Good story Eric. I'm amazed you got the drawings back in a week!
I'm not in the helicopter industry, but have been at the opposite end of similar problems (fatigue not corrosion). If the design engineer is doing his/her job right, he/she will have done some kind of calculation to prove (or otherwise) that the repair will go the distance.
I can't speak for your experience, but i know what i would do is get a drawing back ASAP with some basic calculation to show it worked. A week is probably about right for a reasonably simple mod. If this looked like it could become an epidemic i would also do Finite Element calcs to prove out a field fix for all machines. Once this was sorted my next task would be to make sure that production were fitting this field fix. I would then design and stress up a modification for production which would stop the problem reoccuring. This might all take a month or two (with the right software).
Believe me i have lost sleep over some problems. If the problem involves picking up a spanner then i let it get too far. Can i use a spanner? Sure, i've replaced head gaskets and such. But the point is i shouldn't need to. There are professionals out there that have the training, experience and equipment required to get the job right. I have a genuine respect for that.
A design engineer earns his keep turning a blank sheet of paper into a product. This means he/she needs to understand the problem from every perspective. That's why we waste so much time studying. The design engineer's job is to figure that there is a market for a replacement to the S-61, then do all the design, analysis, testing and development required to produce the S-92. There is a lot more to it than most folk show any interest in understanding (which really does annoy me).
Shawn Coyle is right about practical ability making for a better engineer though - if you can get "Eng" after your name then you should go for it.
