>>I plan on writing a piece about factory warranties, but I need to use your story below to support the arguments.
>>I would also like to declare that Bob Ward from Queensland has had several unfortunate experiences. It's a difficult situation. On the one hand, it is hard to see why sailplane manufacturers should be held to a different standard to car manufacturers where there does not appear to be any binding standard although there are claims that manufacturers have to keep spares for 7 years. On the other hand, sailplanes frequently have a usable life which is many times longer than a car. This can be a real problem for anything with a motor or electronics. There was an integrated circuit used in '80s synths like the Prophet 8 made by Curtis. I read that 10 years ago, there were only 8 working spares of this chip and they were valued at more than the cost of the complete original synth. The Rotax problem is interesting. Many parts on the DG-400 505 engine are similar or identical to those on the more common 503. It is at least a 25 year old design though the 503 appears to have been in production until 2011 and used in many thousands of ultralights. Fitting a spare from a 503 to a 505 would probably void the certification. While some of DG-400 engine parts are hard to find, DG were still certifying replacement parts such as extend/retract motors and ignition components etc. as recently as 5 years ago to keep DG-400s airborne. The replacement parts are expensive, not because they cost a lot, but because of the cost of getting them re-certified. Frequently, the parts which become obsolete are made by major manufacturers such as Bosch… water pumps, extend/retract motors are good examples. What chance have DG and SH got of making sure Bosch keep making water pumps? The alternative is to use a smaller manufacturer such as DG have done with the 400 extend/retract motor and hope that this size company does not go out of business or get bought out by a larger company who then abandons manufacturing niche items. Where you have an engine connected to some electronics for engine management systems, you do have real problems. At component level, it's unlikely that spares will be available for very long at all so the people who assemble the control unit are going to have to redesign and re-certify it every few years to cope with that. Electric and jet powered gliders are likely to have their own problems, mainly because of the short life-cycle of any of these designs compared with something like a Rotax engine. Probably the problem is certification. If the engines were not certified, they would cost a fraction the price and manufacturers or third parties would be able to reengineer the power plant more easily… an area which is sorely lacking. D _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
