Todays FAA guidance to DARs re laser holes

[Vern]

This email is to provide awareness for FAA ASI’s and Designee’s performing certification work on Van’s Aircraft.

In July 2023, Van’s Aircraft announced that various sheet metal parts manufactured using a laser cutting process from January 2022 through June 2023 contained defects of irregular holes and cracked dimples. These defects may cause cracking in critical structures.

Information and documentation about the affected parts and recommended actions are located on Van’s Aircraft website at https://www.vansaircraft.com/2023/0...impled-hole-cracking-on-some-laser-cut-parts/

It is recommended that when certificating potentially affected aircraft, an assessment is made as to whether there are any affected parts in the build.

Regards,
AFS-640
Designee Standardization Branch

 

[rocketman1988]

Interesting

To what end, though? What if the builder opted to comply with the engineer’s acceptable and replace parts? The aircraft would then have “acceptable” LC parts. Will the DAR decide not to approve it based on their opinion, even though they likely do not have the required engineering background to support their opinion? Or do they approve it based on the builder’s opinion?

It’s a slippery slope…

 

[Mike S]

Standing by...........

 

[Tlrguy]

This is just the first of many yet to come examples of why we as builders need to reject the use of ANY LCP that wasn’t previously LC before all this started. Don’t get caught up in this issue again ten years down the road folks.

 

[Ironflight]

I’d caution anyone about drawing any conclusions from this initial announcement - you’ll notice that it is the first time DAR’s have officially been notified of a problem that Van’s started telling folks about nearly six months ago….and already there have been updates and engineering results that have been accepted by other (stricter) national government aviation organizations. It just shows how far behind the FAA can be due to manpower shortages.

So yeh - stay tuned, but recognize the delays in the FAA system - updates will come.

 

[vic syracuse]

Be calm...

Yep, we (DARs) all got it. Please don't start up a bunch of conjecture yet. . Calmer minds will prevail once this all gets sorted out by Vans.

Vic

 

[Mel]

As Vic says. Several of us DARs are in communication with FAA on this matter and any speculation on this forum will only cloud the situation.

The memo is informative but can easily be misinterpreted.

 

[Tlrguy]

Does anyone care to share said memo?

 

[rocketbob]

Van's aircraft has stated extensive testing was done for LCP parts with grossly exaggerated test failures and found no airworthiness issues. Don't understand why this would be an issue for any DAR.

 

[Mel]

Does anyone care to share said memo?

See post #1.

 

[Jack_G_S]

Van's aircraft has stated extensive testing was done for LCP parts with grossly exaggerated test failures and found no airworthiness issues. Don't understand why this would be an issue for any DAR.

“Extensive testing” can be a relative term. Especially when dealing with nearly infinite number of variables. Did they test holes like pictured below?

The FAA may also take offense that the engineering assessment references AC 23-13A but appears to contradict it in several ways.

 

[scrollF4]

Here we go again.

Mike, give me some of that popcorn.

 

[rocketbob]

Did they test holes like pictured below?

According to the engineering assessment, cuts were made in an unacceptable fashion to various LCP parts of a RV-10 wing and found they tested to structural limits with exaggerated defects.

If the point of this thread is to advise DARs against issuing airworthiness certs to RV's with LCP parts then there is a huge issue here.

 

[Ironflight]

Here we go again.

Mike, give me some of that popcorn.

Honestly, every FACT that we have regarding the notice to DAR’s is in the very short memo text posted in the original post of this thread. Everything else is speculation.