Ron Natalie wrote in message om...
psyshrike wrote:

SNIP


What the FAA has you by the horns, is the ability to manufacture and
in term have your customers get approval for use in certficated aircraft.
I could clone the Continental engine and use it in an airboat just fine.
I could clone it and use it in a homebuilt just fine. It's the use in
certificate aircraft.


You make my point for me. The same engine built with same materials,
designs and quality assurance can't be sold in an intended market. If
everything safety related has been resolved, why should I not be able
sell to GA?

There's certainly lots of NON-FAA precedent out there as well. If you
think the FAA parts certification is full of crap, try getting a medical
device certified. The FAA paperwork process looks streamlined compared
to the FDA.


OK. So two regulatory agencies are drawing poorly defined boundaries
between oversight and right-of-manufacture. Saying X sucks doesn't
make Y stop sucking. (unless X is your mistress and Y is your wife) :P

So every TC is effectively a patent, with NO EXPIRATION DATE.

Nope, it's not a patent.


If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Sorry, nothing prevents them from using previuos art. I can steal
all the aspects of Lycoming or Continentals design to build a new engine.
Their design (which is what patents support) is free for me to pick and
choose from. What I don't get a free pass around is showing my new
engine is safe to the FAA's standard.

OK. Why no free pass? Provided that you could get a production
certificate to have manufacturing facility inspected (Which you can't
without a TC) you could demonstrate empirically that there is no
difference. So what justifies the redundant testing requirement? And
even preceding that, what justifies denial of the right to even have
your manufacturing process inspected?

They are prempting due process.

SNIP


The thing that interests me, is why hasn't it been challenged? Or has
it? If it actually went to court, there could be all kinds of nasty
allegations and investigations. This does after all directly effect
market competion, and they ain't the SEC.

It hasn't been challenged because there's no basis to challenge it.

How does this affect competition at all? There's no preferential structure
given to any entity. All are free to put their part through certification
(even if it is the same as before).


I would have to disagree. Your rights to federal protection from
competition dissipate with the expiration of your intellectual
property rights. Since none of this is under patent, and the products
are indestinguisable from one another, then redundant testing
requirements should dissipaite too.

Since they don't appear to, everybody having to jump through the same
hoops is preferential to the established manfufacturer. Though the
hoops are the same, the baseline from which the manufacturer starts
their jump is supposed to move forward. It doesn't under the FAA regs.
Or at least thats my interpretation.

As a matter of fact your idea will most likely decrease competition. People
wouldn't want to be the FIRST to go through certification if they knew that the
second guy is just going to steal the idea of the first.

Products have life cycles. The existing life cycle is stuck in
autorewind courtesy of redundant labor requirements. Per a previous
post, there are many ways to compete, not all require techical
innovation. Two companies can create exactly the same product and
still be competetive. Just look at the shelves of your grocery store.

So why can't I make a generic Lycoming, run my company with a superior
manufacturing system and better financial model? Because I can't price
compete due to fully redundant R & D costs.

Whether this is the way it works in practice I don't know. This whole
excercise sort of came from a question, "why it is there are a half
dozen companies trying to build new engines, when a new engines
already certified in dozens of aircraft are so expensive?"

It would make more sense to use modern manufacturing advancements to
cut costs, rather than go through the whole certification process over
again. Yet nobody seems to do this. The end result is that the
existing manufacturers can dictate prices without concern for
competition. Lycoming doesn't have to use monopolistic tactics do
control half the GA engine business. The FAA does it all for them. Or
at least thats the hypothosis.

Thanks
Matt