A & C.. I cannot understand your judgement on life limited pyrotechnics and the fact that life expiry extension decisions can be decided by the operators maintainer as seems to be the case here. Explosives fail, even if they are within life. The type I am employed on has more explosive devices on it that just fire bottle squibs (explosive separation bolts) and we did have a case of one fail in emergency use. Martin Baker have a strict guidance policy that such charges in their equipment should be discarded either if shelf life or installed life is reached (always the first date to be hit was MoD policy). CAP 533 A3-7 Para 12 makes interesting reading on the matter of service lifed components and airworthiness reviews for C of V, seems fairly black and white.
Last edited by Alber Ratman; 28th Dec 2015 at 23:00.