alt Hacker News> blame ... the negligence of the company that created and sold this part
That should be so obvious that I wonder if it was DIY by the pilot.
Replies
> The Cozy Mk IV light aircraft was destroyed after its plastic air induction elbow, bought at an air show in North America, collapsed.
> That should be so obvious that I wonder if it was DIY by the pilot.
I don't know how the regulatory environment is in the UK for experimental craft (this is considered to be "experimental" category in the US and Canada), but yes, the idea behind an experimental is that everything is DIY.
I have an experimental, and I can do close to anything I want. What I can't do is complain when my plane crashes because I installed a part that isn't fit for duty. I, as the owner and operator, am the one that signs off on the airworthiness of the plane.
E.G. If I install a Cessna part on my plane, and that is the cause of a crash, that is my fault from the point of view of the FAA.
There may be legal considerations outside of airworthiness and flight rules, but as far as the FAA is concerned (or would be if this had happened in the US), the manufacturer of a part is off the hook once the thing is installed on an experimental.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_MK_IV
> The Cozy Mark IV is a 4-seat, single engine, homebuilt light aircraft [...] The aircraft is built from plans using basic raw materials. It is not a kit aircraft
You could scarcely get more DIY than this aircraft. Home-built, and not even from a kit - the builder gets to lay up every part in glass fibre themselves, by hand. And this guy had been flying it for 26 years.
It sounds like the guy was sold a part 3D printed in the wrong plastic, and it melted. He thought it was ABS, but it melted at the temperatures PLA melts at. If your engine air inlet is made of plastic that melts at 54°C (130°F) you're going to have a bad time.
It's easy to imagine how a chaotic 3D printing business might have run off a test part in a cheaper black plastic, then a confused worker could have stored the test part in with the other 'identical' parts in a different black plastic.
The 'serious' aerospace industry avoids this with lots of paperwork and procedure; when an airline maintains an airbus plane, they use only airbus-approved parts from airbus-approved sources with a paperwork trail confirming they were inspected for being-the-right-material using an approved procedure. I don't know if the home-built aircraft community would be eager to adopt those practices, though.