And it will turn out that the one inch spacing was an arbitrary decision to begin with. Why now 0.8”, or 1.25”?
Federal bureaucrats could ruin many businesses in just this fashion.
And do, I am sure. Locally, a building inspector was run out of town for enforcing earthquake codes ...in North Dakota.
(There is a reason I live here. If the ground starts shaking, either something big is coming, or something big blew up.)
I was thinking the same thing, way to convenient a number for it not to be completely arbitrary.
Probably only need to be 2" spacing but some engineer decided that 1" would be better yet, so it became a law engraved in stone.
It would not be unusual for this to have some surprising consequences.
As a former QA instpector in a past life (on submarines, not aircraft), there is no there is no room for interpretation and there are no optional steps.
Yeah, it was a pain to make sure exactly three threads showed past a bolt, or that lockwire had the requisite number of twists per inch, or that fastener materials were the exact same material.
As a result, I could go to any ship and look at any boundary whether it was a hull valve, a dynamic seal, a dashpot or whatever and know for fact though audit trail and visual inspection that work was done the exact same way everywhere. Since my number of dives are exactly equal to my number of surfaces it must’ve counted for something, which I can’t say for a lot of folks from the days when QA wasn’t quite so rigorous.
You can bet China doesn't have a bunch of nosy Federal bureaucrats looking at the way they make toys, drugs, food, aircraft ...