Michael wrote:
: No, the regs don't. People do. There is such a thing as judgment. An
: A&P is supposed to be able to make a judgment call with respect to what
: constitutes a major vs. minor alteration, within certain guidelines.
: The guidelines give a fair amount of latitude. In many FSDO's, the
: poliy is to make that latitude go away by dramatically restricting what
: is allowed as a minor alteration.

There is such a thing as judgement, laws by definition do not allow for such a
thing. They are written in such a way as to preclude substantial differences in
individuals' interpretation. The whole concept of accountability is why many FSDOs
are making that latitude go away. If all you have to do is push paper stamping that a
DER said a field approval is OK, then it's not your fault if it breaks.

: Just shows how broken the whole system is.

: Well, yes. That's why I don't think it's useful to discuss what the
: rules actually are and what constitutes compliance - because it changes
: from FSDO to FSDO, and from inspector to inspector, and if an inspector
: wants to hang you he will find a way. The only useful things to
: discuss are (a) what is actually reasonably safe and (b) what you can
: get away with in terms of inspections.

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.

: In general, the only reason you need an annual is in the event of an
: accident, and then only for insurance purposes. You might argue that
: you need it to be 'legal' but that's a false argument. No plane is
: ever legal. Any plane can be grounded. Therefore, you're really no
: more legal with an annual than without. Unless the plane looks like
: crap or has obviously non-aviation stuff installed, a ramp check will
: not catch an out-of-annual aircraft - not that ramp checks are common.

Right... no plane is ever legal.

: I don't recall Jay getting phucked having to remove strobes. That
: sounds like
: it was an ugly FAA-ism.

: No. It was a bad shop. The IA had the option of letting the 337
: stand, and nobody would have questioned it. For decades, nobody had.
: I believe those strobes are still in a shoebox.

I'll say a bad shop. If I remember correctly, there's no such thing as
"grounding" an aircraft. It's simply not returning it to service. Seems like one
could bail on that inspection and go elsewhere... even if you technically have to fly
it there not "returned to service."

-Cory

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