Kevin,
Reality is not changed just because you and a few others have closed
your minds and chosen to remain in denial that the production drawings
are incorporated into FAA aircraft Type Certificate Data Sheets by
official references provided earlier. This reality is rather
fundamental to understanding, in a more general sense, a greater
subject that should concern all owners and mechanics - that of
continuing airworthiness.
I am not in the least worried about your license. I speak of the
potential risk an owner assumes when flying the plane away from home
base with unresolved paperwork problems. I believe many installed
skullcaps are not mentioned in that aircraft's records, and that such
is an "unresolved paperwork problem." I seek to raise "situational
awareness" of such things as a owner responsibility all too often
ignored.
Since you admit your bird has a spinner, I utterly fail to see your
"point" in so strongly advocating that owners or their mechanics can
slap a skull cap spinner on a specific Ercoupe without amending the
records of that Ercoupe. THIS is "muddling the topic". Whether it by
logbook entry, 337 or STC, John Cooper, who IS a mechanic, explained
why FAA PMA "approval" is not regulatory permission to install a skull
cap spinner on anything and everything. An opinion to the contrary of
some unnamed person who answers the phone at a FSDO carries no more
weight than that of any other person there (or at some other FSDO),
none of which we have to compare.
What purpose is served when you suggest that facts I have presented
somehow imply one spinner must fit all props? You know I did not say
that and that such nonsense is impossible and irrelevant even as you
put it forth. The fact that you are a mechanic and I am not has no
bearing on the merit of facts we present for consideration. Facts
speak for themselves.
Fred Weick's alleged verbal opinion that the spinner does not
contribute significant cooling is rumor without further evidence, and,
in any case, has no bearing on the determinative issue of whether an
individual airframe is airworthy without a spinner or with a skull cap
spinner. All this is but confusion stirred into the pot, and to what
end?
I agree with you when you say that "The TC and the required equipment
list is what matters...", but the imprecision of your terms invites
continued confusion. Perhaps this "common ground" will enable the
Skull cap spinner issue to now be concluded once and for all, since
"pizza" is not appropriate so long as new and pertinent information is
emerging. The FAA Operative Equipment List of equipment required for
VFR flight or a "Minimum Equipment List" are separate, unrelated
"equipment lists".
My earlier references have been to the "Manufacturer's Required
Equipment List" which is, by definition, all equipment on an aircraft
when CAA/FAA Certification was received. This list is further specific
physical description and definition of one individual aircraft by
serial and registration number "as certificated". ERCO put a spinner
on that list in the great majority, if not all, cases. The presence or
absence of said spinner (or its production replacement) directly
relates to the airworthiness of that airframe. No amount of huffing
and puffing changes this.
Regards,
William R. Bayne
.____|-(o)-|____.
(Copyright 2009)
--
On Sep 2, 2009, at 11:34, Bill BIGGS wrote:
I think you hit the nail right on the head!
Bill
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 11:16:04 -0400
Subject: RE: [ercoupe-tech] Re: Skull cap spinner
No disrespect intended to David, William, John or anyone else, but I'm
not sure it's reasonable to assume that insurance people, FAA reps,
IAs, widows, and most lawyers obsess about these sorts of details at
the same velocity as us.
Thank you so much Syd, Kevin, Kevin's FSDO, Bill Biggs and I guess
Fred Weick for giving us an opinion on this.
Respectfully,
Bill
David said: LAWYER TYPE QUESTION: Are wings on the required
equipment list? If not, does this make them not required like the
spinner? (In short, is the spinner "equipment" or an integral part of
the aircraft ?)
On Sep 2, 2009, at 07:25, kgassert wrote:
Bill,
It has been concluded as far as I'm concerned but you keep mudding the
topic with talk of aircraft drawings and what was on the aircraft when
it was delivered. The TC and the required equipment list is what
matters and I don't see the spinner on either but if you have a copy
that does I would like to see it. Not a list of what was delivered on
the new aircraft but a required equipment list. They are two different
things. There are many props in the TC and if a spinner was required
with them it would be listed there. The spinner in the parts book will
not fit them all. The spinner that was delivered on the airplane when
it was delivered will not fit the all. The spinner on your drawings
will not fit them all. That spinner was applicable in that situation,
not mandatory. You say you are not a mechanic and are worried about my
license. Well, I am one and I asked my FSDO and they confirm what I
just said. That and the fact that Fred, who designed the Ercoupe, say
it is not needed is good enough for me.
Kevin1
pS. I do have a full spinner and am happy with it.
