Just speculation,
I think that up to fairly recently the "manufacturer" designation was based on the current type certificate holder (at that time) I know that when you search ADs at the FAA site for an Ercoupe you have to go to Univair and they list all the coupes as Univairs: http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/MainFrame?OpenFrameSet So I suspect that if you registered a Coupe in the past they may have looked at the current Type certificate holder as the manufacturer, even the current TCDS-718 list it as Univair. Bill To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:05:15 -0500 Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] Re: FAA ruling over LSA status of some Coupes Hi Jim, What one sees is not always easy to actually comprehend. I did what you did back in 1985-86. Took me years of research to make sense of all of it. Book(s) "in process", not out yet. ERCO factory-converted over a hundred unsold 415-C models in dealer hands to 415-CD Specification before original sale. Upon sale, these were (quite properly) registered as 415-CD models, and the date on their 415-CD ERCO data plates is NOT their date of manufacture, but their date of conversion. Jan Dyer didn't know this, and neither did Lou Buffardi. I have researched actual ERCO records in Washington D.C. and at Univair to discover it. The FAA section that handles aircraft registration is NOT the same section that does 337s, etc. Registration is a few supervisors and a bunch of poorly supervised clerks, so accuracy and continuity is absent from their records. For reasons unknown, upon transfer of ownership of the type certificates, FAA records in some instances would thereafter indicate some of the various airframes originally manufactured by ERCO as "Forney". Calling a steer a bull doesn't make him one ;<) You are not the first to speculate on the origin of the CD designation, but FAA Type Certificates 718 and 787 clearly show the evolution of each separate designation even if they, too are "officially" unaware of the 415-Cs that ERCO converted in the field and that their Registration section duly recognized. Regards, William R. Bayne .____|-(o)-|____. (Copyright 2009) -- On Aug 20, 2009, at 21:16, jh wrote: Speaking of FAA record errors, I downloaded the FAA registration database and set it up so I could run some queries/filters. There are 56 Ercoupes registered as 415-CD that have serial numbers outside the range given in "Ercoupe" by Louis N. Buffardi, January 1980, Chapter XIII, pages 81-82, from the table prepared by J. Dyer, July 27, 1976, namely 4501 to 4868. Five of them are even registered as being made by Forney, with serial nmbrs. as high as 5649. If I were to hazard a guess, having argued this point several times recently, all but the Forney's are probably model C converted to D. Jim Hart _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you’re up to on Facebook. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_facebook:082009
