Mass ballast for MT prop — required?

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Rich
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Re: Mass ballast for MT prop — required?

Post by Rich »

Something I hadn't noticed before: Diamond does have an optional SB for addition of tail ballast for those with forward CG challenges. (Early DA40's like mine are routinely bumping up against that part of the envelope.) But I don't see a SB (mandatory or otherwise) for the nose ballast, though it's been available for a number of years. That's pretty weird, really, as there are numerous SBs for pretty much any other mods.
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TimS
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Re: Mass ballast for MT prop — required?

Post by TimS »

greg wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:13 pm I can't see how there can be a regulatory requirement - my 2007 XL came from the factory without the ballast, and was used by a US flight school for six years like that. If there was any requirement to add the ballast, there would need to have been some MSB or AD issued to cover the "faulty" aircraft that were already in the field. (I had the ballast added when I bought the plane because I wanted the flexibility to carry people in the back seats.)
MSB does not matter, it is not regulatory. There would be an AD, or if the prop was installed via STC, it would be included in the STC paperwork with the prop.

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Re: Mass ballast for MT prop — required?

Post by haykinson »

I'm discussing all of this with the shop and with Diamond right now. Some stuff I found out.

The prop is installed via an STC (SA02292NY), held by Diamond.

This STC states that:
Installation must be in accordance with Diamond Aircraft Industries Inc. Drawing # C41-RDC-001,
Rev A, dated 09 August 2006 and C41-MDL-001, Rev A dated 09August 2006 or later approved
revisions.
The C41-MDL-001 technical drawing has a table that shows how it's changed over the years.

Image

It looks like the document C41-7106-01-00 (that shows how to install the ballast) was only created in late 2007, and in 2010 the ballast was marked as optional. The current version of the C41-MDL-001 document shows as much:

Image

This suggests to me that any MT prop installation that follows the STC but was done after 2010 (or, presumably, before late 2007) would treat the ballast as optional.

I'm waiting to hear back from the shop and from Diamond to get their agreement with this version of events.
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