And, there remains the legal grey-area / land mine of the planes that
someone thought they had converted but which may not have met the
requirements needed for that conversion to be legal. Simply having been
illegally flown over gross weight does not invalidate a plane's eligibility
as an LSA.
Certainly, if the airworthiness certificate was changed to be a 415-D (or
any later model), then it's done.
When there's a form 337 on file with the FAA showing a conversion to be a
415-D, even signed off by the FAA staffer, does that prove the conversion
was done - while the airworthiness certificate always said 415-C or 415-CD?
Is that sufficient to say the conversion was completed legally? **I**
certainly wouldn't buy a plane, intending to fly it as an LSA without
clearly resolving this issue.
How about if the conversion was just entered in the log books but no form
337 was filled out or submitted and no new airworthiness certificate was
ever applied for and issued? Perhaps there's evidence of the data plate
having a stamped-in-blur next to the 415-C where it might have been changed
to D then that change stamped out?
And then there's the case of the plane showing some changes that would
conform to the D up-conversion like limited elevator or stainless steel over
the fuselage tank, etc., but the log books are lost. Or, how about if the
log books are present but a few pages are missing from 10 or 30 years ago
and there's no documented proof of conversion?
Has someone determined just what the legal requirement is to declare that a
particular Ercoupe is LSA-poisoned?
I've seen comments by some that the airworthiness certificate should be the
governing document. I'd go along with that and I hope it can be
**officially** proclaimed that is the tipping point. But, to my knowledge,
no national authority has made such a proclamation.
But, these intermediate conditions have not been resolved to my knowledge.
Someone is going to take the $10,000 hit - the seller or the buyer. This
needs to be an eyes-open, well understood situation.
The models are:
415-C eligible as an LSA as long as it was
never up-converted to be a D (or higher)
415-CD same as C (Some were built as 415-C
and up-converted by ERCO to facilitate sales.)
415-D or later - NOT ever eligible as an LSA even if
re-converted to its original C or CD status
Ed
