Confused with the post on the 17th August 2007 19:24?
Ex-Rigger/Da4orce/TD,
The recommendations/actions taken, where have these come from?
Firstly you don't recommend a fleet wide replacement until you have established that the duct in question is the root cause of failure and that the proposed recommended fix/corrective action will remove the single point of critical failure entirely. This requires extensive system wide and platform analysis, testing, proving and flight testing first this sounds more like a quick fix.
25 years of previous life is irrelevant how can you determine if it has failed before, if its already not detectable you can't rely on the 25 years of maintenance archives, the duct in question may have been replaced during a primary/minor/major as part of an assembly and not checked for failure, who knows?
The Aircraft Design Office has to maintain the Declaration of Design & Performance (DDP) for the platform and any other platforms it has ADO over, as part of their remittance in maintaining the DDP they must maintain the FMECA and FTA, if this failure has not been identified previously then it must be added to the FMECA and FTA before the DDP can be signed off, if the item's failure still cannot be detected then a preventative maintenance (PM) task with another method of detection must be put in it's place prior to allowing the platform to go on operational duties.
Assuming as the platforms, are and have been operational since the XV227 incident (the DDP must be current) the FMECA and FTA has been updated, the PM task will have already been put in place with the required detection methods.
If I understand you correctly this fault occurred in 2004 and the PM task will not be in place until Dec 2007, would it be fairer to say that the required analysis and testing will not be complete on MRA4 until Dec 2007 and then be retro-fitted across the MR2 fleet. This approach would not be the best way forward as the two platforms are significantly different, different equipment fits, enviroments, cooling, engines, etc, the itself maybe the same fit, form and function but the systems and platform are not read accross would not be recommended.
As an ex-Nimrod techie (10 years of ISK experience), extensive Reliability & Flight Safety experience and with a cousin still flying in normans regularly, I would urge you all to wait until the BOI is published, when it is, if it doesn't clearly address the issues and identify the root cause of failure, then ask the right questions and don't pull punches as there are a lot of other parties other than the lost crew (RIP) and their families, who will not be prepared to shoulder any of the blame, as blame equals £'s and therefore significant pay outs.
Please wait for the BOI!