Replacing position light bulbs

Any rental pilot/flying club types out there carrying spare postion
light bulbs with them? Do you have to be an A&P to change them? Do
owners frown on replacing bulbs without being informed first?
How hard is it to change them on Archers and 172s?
Its getting old finding the lights burned out during preflight and
everything is closed.

Two words... Preventative maintenance.

-Blue skies and a tail wind

"Mutts" wrote in message
...

Any rental pilot/flying club types out there carrying spare postion
light bulbs with them? Do you have to be an A&P to change them? Do
owners frown on replacing bulbs without being informed first?
How hard is it to change them on Archers and 172s?
Its getting old finding the lights burned out during preflight and
everything is closed.

Troy Towner wrote:

Two words... Preventative maintenance.

Which can be done by the owner, not a renter.

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...
Two words... Preventative maintenance.

Which can be done by the owner, not a renter.

It can also be done by the renter, as long as the renter only works on the
airplane being operated by him (which is the scenario in question here).

If the airplane is used for Part 135 service, the renter is technically not
allowed to. However, if I were that renter, and I couldn't find an approved
mechanic to do the work, I would still do it myself and let the FBO know
that some non-Part 135 service had been performed on the airplane.

Heck, for that matter, I'd let the FBO know what I'd done regardless and
make them pay for the bulb.

Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:

It can also be done by the renter, as long as the renter only works on the
airplane being operated by him (which is the scenario in question here).

The pilot of a rental aircraft is not the operator. The operator is the owner or
an agent (such as an FBO) who rents out the aircraft to that pilot.

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message ...

The pilot of a rental aircraft is not the operator. The operator is the owner or
an agent (such as an FBO) who rents out the aircraft to that pilot.

Nope, the pilot of a rental aircraft IS the operator. You can't be an operator
without a pilot, ownership or other legal control of the aircraft is specifically called
out in the definition as not mattering. Despite the O in FBO, they are rarely an
operator by the FAR definition.

The real issue is that you must make the appropriate maintenance records and
many renters don't have access to the logs.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...
The pilot of a rental aircraft is not the operator. The operator is the
owner or
an agent (such as an FBO) who rents out the aircraft to that pilot.

Please reread the regulation (I'm assuming you read it once already). The
regulation is not talking about an "operator" in that sense. They simply
mean the pilot who is actually operating the airplane.

"Mutts" wrote in message
...

Any rental pilot/flying club types out there carrying spare postion
light bulbs with them? Do you have to be an A&P to change them? Do
owners frown on replacing bulbs without being informed first?

No, you don't have to be an A&P. I don't have an airplane on leaseback, but
if I did, I would expect that a renting pilot would either get the FBO/club
mechanic to change the bulb if the airplane was home, or change it
themselves if the airplane was not and lights were required for their
flight.

In other words, I'd prefer that renting pilots not change bulbs (or do other
preventative maintenance that involves removing airplane parts) but
realistically, most renting pilots are entirely competent to handle the task
and would certainly be expected to do so if the task was required for safe
and legal flight.

How hard is it to change them on Archers and 172s?

Never changed them on either of those types, but on my own plane, it's no
harder than changing the tail light, signal, etc. bulb on a car. Usually
just a couple of screws to remove for the lens, and the bulb pops right out.
The hard part is finding the right bulb. Landing and taxi lights are
slightly harder, but still within most folks abilities.

Now, all that said, if you are frequently finding the bulbs burned out, you
may want to rethink who you're renting airplanes from, or at least suggest
to the airplane owners/operators that there might be something causing the
bulbs to fail prematurely. I've owned my airplane for nearly ten years now,
and have only had to replace two bulbs, both of them nav lights.

Pete

In article ,
Mutts wrote:

Any rental pilot/flying club types out there carrying spare postion
light bulbs with them? Do you have to be an A&P to change them? Do
owners frown on replacing bulbs without being informed first?
How hard is it to change them on Archers and 172s?
Its getting old finding the lights burned out during preflight and
everything is closed.

If you do change the wingtip bulbs take care. The glass lens used is
easily dropped as you remove the retainer and is expensive to replace.
Been there, done that. G

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html

Dale wrote:
If you do change the wingtip bulbs take care. The glass lens used is
easily dropped as you remove the retainer and is expensive to replace.
Been there, done that. G

And under no circumstances touch the new bulb with your fingers! Use
gloves or something (shirt tail?) Oil & sweat from your fingers is
not good for the bulb. In fact, if you have the box the bulbs come
in, that warning is printed (or should be) on the box.