To: saman
It is my assessment that he has, at some stage in the past, worked on the nominated aircraft and has, from his own professional assessment, not been satisfied with aspects of (a) particular certification program(s).
I addressed the article referenced in the sticky post and stated that it dealt with lightning protection and bonding of FBW aircraft. I was not stating that the A-310 was FBW although the flaps and slats are FBW. The point I was trying to make was that Airbus has a Technical Design Directive (TDD) governing the design of systems relative to the bonding of elements of the aircraft structure including the flight controls and the secondary flight controls. The main point of my post was that the TTD outlined the design requirements for lightning protection. And, that the design of the secondary flight controls (flaps and slats), did not include adequate electrical bonding to the point that these systems could not pass the electrical continuity and resistance checks contained in the TDD.
As to my qualifications I worked for almost three years as senior RMS (Reliability, Maintainability and Safety engineer on the design of the flaps and slats on the A-310. When I discovered this lack of compliance I brought it to the attention of the Vice President of the German Company that I worked for. Their first excuse was that the TDD was not fully signed off and therefore, it did not apply. Then they gave me the real reason and it dealt with the cost of the modification of the design. I took the problem one step higher to the integration contractor. They gave me the same excuses and finally, I went to the design office of the wing and spoke to the senior safety engineer. This was the man that certified the wing. He told me that he sympathized with my problem but he could not do any thing about it (read MONEY. The contract issued by Airbus for the consortium design team required that Airbus be notified of any problem that effected Safety, Reliability and / or Maintainability. This was never done.
Later while working on another contract I contacted the FAA telling them of the problem. They sent one letter saying they appreciated the input. Several months later I got a second letter telling me that the FAA had contacted the DGCA and they assured the FAA that the problem had been taken care of. I checked and found that the design had not been modified and at that time there were over thirty A-310s in service. I sent a very strong letter to the FAA and they finally investigated and as a result, the Vice President and chief program manager were fired. However the design was never changed. There were other problems that could result in a catastrophic loss of the aircraft and Airbus was never notified about those problems.
According to the TDD there are two primary attach points for lightning. The nose which has lightning diverter strips and a partially extended slat. The quickest path to ground is the slat actuator nearest to the wing tip and from there it will go into the fuel tank. Check out the design of the slat actuator relative to the fuel tank.
Like John T stated the RMS engineer will determine the non-conformance of the design and the engineering department and the bean counters will usually reject it if it impacts cost or schedule. I have been doing this work since 1968 and I have seen this fact proven on just about every program I worked on.
There were many other non conformances on the A-310 program too numerous to mention here.
