Federal Aviation Administration February 25, 2013 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for Agusta S.p.A. (Agusta) Model AB412 and AB412 EP, and Bell Helicopter Textron (Bell) Model 412, 412CF, and 412EP helicopters with certain DART Aerospace Ltd. (Dart) high gear aft crosstubes (crosstube) installed. This proposed AD would require adding a life limit of 10,000 landings to the crosstube and removing from service any crosstubes with more than 10,000 accumulated landings. This proposed AD is prompted by five separate reports of crosstube failures. The actions in this proposed AD are intended to prevent failure of the crosstube and subsequent collapse of the landing gear.

We propose to supersede an existing airworthiness directive (AD) for Robinson Helicopter Company (Robinson) Model R22, R22 Alpha, R22 Beta, R22 Mariner, R44, and R44 II helicopters with certain main rotor blades (blade) installed. The existing AD currently requires inspecting each blade at the skin-to-spar line for debonding, corrosion, a separation, a gap, or a dent and replacing any damaged blade with an airworthy blade. Since we issued that AD, a terminating action for the inspection requirements of that AD has been developed. The proposed actions are intended to detect debonding of the blade skin, which could result in blade failure and subsequent loss of control of the helicopter, and to correct the unsafe condition by replacing the main rotor blades with new blades that do not require the AD inspection.