alexpeterson(at)earthlink Guest
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Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2006 5:13 pm Post subject: Chill on the fuel tank SB |
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Quote: | This takes the cake! Out of 4500+ RV flying, ONE guy has a
loosened bulkhead nut that was more than likely caused by
improper installation, so now we all get to rip into our
tanks... If there is more to this story, Van's should tell
us, but to ground the whole fleet on this one instance,
involving thousands of man hours of labor is simply
preposterous, if not downright stupid.
Even the FAA wouldn't be this dumb. Someone at Van's has
overeacted to the extreme, probably due to a hyperactive lawyer...
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I would suggest we all take a chill on this. No one HAS to do anything,
these are experimental aircraft. Talk to the manufacturer of your airplane
(look in the mirror for most of us), and decide what action you should take.
If you don't like the bulletin from Van's, write the bulletin that you would
have liked to see from Van's, print it out, and then decide what to do.
Make some sort of entry into your logbook if you like. I happened to use
proseal all over the fittings in question, so I will take no further action.
If I had a quick build, I probably would have a look, since I wouldn't know
diddly about what is inside.
Van's Aircraft is far and away the leader in this industry, and anyone who
has flown one of their designs knows that these airplanes are really, really
hard to beat from many angles. The very fact that Van and his company have
been successful means that they need to be very careful to protect that
valuable asset. It only takes one greedy surviving spouse teamed up with a
lawyer to clean it out. Facts don't necessarily come into play in these
situations, only CYA activities and jurors who don't know which end of an
airplane makes the noise. Here's how it goes: plane crashes due to fuel
starvation, lawyer trolls the web, finds a bulletin stating "Van's
recommends that sometime in the next 2 years you might want to have a look
at this fuel line thing", and boom, done, no more Van's. Come on, this is a
no brainer that Van's would put it the way they did, I'd do the exact same
thing.
My own selfish reason that I want Van's to continue to succeed so that I'll
have a another project for retirement.
Alex Peterson
RV6-A N66AP 719 hours
Maple Grove, MN
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