Posted Saturday, December 17, 2016 @ 11:20 PM
Hi Steve,
I had intended giving you all a full, step-by-step account of my work with Oratex, including what few difficulties I encountered, compromises I had to make and the success I achieved. I wanted to do this because I think Oratex is a super new material. It takes some getting used to and it is almost as expensive as the combination of other fabrics and their paint systems, but it is quick and easy to apply, needs no significant special equipment (compressor, masks, suits, paint booths etc) and results in a significant weight reduction. My British RF4D weighed 9kg (twenty-plus pounds) less after re-covering only its wings and fuselage with Oratex (but not either of the stabilizers nor any of the control surfaces).
I was forced to discontinue this process of publishing my findings and achievements on this forum when Tony Hoskins submitted two Mandatory Occurrence Reports to Britain's Civil Aviation Authority, followed by months and months of further pestering of the CAA, the Light Aircraft Association (the certifying body for my British Fournier) the Type Certificate holder EIS, and individual senior officers of both organisations. He admits to having generated an e-mail stream of more than four hundred!!! e-mails.
In these documents Hoskins alleged (among other utterly untrue things) that:
I was not a fit person to work on my Fournier.
I was not being supervised.
My work was not being inspected and signed off.
I was doing everything wrong.
I was using incorrect materials and processes.
I was working in conditions too cold for Oratex.
I was working in conditions too damp for Oratex.
Among many other completely erroneous allegations.
Not one of those things was true, but Hoskins's obsessive persistence resulted in some inconvenience to me so, sorry, but I am not going to share on this forum anything more about working with Oratex on my British Fournier.
Yours, Bob
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Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV