News

GRUMMAN OWNERS & PILOTS ASSOCIATION MAKES A DIFFERENCE!!!

FAA Proposed AD re: delamination issues

Great News:  Due to all the supportive submissions, which helped to document why the proposed AD was costly, largely unnecessary and would not contribute to the overall safety of the fleet, the FAA has just announced that they are not pursuing the AD that would require annual tap testing of the seams on all models of the Grumman Light Aircraft to determine if debonding issues were present. 

During the comment period of the AD, GOPA took the lead in asking our Technical Director, John Cotter, to work up a submission detailing why this AD was unnecessary due to the fact that detailed descriptions of performing a tap test for delamination already existed in our Grumman maintenance manuals.

Many, many thanks to John Cotter for his incredible detailed and accurate submission on behalf of the Grumman Owners & Pilots Association, thanks also to AOPA, Fortnight Aviation Maintenance, Fletchair and to all individual GOPA members and non-members who submitted documentation to the FAA as well.

This is what your Grumman Owners and Pilots Association advocated for, and we are happy to see the FAA agrees.

https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2022-07871.pdf

Sharon Spence

pres@grummanpilots.org

My very dear Grumman friends,

as you have surely seen in the news there is an ongoing military conflict here in Europe. Totally unfounded and totally unwanted but direct influence is out of our hands. Very many countries are united in the fight against the initiating aggressor and are working towards some form of peace.

The pressure within Russia is rising quite quickly. Thousands of  protesters are being jailed daily - numbers rising quickly. Being overly optimistic I am wishing for an end ASAP. Like most everybody else. 

However, it could turn into a year-long conflict costing even more lives. 

I surely don’t want to get into any politics but let me have one personal comment: Please bear in mind it is not ‚the Russians‘ who started it. It is one stubborn powerful person forcing it with his command line.

There is much grief and pain within the families of the fallen on both sides.

Sting once sang: ’I hope the Russians love their children too.’   Yes, they do. All the ordinary people want this to stop.

This is a brief message to let you know that our event hasn’t been cancelled - yet. It might not help the Ukraine or Poland if we do not show up. I’ll get into more details later.

Up to today Poland alone took on 1.2 million refugees from Ukraine. Other countries some as well but Poland bears 80% of the burden. It does cause them challenges - not only logistical ones.

Rafal our polish friend and myself are in constant contact with the airfield, hotel etc. I have relations and contacts to Ukranian people and some background info constantly being updated. 

So for the time being I’ll kindly ask you to be patient and stand by. Do not flood me nor Rafal with messages and requests.

We are evaluating the situation regularly and a final decision will be taken later when we see more clearly. 

We do appreciate your patience. Thank you very much.

There are rumours or initiatives of participants letting the hotel have the rooms without a refund and not showing up.

Please hold your breath for a while. This is a kind offer but is not the most effective solution to help the refugees.

We fully understand if you want to cancel from your side or if you’d like to donate your hotel or event fee.

Rest assured I will later beg you for money and donations anyhow. Whether you show up or not.

Meanwhile please consider donating plentiful. We as pilots are quite well off while others left their loved ones behind and only have their clothes, maybe one or two children and grandma in tow and are in dire need for help and shelter.

If the event will take place I have some preliminary plans how we could help the region and people while we’re there.

Giving charity flights to children to distract them briefly and put a smile on their face being one of them. There’s quite a bit of logistic, etc involved but we’re not there yet.

Once again - bear with us. We’ll keep you informed.

Thank you for your understanding,

Yogi, RD Europe

The GOPA has formally made this submission to the FAA regarding our feelings on the recent NRPM on bond line inspections. Please have a look at our submission and it is suggested everyone also make a submission. You can use all or parts of the GOPA submission as you see fit. Thanks to John Cotter for leading this submission.

Here is the article from John Cotter, GOPA Technical Director.

The NPRM is here. There is a Comment tab in the document.

Basically the NPRM calls for bondline inspections as specified in the Maintenance Manual 100 hr/annual inspections. A small percentage of the fleet is being inspected by persons not familiar with the proper inspection techniques and since the AA5 incident last summer the FAA is on the lookout.

Update:

On December 13, the GOPA Board met to discuss the FAA's proposed new AD which affects the AA-5A and AA-5B models.

After much discussion and agreement on what should be done, the board tasked our Technical Director, John Cotter, with communicating GOPA's position on the NPRM to the FAA as your  "Type Club" input.

We will communicate additional information to you as it becomes available.

Good Flying,

Les Staples VP

It looks like the Lycoming O-320-E2G has been approved for using the new GAMI fuels. The appropriate page of the AML is here. I did not see the O360-A4K listed, apparently it is still in the works. Several other O-360-A4* are listed.  

The GOPA 2022 Event listing has been updated with a preview of next year's convention in Fredericksburg, Texas, May 9-13.

If you want to offer or are in need of Ride Sharing to the Convention please send an email to don@grummanpilots.org and I will try and get you connected. No guarantees though.

The preliminary copy of AD 2021-14-22 covering the inspection and repair of AA1 series and AA5 aircraft is available here.

This AD requires inspecting the horizontal stabilizers, including the bondlines, for cracks, buckles, corrosion, delamination, rust, and previous repair and repairing or replacing parts and applying corrosion inhibitor as necessary.

True Flight published SB195A, you can obtain a copy here- https://trueflightaerospace.com/sb-195/ or the three files combined into one pdf here.

The executive summary is that the revised SB-195 "A" removes the requirement to rivet all bondlines of the vertical stabilizer if delamination is found on the horizontal stabilizer.    It still requires the riveting of the outboard rib and trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizers, but NOT the riveting of all stabilizer bondlines.   So overall, this version of SB-195 A reduces the requirements to a much more realistic and focused repair, when necessary.