Records ....... What records ?
It needs to be made crystal clear a lot of the technical records have GONE MISSING.
This leaves those recovering the aircraft in the position that a very detailed inspection of the airframe and technical records is required, this inspection takes just short of four weeks work for one man.
Then you have to get into fixing things.
My own thinking is that the technical education on GRP repair within the metalcentrc aircraft industry is very poor, my own education in GRP repair was based largely on what Boeing were putting out and AC43 ( published by the FAA ) and this had to be un-learned when I started getting involved with modern GRP repair. A quick look at the latest issue of AC43 shows no improvement of technical advice !
My guess is that the repair education of those working on the VGS fleet was a basic RAF composite repair course that was based on AC43 & Boeing practice for secondary structure, this would have left the workforce very poorly placed when faced with a repair scheme designed by Grob as they would have never seen anything like it on the basic GRP course.
With this background it is not surprising that damaged aircraft that were capable of being repaired were written off and poor repairs had been carried out. I did see a military technical investigation that misidentified the use of thickened resin as a fault...... Not a standard construction technique !
Even now the technical education requirement asked for by one of the contracting companies is to have attended the military GRP course, this is unlikely to cover any of the techniques for the type of repair needed on these gliders.
Despite what some above say about these aircraft being simple this is not the case when it comes to repair work, this is a highly skilled job and takes years to become highly proficient.
I can't help wondering if the technical records disappeared when a few people started to realise just how bad some of their work had been ( because of lack of education rather than incompetence ) or was it down to some manager parachuted in from another industry who wanted a bit of shelf space and failed to realise the importance of technical record keeping ?................ My money is as always on the cock up rather than the conspiracy as I don't think these people have the management skills to organise a conspiracy !