Jeremy,
I received the letter last Saturday.
I / WB falls into the 'fit the mod within 5 hours or next permit renewal,
whichever is sooner' category.
The letter is quite clear as to which serial numbers are affected and what
the appropriate restrictions are on a per aircraft basis.
I will let the engineers discuss the merits (or otherwise) of the mod
itself; of more concern to me is the seemingly arbitrary limit that has been
imposed. Why is 5 hours the right limit for some aircraft? The cause of it
all (ie the arm failure) occured some time ago - if it was serious why
wasn't the entire fleet grounded? If its not serious then why wasn't a more
reasonable limit imposed on owners?
This is made all the more ridiculous when you consider the disconnect
between the PFA and the factory; the factory did not know the letter was
being distributed last week! In the meantime the factory cannot supply the
mod kits (GBP 40 ish by the way) because of a worldwide shortage of steel!
It looks like a number of us will be grounded by effluxion of time through
no fault of our own (or our aeroplanes).
I have emailed the PFA but no reply to date - response times not a
priority...
Regards
Sean
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