: But all you're doing is pushing the determination from the A&P to the
: DER. If having the DER say it's OK is good enough, why not the A&P?
: After all, both are certificated. What's more, you can argue that you
: have less responsibility with an A&P, since he supposedly met an
: objective set of standards to be certificated, while a DER didn't.

: It would be awfully cynical of me to believe that this is being pushed
: to the DER's because anyone can become an A&P, but becoming a DER is a
: cushy retirement gig for a fed or someone connected.

I was thinking the other way around (top down vs bottom up)... i.e. a FSDO
that used to do a field approval without requiring a DER will now require one for the
same type of modification. It's CYA on their part.... not the A&P.

: Again, the two fundamental axioms of certified aircraft (and flying
: in general):
: A. What's safe is not necessarily legal
: B. What's legal is not necessarily safe.

: Add a third - sometimes you have to choose one or the other, because
: you can't have both.

I like that... I'm going to use it.

: There's a whole discussion of this happening now on AvWeb.

: Technically you are right. You can require that the IA sign off the
: annual (as unairworthy) and give you a list of discrepancies, get a
: ferry permit, and fly to another airport to have the discrepancies
: resolved. But in real life, that's not an option unless you are at an
: airport with multiple competing shops and can simply taxi over.

I was thinking more along the lines of unapprovedly ferrying the plane to
another shop. You're right, however... if you're at a place with a single shop, then
they very well may have you screwed.

: permit? I know he's not coming back to me, so it's all extra liability
: for no reason.

Fair/true enough.

: Your only real options, if you are based at a field with only one shop,
: a
: (a) Move
: (b) Deal with the shop, on their terms. They have you over a barrel
: (c) Learn to do your own maintenance, and get someone to sign off for
: you

Option (c) is what I currently do, and I'm fortunate to be in a rural enough
area that there are a number of A&P/IA's around that consider that the norm. There
are *no* "shops" at any of the airports I frequency, so that's the norm, rather than
the exception. I certainly couldn't afford a plane if I had to pay a white-shirt shop
to maintain it for me.

-Cory


************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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