There was a hint in the FAA directive that there may be a directive to replace blades - something along the lines of "the FAA does not rule out...."
There was a lot of speculation that one reason they didn't do that was because of the lack of replacement stock, but it seems rob-heli has been building up a stock.
I've been seeing a quite a few ads for used R44s with ali blades and I suppose from time to time, blades need to be replaced when damaged, but generally people will not go out and spend 30K on new blades without being forced to do so.
It's all gone quiet in the last few months has anyone heard anymore?
CC
BlacMax is quite authoritative in this area, and I can personally attest to the rational position he has on this matter. BM has specific specialist knowledge in the applicable disciplines and has a cogent argument that has far more face validity than the FAA's tail chasing process that appears to be entering another cycle of costs for owners without achieving the required safety outcome.
The failure modes of the early to later blades are quite different, and the design change to the latest dash's does not necessarily change the early or later failure mode. A question exists in one particular area of design that may have been changed that could increase the long term reliability of the latest blades, if incorporated, but there is no direct evidence that this aspect has been altered.
Cared for properly, the RHC product is capable of doing the task that it is designed for. It is intolerant of poor maintenance, and in some cases the level of neglect beggars belief...
refer the "Mareeba delamination", aair200701625_001.pdf, ATSB TRANSPORT SAFETY INVESTIGATION REPORT
Aviation Occurrence Investigation – 200701625 Final Main rotor blade skin separation 15 March 2007 Mareeba Aerodrome, Qld VH-HPI Robinson Helicopter Company R22 Beta II
The A016-4 and C016-5 blades should be able to serve their service life out with just normal levels of maintenance; the failure modes of the blades if viewed by age/TTIS does not indicate a defect in design that is not able to be managed by normal levels of care in the blade, in fact they pretty much indicate the exact opposite of what the FAA ACO has been so often alluding to.
Abuse a robbie, and it may well get it's own back, a form of natural selection.