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avgjoe

Cypres 2 service bulletin

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Agreed.

Just trying to illustrate that 20kV shocks happen every day, not trying to step on your toes :S

William.



Why not just intentionally zap it as much as possible, walk around with your rig on while developing a huge charge shuffling your feet on carpet while in a room with a dehumidifier, all to expose it to as much static charge as possible? You'll either get your unit to lock up - and then it can be sent in for the fix, or you'll have more confidence in the unit to withstand lots of static.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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am suggesting the fix the problem faster than 4 years.



I think it will, eventually, but that can't happen now.

If people could figure out how to get units to lock up, by intentionally exposing it to static, then that would push the issue by flooding their service dept with more units to fix.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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am suggesting the fix the problem faster than 4 years.



I think it will, eventually, but that can't happen now.

If people could figure out how to get units to lock up, by intentionally exposing it to static, then that would push the issue by flooding their service dept with more units to fix.

it will be faster than 4 years for the 2009 units, a tad more for the 2010 and 2011, and the longest for the 2012 units.
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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I disagree. Firstly in many (most) instances higher level of integration on an ASIC (Application SPECIFIC integrated circuit) is done to save cost. So speculatively Airtec went to cut production costs and their testing was inadequate - leaving their customers screwed. Unless they are using ASIC for a general purpose IC, the ASIC is probably specific to them and changes would have been commissioned or approved by them. Interesting to see them blame the manufacturer.

If the issue is genuinely ESD related, and it would be interesting to know the facts on this, then it is probably in an unstable state. You can't predict HOW it will react, which is why 10% of the faulty units MISFIRED (1 in 14 units). If you've ever done ESD testing, for something like a Cypres it will be an air discharge of 8-16kV typically. If people were experiencing that level of ESD while packing we would know about it - it is not pleasant.

I feel for them, but part of selling products like this is having good follow up customer service and contingencies for a major product recall.



You dont need to explain what ASIC means to me, I know it pretty well since I design those things. Furthermore, I have 10+ years of experience designing ESD-resistent products. Airtec said that their vendor changed the part, not that themselves changed it. For the volume that Airtec has, redesigning an asic would never cut any costs. Furthermore, Airtec said that the original component was not available any longer, how would that happen if the chip was done specifically for Airtec? Since you have no clue what the real issue is, you are not doing anybody a favor by your clueless speculations.

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***when they had a packing mat misfire on the C1 they grounded all the units till you could put a sleeve on the control unit.



As I recall units stayed in service and Airtec sent out silver sleeves free, luckily a relatively simple interim fix although still annoying, until units were updated at the factory when they went in for regular servicing. A few incidents did show that occasionally their RF / ESD limits were exceeded, and that started the process of AAD manufacturers realizing that the standards had to be extremely high to prevent the occasional problem.

(Even so, that learning took time, When Vigil came on the market later, they still had ESD problems. It doesn't seem the easiest problem to solve.)

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I wonder, if some of you just don't read their SBs and FAQs. They are working on a quicker solution than the 4-year-service, but they can't do it overnight due to several limitations. Instead of hiding the problem they made it public, so that everyone is aware and can act accordingly to their recommended practice. They cared way more about safety than about damagin their public image. As long as you act as recommended you will be safe. When they found a way to fix them all quicker, then they will do. No need to ground 32000 unites for several months. No need to shutdown several hundred AFF and Tandem businesses for several months.

When Helmut Cloth developed the C1 from 1985 to 1990 he put all his money, more than 1 million Deutsche Mark, in this project. He was almost bankrupt when he started production but he really wanted to make it as perfect as possible and not sacrifice quality for time or earlier profit. The same man who played the game really hard back then is now taking care of this problem. You can trust that he works day and night on it and a solution will come. In the past, Airtec was critizised for communicating late, when all the work was already done and the fixes were ready. Now they changed their policy, because of safety considerations, and again a lot of people are ranting around. If you can do it any better, than build your own AAD and bring it to the market. If you can't then please shut up and leave it to people who have more than 25 years of experience with it.

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As the issue is ESD related, once the unit has locked up, it will not fire some time later. That is why they are saying that it wont fire in the plane or mid air.



Uh, there already was a fire in Sebastian on a packing mat of one of these units.



That's my point. It fires when the ESD happen, once it has happened, the unit is essentially dead. The outcome of the ESD is that the unit locks up, but if the ESD pulse triggers the fire, of course the unit fires.

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When the rigg is closed, the unit is much better protected from ESD. It would require a discharge of over 50 kV for the discharge to reach the Cypres. You will be kicking and screaming in pain long before that happens.



I don't see many packers kicking and screaming in pain... But one unit has already fired on the packing mat.


When the unit is on the packing mat, you have more or less direct access to it, hence the discharge needed is a lot lower than when the unit is protected inside the rigg. To reach the surface of the unit on the packing mat, around 1-4 kV is needed, when it is in the plane, >50kV is needed. Since people were bringing up all sorts of claims about props and fuel causing static electricity, I just wanted to point out that we would have a ton of other problems before the charges would build a level where it would even be physically possible to reach the Cypres unit.

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I understand that you are frustrated that you cannot always get what you want but you really need to learn some of the basics around this issue before you claim that your world is crushing down



I understand that you are making excuses... But you really need to learn some of the facts that have already been communicated and discovered before you accuse others of over reacting.



I am not making any excuses. If you want to be unhappy about their way of handling this, please be so, I wont mind. However, you are making claims about the underlying issue that are simply not true. You ARE overreacting to the discussion about ESD simply because you have no idea what you are talking about. Companies pay me money to solve their ESD issues so I have a fairly reasonable amount of experience of it. They do not pay me for their customer service, so I am not making any comments about Airtecs way of communicating this, although, as a layman, I would probably say that the way that Airtec communicated allowed the internet experts to shred their message to pieces when they tried to explain in layman's word what the issue is. Not sure if there is a way to explain this given all the arm chair experts out there.

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Could always buy a new one .Hopefully without problems then resell the old one after its been serviced. At a loss of ..... bucks . Back in the old days we would hardly get in the planr when some one had a AAD. To jump with them just was.nt on .

new ones don't exist yet :P maybe try and buy an older one, or trade it against one. Hell, I would trade my "older Cypres" against newer ones if anybody wants a 4+ yr old Cypres
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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That's my point. It fires when the ESD happen, once it has happened, the unit is essentially dead. The outcome of the ESD is that the unit locks up, but if the ESD pulse triggers the fire, of course the unit fires.



That's what you *think*. You don't know, they don't *know*.

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I am not making any excuses



Yeah, you are.... You are saying they are doing a great job and you are *guessing* they have it all figured out.

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Companies pay me money to solve their ESD issues so I have a fairly reasonable amount of experience of it. They do not pay me for their customer service



My degree is in marketing, and I work directly with customers on very technical issues everyday as my job at a Fortune 500 company. So I have a good bit if experience with customer service, and think I am more than qualified to say their actions on this issue is crap.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

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If you've bought a new Cypres recently (say within the last year) then in the UK you are covered by the sale of goods act 1979.


Under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 goods must be:-
•as described
•of satisfactory quality
•fit for purpose - this means both their everyday purpose, and also any specific purpose that you agreed with the seller (for example, if you specifically asked for a printer that would be compatible with your computer)

Goods sold must also match any sample you were shown in-store, or any description in a brochure.


You could therefore argue yourself a refund then either purchase an alternative AAD or simply re-buy a new Cypres without the fault when production restarts.

or

Getting a faulty item replaced or repaired:-

You have the right to get a faulty item replaced or repaired if it's too late to reject it. You can ask the retailer to do either, but they can normally choose to do whatever would be cheapest.

Under the Sale of Goods Act, the retailer must either repair or replace the goods 'within a reasonable time but without causing significant inconvenience'.

If the seller doesn't do this, you're entitled to claim either:

• a reduction on the purchase price, or
• your money back, minus an amount for the usage you've had of the goods (called recision)

If the retailer refuses to repair the goods, and they won't replace them either, you may have the right to arrange for someone else to repair your item, and then claim compensation from the retailer for the cost of doing this



p.s. My Cypres is unaffected, I have no dog in this race. I am simply posting the consumer rights you have in the UK.

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That's my point. It fires when the ESD happen, once it has happened, the unit is essentially dead. The outcome of the ESD is that the unit locks up, but if the ESD pulse triggers the fire, of course the unit fires.



That's what you *think*. You don't know, they don't *know*.

Based on my experience of the subject I call tell this with some level of certainty which can never be 100% of course. If I wasn't sure that this certainty is pretty darn close to 100%, I wouldn't say anything, however, if you choose to doubt this, I suggest that you chose to doubt pretty much everything else around you too as no one can ever be 100% sure of everything. Everything is relative and in this case, I am relatively more experienced than you ;)

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I am not making any excuses



Yeah, you are.... You are saying they are doing a great job and you are *guessing* they have it all figured out.


I am sorry, but you must be mistaking me for someone else. I have never made _any_ excuses for their way of handling this. I have questioned your objection to the ESD issue and tried to explain how this works. You can chose to not listen to me, but for the last time, please stop making claims about a subject that you have absolutely no clue about.
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Companies pay me money to solve their ESD issues so I have a fairly reasonable amount of experience of it. They do not pay me for their customer service



My degree is in marketing, and I work directly with customers on very technical issues everyday as my job at a Fortune 500 company. So I have a good bit if experience with customer service, and think I am more than qualified to say their actions on this issue is crap.


Great! You happen to know a few engineers and now you are an expert on ESD? Gee, I guess I should have gone to business school instead of earning a double major in electrical engineering and physics engineering :D
For the last time, if you want to discuss the way Airtec chose to communicate, please do so with someone else. However, stay away from trying to explain ESD issues as you are clearly not qualified to make any comments on it. Besides, I know for a fact that the way Airtec is communicating is just an interim solution but honestly, I very much prefer the way that they have chosen to communicate instead of them being silent until the final solution can be presented. With this fact in mind, why don't you pretend you are them and explain to the rest of us how you think that they should have communicated the issue?

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Great! You happen to know a few engineers and now you are an expert on ESD?



No, and I never made such a claim. You however have made claims that you know what is going on. So that means you either:

1. Are making a guess without having seen the real data.
2. Have seen the data from the company since you work for them.

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Gee, I guess I should have gone to business school



That might have helped you from making claims without data...

You are free to give an opinion, but you are making statements of fact either as an employee acting as someone independent, or as an outsider without the real data.

At any rate... You are making excuses.... The only question is have you seen the data or are you just taking a wild guess?

In either case.... I don't really care who/what you are. They have an issue and they have suggested a lousy solution.

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With this fact in mind, why don't you pretend you are them and explain to the rest of us how you think that they should have communicated the issue?



OK, for fun....

They take anyone that bought a unit in the last year and give them a new unit in exchange for the old unit. They take the old units and fix them and then give them to the people who have a two year old unit, then continue that till they have exchanged the 4 year old questionable units with fixed 3 year old units.

Each customer gets a 'free' year added to their AAD and they can take the year 4 AAD's and give them to sponsored athletes or sell them at a discount.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

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Great! You happen to know a few engineers and now you are an expert on ESD?



No, and I never made such a claim. You however have made claims that you know what is going on. So that means you either:

1. Are making a guess without having seen the real data.
2. Have seen the data from the company since you work for them.

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Gee, I guess I should have gone to business school



That might have helped you from making claims without data...

So either you work for them and are making excuses or you are making a guess and making excuses.

You are free to give an opinion, but you are making statements of fact either as an employee acting as someone independent, or as an outsider without the real data.

At any rate... You are making excuses.... The only question is have you seen the data or are you just taking a wild guess?

In either case.... I don't really care who/what you are. They have an issue and they have suggested a lousy solution.



Ron, do you believe it's possible that right now Airtech/SSK lack the ability to turn around 20k+ units in a timely manner?

How much capital, and how long would you think it would take to train enough employees to handle that load?

Turnaround time per unit test is about 2 weeks. I don't know how many they are able to service concurrently at each center. I'd suggest it's well below what would be required to do a full blown recall. I'd also tend to believe that manufacturing capacity is such that they are unlikely to be able to quickly crank out 20k+ new units to issue as replacements as quick as anyone would like.

Capacity that you are asking for doesn't get created overnight. I tend to agree with F94sbu that this is a first step, not the only step. Do I know that for certain? Nope.

Vent all you want, it's not going to help. And it doesn't seem to be making you feel any better.

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Ron, do you believe it's possible that right now Airtech/SSK lack the ability to turn around 20k+ units in a timely manner?



Recall/not to recall is a actuarial question. You risk the known cost of doing the recall with the unknown cost of doing less and any lawsuits and damage to your reputation that a lesser action might bring.

There is a smart course, and then there is a gamble. They have chosen a gamble.

Even with a recall they take a hit to brand image.... The less action they take the bigger hit they take. If there is an accident they take a massive hit and risk being shut down in some countries like the Argus and Vigil had happen to them.

Toyota didn't really have the ability to recall all the cars with reported brake problems.... They did it anyway.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

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Great! You happen to know a few engineers and now you are an expert on ESD?



No, and I never made such a claim.


How come you keep challenging my statements on ESD issues?
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You however have made claims that you know what is going on. So that means you either:

1. Are making a guess without having seen the real data.
2. Have seen the data from the company since you work for them.



The laws of physics don't change depending on which company you work for, therefore, I can make such claims as:
1: Air discharge can be approximated with around 1mm per kV
2: A Cypres unit inside a packed rigg is approximately 5 cm away from any outside object.
3: The ability for nylon to conduct current is lower than air.

Conclusion: A Cypres unit in a packed rigg is a lot better protected than a unit in an open rigg on a packing mat. If the issue is ESD and that the data so far indicate that the issue has only been provoked on open riggs in environments where static buildup is common, you can be fairly certain that once the unit is protected inside the rigg, it will not randomly fail after it has been verified to function.

Of course, there is a minimal chance that the issue is really something else, but so far, we have only been discussing the validity of Airtec's claim that a packed rigg can be considered 'safe' with a very high confidence.

If you still wish to debate whether this is an excuse or not, please remember that the same logic can be applied to any AAD. Any AAD is safer from ESD inside a rigg compared to outside. Still think I am making excuses for Airtec?

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Gee, I guess I should have gone to business school



That might have helped you from making claims without data...



Well, since the data that I refer to has nothing to do with Airtec or Cypres units, I am not sure what you mean. As an engineer, the whole decision making process is built around acquiring data, analyzing data, applying theory and then back to step one. Why exactly would I follow a different path here?

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You are free to give an opinion, but you are making statements of fact either as an employee acting as someone independent, or as an outsider without the real data.

At any rate... You are making excuses.... The only question is have you seen the data or are you just taking a wild guess?

In either case.... I don't really care who/what you are. They have an issue and they have suggested a lousy solution.

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With this fact in mind, why don't you pretend you are them and explain to the rest of us how you think that they should have communicated the issue?



OK, for fun....

They take anyone that bought a unit in the last year and give them a new unit in exchange for the old unit. They take the old units and fix them and then give them to the people who have a two year old unit, then continue that till they have exchanged the 4 year old questionable units with fixed 3 year old units.

Each customer gets a 'free' year added to their AAD and they can take the year 4 AAD's and give them to sponsored athletes or sell them at a discount.



Ok, so you clearly have been sitting under a rock this whole time. Check the FAQ. They are already working on a more permanent solution. Whatever it may be, we don't know, but your claim that they are doing the wrong thing is just ridiculous. But perhaps you think that they should have waited to communicate anything before a final solution was in place? NB: A service bulletin is intended to keep the user of a device as safe as possible, it may not necessarily address how affected units will eventually be replaced.

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How come you keep challenging my statements on ESD issues?



I have said that you either do not have the data, or that you work for the company and are acting like an unconnected individual.

You might be very smart, you might be like a god when it comes to electricity..... But unless you have the data, anything you say is a guess. Educated? Maybe. Guess? Yes.

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If the issue is ESD



And there you have it... You don't *know* if it is ESD. Yet, that did not stop you from making "factual" claims that it was and that there is no danger.

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Ok, so you clearly have been sitting under a rock this whole time.



Ah yes.... when out of intellect, people often resort to personal attacks.

I'm done with you and your assumptions that you treat as fact.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

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Wonder if the ASIC mfr forgot to put in adequate "clamps" on inputs? The simplest clamps are diode resistor networks that take excessive voltage to ground. Done right they can give ICs pretty decent ESD protection. But high voltage from ESD is sometimes like a big mean gorilla. It doesn't respect fences or cages.

http://www.navsea.navy.mil/nswc/crane/sd18/Public%20Documents/ResourcesElectDischargeCons.pdf

I am disappointed that Cypres is making the customer do a QC check for them on every jump. In the past, they have offered superb customer support and service. This time the task is so overwhelming that they have apparently gone into wimp mode. Still, I hope the product defect class action parasite lawyers don't go after them.

I bet Madd and Lars (Larsen and Brussgaard) would have manned up if one of their skydiving electronic products exhibited the same kind of failure. Bet they are thanking their lucky stars that they avoided the temptation of entering the AAD market.

The old SSE Sentinel MK 2000 AAD had a dirt simple design with no ICs and no software. Just a couple of AA batteries, an altitude switch and a rate switch in series, an RC network to prevent landing shock induced contact bounce on the switches from firing the pin puller.

Apparently that design isn't flexible enough to handle modern skydiving descent rate profiles, but I sure liked its simplicity.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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>When I pay almost 1500 dollars for a piece of equipment, I expect it to work as designed.

You can expect whatever you like. You can also take it out if you don't like it. It really is up to you.

>As a moderator and highly experienced jumper, I can't believe you would liken a
>life saving device to a contraceptive product.

I didn't; Ron did. I was answering him. I don't think they are very much alike, other than pulling all or most of them off the market for a long time might just cause more problems than it solves.

>What concerns me is a cypres firing on the ride to altitude. a malfunctioning cypres
>bringing down a load full of jumpers due to a known defect would be a crying shame.

Well, it's much more of an issue in the door than on the ride to altitude. But yes, it is a risk - and has always been a risk. In the early days of the Cypres 1 there were a few firings in the door. It was a risk then; it was a risk now. It will be a risk in the future even once they put this fix in.

Is it too much of a risk for you? That's up to you. If you don't want to take the risk, take the Cypres out.

>From your comment, it is obvious that you do not understand integrated circuits, or the
>complex microarchitectures that they compose. In a complex electrical system (such
>as the processor found in the cypres) the results of an ESD are unpredictable. There >are literally millions (even billions) of wires in such a processor.

There are actually about two dozen bond wires. Everything else is part of the IC itself - metalization, substrate, active areas within the substrate etc.

>Would you like to send in your toyota to have a known manufacturing defect fixed?

If it was serious, sure. It would be up to me whether I drove it or not.

>Would you drive 23 of your closest friends and family around in a car that you know
>has a manufacturing defect?

No, but I've driven 4 of my friends around in a Toyota that had a recall that I hadn't gotten done yet.

>Would you like the manufacturer to tell you that they will not fix the problem?

?? They haven't - they've just told you they will not fix it right now.

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I have said that you either do not have the data, or that you work for the company and are acting like an unconnected individual.

You might be very smart, you might be like a god when it comes to electricity..... But unless you have the data, anything you say is a guess. Educated? Maybe. Guess? Yes.



Seriously, what is it that you dont get? I DO have the data on ESD. Thats all I am explaining. Is the issue ESD related? Only Airtec knows, however IF what that are saying is true, then my comment is justifying why Airtec claims that the danger is minimized once the rigg is closed (ie why the issue cannot happen at a random point in time and why people do not need to worry about the issue ocuring after they have done the crude sanity check) Thats all I have been saying. People were worried that an ESD issue would be the same with the rigg is closed as when it is open. I have provided scientific evidence why it is not. In fact, the same remains for any AAD, but you didn't seem to take notice of that fact. I am not in any way defending Airtec, I am explaining why a closed rigg is less susceptible to ESD.

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And there you have it... You don't *know* if it is ESD. Yet, that did not stop you from making "factual" claims that it was and that there is no danger.



Correct, so far we can only trust what Airtec claims the root cause to be. Maybe this is a huge coverup for something else? Maybe they all wanted an extended vacation and shut down the company for a couple of weeks. Why are we even talking about this? Do you have evidence that any of this has even occurred? (No, you dont need to reply to that part, it was rhetorical)

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Ah yes.... when out of intellect, people often resort to personal attacks.



Well well, what an convenient way for you to end this conversation? I was making a remark on the fact that there are more information from Airtec than just the bulletin. Judging from your remarks on their handling of the issue, it was apparent that you haven't read it. I was snide in my remark pointing it out to you and I guess you took it personal as it showed your ignorance. Is it a 'personal attack'? Hardly! If it was personal attack, I would be making a disparaging comment on you as a person which was unrelated to the fact. What I did was being (apparently) a little too harsh in the way I commented on the fact that you obviously haven't done your homework. It is nothing personal in that other than I pointed out that your argument was flawed.

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