All is good! Mark To All, The temporary flight hold on the Aerotech DMS line of motors has been lifted, and all motors in that line as listed in the original announcement are released without ANY restrictions. Through exhaustive testing of the H135W-14A motor in question as well as lot and accounting variation of all the other motors, we are confident there is zero evidence of a Spark type propellant mix up with this motor in particular. Our reasoning for that determination was backed up by the specialized mechanical properties of that case manufacture negating any mix-up with spark style propellant as well as full visual inspections and multiple stand tests on that specific lot and other lots as witnessed by this office. None of the other DMS motors had any reported incidents but they were included to insure that that relative new line is trouble free, which again was double checked and verified. The other motor in question, the G78G Mojave Green SU motor WAS found to have an issue of mislabeling as originally suspected and that problem has been found to be restricted to that lot (date code 101742, manufactured in April 2012). All of those motors were thought to have been returned/retained, this one did not. There are two ways to identify a wrong label motor, through the lot number as well as nozzle throat size. The G78G motor has a throat size of .234”, the G75M motor has a .180” throat. If you find G78G motors with that date code OR with the smaller throat size, either return it to your dealer for a replacement or fly it as a G75M MetalStorm sparky motor. I want to commend Aerotech’s Karl Baumann due diligence and dedication in the all day testing and detective work in resolving these issues, Tripoli has a commitment to insure our flyers have motors with fully identified characteristics for the safety of our flyers and fields, and Aerotech has come through once again in that support. Please pass this word on to all our flyers, not ‘connected’. Paul Holmes Chairman, Tripoli Motor Testing From: Paul Holmes Sent: Monday, September 02, 2013 8:08 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Fw: Temporary Motor Decertification From: Paul Holmes Sent: Monday, September 02, 2013 8:04 PM To: TRA Forum ; Motor Test Cc: Gary Rosenfield ; Karl Baumann Subject: Temporary Motor Decertification To All, This past weekend there was a couple of incidents with one of the new Aerotech DMS (SU adjustable delay, H135W) motor as well as a legacy AT G78G (Mojave Green) single use, being mislabeled, in this case Sparky formulation. As these were flown off off pads not cleared for sparky use, there was a bit of consternation. We will be working with Aerotech to get this issue worked out, by tracing back the Lot codes. If anyone else has seen this in the recent past, request you contact me off list, with a lot code, (usually on the instructions), but with motor number and expected type, minimum, so we can make sure these are handled correctly and proactively stop field safety issues. As burning sparky motor at those sites not prepared for their use and the enhanced fire measures required and as the severity of the problem is unknown at this time, I am putting an immediate flight hold on all of the new DMS motors listed below. This is primarily due to the date codes showing to be of recent manufacture, as all of the DMS motors are. As the second motor was a non-DMS motor, I will make a status decision on other single use motors, as well as the timeframe of releasing for flight, the DMS motors, before the end of the week once we’ve identified the range of the problem. New DMS SU Motors H135W-14A H195T-14A G80T-14A I140W-14A I280DM-14A J270W-14A Paul Holmes Chairman, Tripoli Motor Testing
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 14:42:21 +0000