>I have yet to meet another A&P, FAA rep, or EAA Tech coun. that agrees
>with Bob on remotely located fuses. That doesn't make his opinion wrong,
>just different than my data base and personal position.
>
I haven't met any either. Nor have I met one that goes through
a dozen journals a month, participates in direct contact with
over 100 active builders, sorts through up to 200 pieces of
e-mail a day (10% of which has to do with electrical systems
but many more deal with SYSTEM reliability) or writes 20+
articles a year thrown out in print or on the web for critical
review. The grey-beards can and do offer a tremendous
resource for supporting "how-it-used-to-be" airplanes. If
amateur builders wanted that kind of airplane, they probably
would have bought one.
>When I was on active duty in the USAF, we saved an average of one
>mission a month by being able to reset the breaker and continue. A
>couple of times a year this ability saved the acft. As you can see, I am
>biased based on real experience (USAF and 3 personal cases in civil
>acf), and all the numbers games in the world will not change my mind.
>Sure breakers trip when they shouldn't, and they are "on paper" less
>reliable than fuses. But I never heard of one totally failing open when
>the downstream device was good.
Again, no argument for an airplane that was architectured in 1950s
technologies with flight systems that were in themselves so
hazardous to flight that pilot intervention was necessary and
good. My goal is not to champion or bash any particular kind
of hardware . . . rather to change the way we think about how
airplanes are put together and what's expected of a pilot to
operate the things; breaking free of the FAA/Military reverence
for regulation and tradition in systems design.
Some ideas are good, some don't matter, some will be discarded
as non-productive but the last thing we should accept is the
notion anything is protected from CHANGE . . we don't need anyone's
blessing to evolve in positive ways. My personal definition
of positive includes adjectives like, lower costs, equal or
better performance, easier to maintain, easier to install,
and FAILURE TOLERANT. Any failure that puts the pilot
in a position of having to be systems analysis or mechanic in
flight needs to be redesigned eliminate the problem. You couldn't
tell that to your line-chief on the B52 or a Piper service manager
on your Cherokee but you can sure do it on the airplane in your garage!
Bob . . .
AeroElectric Connection
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(o o)
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