Two answers he
1 ) If the owner rebuilt (or claims to) the airplane and he brings in
the airplane for an annual and the annual passes, the owner has a legal
airplane. It's not up to the IA to determine the previous history of the
data plate.

2) As everybody says, you can repair an airplane around a data plate.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There is no percentage of
repair defined anywhere in the regulations to determine if it was just a
data plate swap.

If you want to feel better and ask the FAA about this, put it in writing
and ask them if there is anything wrong with it and if there is, have
them state specifically what regulation prohibits it.
This should get rid of the opinion part of the answer the faa would give
in you asked them verbally.

Also as an added tid-bit, you can perform an annual inspection on just a
dataplate. The IA will need to create up a discrepancy list prior to
signing off the annual.

Dave



T o d d P a t t i s t wrote:
wrote:


It is illegal to remove the data plate from a plane,


This is certainly not illegal if the aircraft having its
data plate removed will no longer be flown, and that's what
would happen in this case.


or to change the data plate on a plane. PERIOD.


"Changing" a data plate is illegal, but, technically, that's
not what he's being asked to do. He's being asked to scrap
a good plane and rebuild an old one (consisting of nothing
except a data plate) using the good parts.


However - what constitutes a plane???? If you have the remains of a
plane, with a data plate, you can "repair" that plane and make
basically a new plane around that data plate.
The wings and other parts of the plane are not identified as part of a
particular plane, if memory serves correctly - so taking the "parts"
plane and the "repairable" plane, and moving all the good parts to the
"repairable" plane would be kosher, according to current
interpretation of the law.


Yes, that's basically I wrote, but in this case he's being
asked to do it to get around a limitation, not to bring to
life an aircraft.


The big question still remains - how much of the "repairable" plane do
you need to use to satisfy the FAA?????


The FAA won't tell us what the answer is, and they have been
asked. Many aircraft have been built up from only the data
plate, and the FAA knows this and has taken no action. I
mean it when I say "only the data plate" as in that is the
only part from the original aircraft.

All of this does not mean the FAA won't or can't take any
action in the future in a more egregious case. This
scenario probably *is* a "more egregious case."


T o d d P a t t i s t
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