Originally Posted by
henra
First they have to properly understand why the gears didn't nearly last as long as they predicted. That is a prerequisite for any potential fix. My understanding ist they haven't really understood the mechanism behind.
Depending on the exact cause it might be in the best case just a re-design of the epicyclic gears or -more realistically- a bigger re-design of multiple components in the MGB. Worst case would be a complete re-design of the MGB although I doubt this will be necessary.
Most likely is the second case. This would probably take somewhere between 6 and 12 Months. But these 6- 12 Months would only start once they found the cause.
It was their big mistake to stop digging at some point after G-REDL.
If the second type of epicyclic design has never failed (which I believe is the case - please correct me if I'm wrong) then a redesign might be unnecessary. The fundamental problem, as you rightly point out, is that the investigation has so far been unable to establish why the first type of epicyclic design failed and why it was not detected in advance. Without that we can't conclude that moving to the type 2 design will solve the problem. It is these two
uncertainties that have blighted the aircraft's reputation and are the major factors preventing the rehabilitation for the brand.