In my Aviation Quality Assurance world we call this "Risk Management". I personally find it unacceptable. However, Transport Canada and the FAA consider a % of failures (accidents) acceptable. Regarding your statement above it seems that I am always the receiver of the one in a thousand bad units...LOL. How do we get the manufacturers to "buck up". What we are doing here is the best start. Victims talking to victims of playing the odds.
The manufacturer/supply is the hub of all the failures and you can rest assured that they want to cover it up and sugar coat it. Bell, Boeing, Cessna to name a few all do it. That why the authorities issue something to the operators called an Airworthiness Directives (AD). Sometimes with and sometimes without the OEM's assistance or cooperation.
I'm gathering information on a failure of a "Right Stuff" disc brake conversion kit for you guys now. Had it happened on the road or track there would of been nasty results.
Manufacture/Suppliers are only going to correct problems if they have to. It cost money. How? Pressure from us the customer on forms like this where they have no control. Having said that. I want to give Andrew full credit for offering direct assistance here on FABO.
When I have all my info I will post it under "Alert / Right Stuff". I would also like to suggest to the administrators that FABO has a section or form or bulletin board to present Alerts to FABO members. No a place for sour grapes or poor customer service but, a place for FABO members to list safely, defect and poor design info based on step by step facts. This is what I did before I retired.
