Skidlid,
Where did I say here were more than two Emergency AD's?
I must be suffering from short term loss of memory and you from dislexia.
What I did say was that the system had 'two major AD events in the space of a fortnight' ... the rest was about problems, one after the other. Regular groundings of the type whether attached to an AD or a spares issue put customers off. And matters not one jot whether its a bad production batch or please sir its 'not my fault' .... down is down. And this is whole fleet affected.
On its own nothing to worry about, cumulative it is a big problem.
It does not matter where the problem comes from .. NOTAR, rotor head spare parts the fact remains that no matter how quickly PAS gets the fleet together [and they did particularly well this time] this programme is still lurching from one event to another and the perception for the potential customer is that they can see this and avoid it by buying an alternative.... and take the risk presented by backing into trees [which is not that common] on the chin.
And talking about writing rot [and I know I have been guilty of a few] why did you write 'not a safety issue' ..... this is a safety issue, read the AD again last line of the first paragraph. 'loss of control of the aircraft' that sounds a teeny weeny bit unsafe...
So MD... are they totally at fault still? Well maybe not. What the customers are coming back to buy in Mesa now the support problem is near sorted is the MD500E. That may also be something of an ancient programme but it does what it says on the label without a great song and dance - and without relying on a handful of disciples in the Old World to constantly gird armour and fight its cause.
Take a few steps back.... Yes the Explorer is a great concept, yes it works well [when it works]... its super quiet, fast and small enough to put in restricted spaces, pilots love it, paramedics love it, trees love it because its kind to them .... BUT