Extension of FAA AD for Grob G109 and G109B

Stu Ostrander reports the following:

        About a year ago, an English mechanic, discovered a potential issue on the Grob G109 and G109B.  He maintains about 30 of them and is an obvious expert on the model.  He described the issue, and also wrote up the repair procedure he used when a defect was found. He submitted his findings, pictures, and written procedure to Grob.

          Grob misinterpreted his data and subsequently issued a bulletin which ultimately found its way to the FAA.  The FAA, working with its European counterpart and Grob, properly issued an 'Airworthiness Directive' on all Grob G109ss with a compliance date of tomorrow, Oct 9th.

          Several of us were unhappy with the recommendation (based on Grob's faulty information) which seemed to gloss over common sense.  Last Monday, several critical bits of information were uncovered which compelled me to call the head of the FAA department that had issued the AD.  Not only was he very congenial, he was also quite enthusiastic to correct a potential error and promised me he would get an individual assigned to work with me.  One day later, I was contacted by the assigned technical guy.  By Friday, an amendment to the original AD was issued giving us an incremental 3 months to develop a more correct approach to the concern.

          There is still a concern about the outcome of this issue because the FAA must once again, in lieu of any other input, rely on Grob and EASA (European equivalent of the FAA).  US owner participation is essential at this time to preclude Grob getting the solution totally wrong for us.  It would be a travesty if Grob and EASA were to blandly recommend replacement of all nose plates instead of correctly correlating no corrosion on the exposed portion to no action required.

	FAA_Approval_G109_Time_Extension.pdf