Bill,
As an A&P-IA I am responsibility each year of determining the airworthiness of each aircraft I inspect. I have been an AI for well over twenty-five years and have never had a signoff kick back. While your points are undoubtedly accurate, I have no access to those records, and my FSDO who are my "police", have instructed me to use as my guideline the current TCDS-718 in determining conformance with the type certificate. The facts you present are interesting and informative, and I certainly welcome them and the "diffences of opinion", but in the real world of everyday general aviation, in this instance, they hold little weight. I challange other A&P-IAs in the group to show proof of access to the documents you quote for all aircraft they inspect, they are not available on the FAA website or on "T-Data" That being said, if I inspect an Ercoupe with a skullcap spinner I will have no problem signing it off as "airworthy" if it is documented with a logbook entry and has a FAA-PMA. If not, I will note this in my logbook entry and if it has a PMA stamp I will approve it. Now if I had to sign it off as "perfect in every way" that would be different, but that is NOT the requirement of the FAA regulations. Respectfully, Bill To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 13:37:20 -0500 Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] Re: Skull cap spinner 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. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009
