Has anyone read and have any thoughts about the newest FAA Special Airworthiness Safety Bulletin HQ-14-16? It seems there is a problem with assumed qualified MS hardware.
Steve
Has anyone read and have any thoughts about the newest FAA Special Airworthiness Safety Bulletin HQ-14-16? It seems there is a problem with assumed qualified MS hardware.
Steve
Steve,Originally Posted by Ramp Rat
Just a typical example of what happens when you let a supplier self regulate and certify. Our government made a huge mistake thinking they could rely on the suppliers to keep tabs on their own products, apparently they had only seen the "civilian" side of manufacturing and quality control through rose colored glasses. Now they are feeling what the rest of the world has to deal with, too bad they never knew how good they had it. The torque check is not a bad idea, make up a test board and have 20 at a time torqued up for a week or 2, if they pass, put them in the "good" bin.
Testing a bunch of self locking nuts for their torque value is only a small part of the issue. I can’t help but worry about the cracking of the nuts issue which would be a bigger concern then a nut wanting to loosen. Also, it seems that some so called MS bolts may have a cracking issue. The big problem is checking for such defaults without taking the entire airframe apart. As an A&P I always thought it was easy to spot a piece of “ACE hardware” being used instead of an approved MS piece of hardware.
I’ve got a gut feeling that this may become a bigger issue with the Fed’s as time goes on. I’ve sent an e-mail to the EAA asking why they haven’t brought this to the attention of home builders. Maybe it will show up in the next issue of the EAA magazine.
JMHO, Steve
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote