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I don't know about 'fears,' but at least 'attention' and maybe 'concern' are appropriate. Having just laid out north of $100K to purchase and equip a C337 for an aerial survey business, I'm certainly watching the situation.
On the one hand is the example of a pretty hard-rode 337 in our hangar that just had the 5000 hour AD inspection and came out clean - as I understand they all have so far. And, my gut feeling is that most if not all of the wing failure accidents have had some specific causal factor apart from the basic integrity of the airframe, e.g. unattended to corrosion, too much yanking and banking, a wing mod that didn't work out, etc. etc.
On the other hand are the forces of bureacracy (FAA) and fear of liability (Cessna) that could drive the situation somewhere not really justified by pure safety concerns. So, who knows?
On balance, I remain cautiously optimistic that reason will ultimately prevail and we can continue to (semi?) affordably fly these very useful airplanes into the foreseeable future.
Capt Ahab
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