DG-300/303 owners...

On Apr 7, 1:31 pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
wrote:
I'm wondering why they have not issued a TN on this. Also, they
certainly know the S/N of the one where this was discovered as well as
any other tested. It seemed like they tested more than one.

Issuing a TN would imply that DG is the responsible party. In reality,
I believe that DG still holds the EASA equivalent of the type
certificate for the 300/303, in which case they are the only ones that
can issue an official TN (and they have issued TNs for the 300/303 in
recent years). I too ran the German portion of the notice through a
translator when I first found it, and there were several paragraphs
devoted to convincing the reader that DG is not responsible, don't
expect us to do anything, it's all ELAN's fault, etc.

In 1986 there was a mass balance issue that could have caused
flutter. They issued a TN and a very specific list of S/N's for
that. You'd think they could do the same here. ELAN seems to have
clammed up and mayby that's where the list needs to come from.
They're probably worried about liability and maybe they should be.

ELAN has been out of the aircraft business for several years, so I doubt
they'll have anything to say. The relationship between ELAN's former
aircraft business and AMS has never been clear to me. AMS produced and
sold to end-users something less than twenty 303s after they took over
the production rights, so they may get stuck with the liability for those.

But, as far as I know, ELAN was always a subcontractor to Glaser-Dirks
(and briefly DG) and never sold gliders directly to end-users (other
than perhaps acting as the agent for sales in Slovenia). If that is the
case, depending on how the reorganization was structured and German law,
DG may well end up holding the bag for the other 480 or so gliders,
which might explain the rather odd way of issuing a notice...

Marc


That was my wife's take on it as well. DG has performed these tests
and they are not going to do any more and ELAN isn't saying much.
They said they tested 8 wings and found this problem in 3 of them.
They said they don't know when the change in materials started or
ended, just that it did happen. My guess is the early 300's and late
303's are not affected but without a list of serial numbers who
knows. And maybe it didn't affect all the ones where the epoxy resin
was used.

Perhaps this is all an april fools joke. Or perhaps not. DG has
posted this on their web site but not published a technical note so
therefore the FAA will not publish an AD. At least I don't see how
they could without anything official from DG. Without that do the
operating limitations really change? Will all 300 owners see this?
Probably not and they will continue to operate their aircraft under
the offical operating limitations. When I go to the DG web site to
look for issues pertaining to my 300 I check the TN's. I would not
know about this if I didn't see it here.

I guess an email to DG is in order. I'd like to at least know the
serial number of the glider where this was initially discovered as
well as the numbers on the ones from the other 8 wings tested
indicating the 3 where it was present and the 5 where it wasn't. Like
you said I'll also be sure to let them know if I were to be in the
market for a new glider this sort of behavior would make me not
consider DG and before finding this out I would have considered DG
first.

Bob