Surprised to see such unenlightened thinking from the regulatory authorities (but am I surprised now that EASA rules?)
The original (and I still believe valid) premise was that Agusta built the 206, and many other USA origin helos, under licence. Thus 'fit, form and function' had to be acceptable to the original DA (Design Authority) i'e identical. The only exceptions to this were the installation of assemblies were prescribed, rather than on the dynamics, for instance, some of the close tolerance individual parts dimensionally in metric as opposed to imperial. This also applied to structural items too, eg doors, cowlings etc. Of course, it would be optimistic to expect a new Agusta blade to fly with a part life Bell blade through the entire operational spectrum from hover to Vne, but then it might be a challenging exercise doing the same with 2 x Bell blades, under the same conditions. I am intrigued to read of this 'unique' interpretation since I was involved in the UK engineering scene. For what it's worth I hold a (converted) Pt 66 licence, so this subject is dear to my ears.
Would like to hear the rationale for such a non-pragmatic statement from the Authority. The statement that Bell parts are furnished by Agusta with covering Italian release is absolutely correct. So where's the sense gone?
Puzzled of Essex
