: Re: RE: My Response Dwerlk/Harrad Reports

>> However,  I still believe that one test will be worth a thousand 
>> opinions.  It will be harder to get, too.  But we will get it done.<<

Good morning George,

I don't recall how your testing is being funded. But if funding is an issue 
please let us know. I would be happy to make a contribution.

Best of luck with your testing.

Regards,

Jim in Santa Barbara 


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