madrock
Inclined to agree with your sentiment. The stress calculations that prove that its safe to operate between checks for 10hrs are presumably done using the same methodology and perhaps by the same guy that did the initial stress calculations and worked out that the feet wouldn't crack within the TBO of the gearbox (2000 hrs or so?) plus a good chunk of safety margin. With the feet cracking at as little as 5 hrs time since new, what does that say for the integrity of the calculations?
But you might find that a prudent operator will be visually checking the feet on every shutdown at base anyway.
HC