To: helmet fire
“Actually Lu, you are wrong. I am NEVER paid to fly non airworthy or life threatening aircraft, in fact I am paid NOT to risk my client, myself, nor the machine by doing so”.
The potential for failure is always there and under those conditions the helicopter becomes un-airworthy when a rotor blade comes off or you have a transmission failure that locks up the gear train. The other way you have to know your aircraft is un-airworthy is when your mechanic discovers a defect or you note a problem during a flight and the mechanic investigates the problem and grounds the helicopter. Then there is another way of finding out that your aircraft is un-airworthy and that is when an AD is issued grounding your helicopter and all other models of the same helicopter. In order for that AD to be issued a pilot and his passengers had to die.
Every time you fly you have the potential of discovering that your helicopter is un-airworthy yet you get in and start it up and flyaway. The reasons you do this on a daily basis are because of faith in yourself as a pilot. The faith you have in your machine and hopefully the faith that you have in the people that maintain you machine the faith in the design of the helicopter and the faith in the engineers having gotten it right. You should also have faith that the manufacturer had someone like myself to identify potential problems and most of all you have the faith that the manufacturer listened to the criticism.
Regarding my flying on the A-310 what would you have me do? I brought the problems to the attention of the top management of the company I worked for and they refused to do anything because they would have to pay for any redesign. Their theory was that if someone above our company or even Airbus discovered the problems they would issue a change in scope and our company would get paid for the change. I took the problem to the wing integration contractor in Northern Germany and they told me the same thing and for the same reasons. I then took it to the wing designer in the UK and they told me they were sympathetic to my problem but they could offer no help. Now consider the following. The contract required that Airbus and the certification authorities be notified in the event of the discovery of Reliability, Maintainability or Safety problem and none of the three levels of contractors told them. Here is another point. Airbus prepared a specification that outlined a series of tests to be performed on every plane prior to roll out. These tests were to prove the bonding integrity and ability to resist damage due to lightning strike. Well since it was proven that the flaps and slats were not grounded it only indicates that Airbus never performed the tests outlined in their own specification.
With all of that, what excuse would you suggest I have used to take another flight on a Boeing or Lockheed or McDouglas aircraft?