REFLECTOR: Aircraft Inspection prior to flight

Donald Royer djroyer at earthlink.net
Thu Sep 16 18:29:53 CDT 2004


Last Week there was a rather extensive thread under this subject that dealt
with having anyone other than a single pilot aboard during the phase one
test period. This may be about to change. A friend and hangar neighbor just
had his Lancair ES inspected last Tuesday and he is following a procedure
that Lancair has apparently just put into place to satisfy the insurance
companies. He has been to the factory and had what was apparently a rather
short transition training (my impression was that it was about three
hours). Then the first hour of flight will be solo by a Lancair approved
test pilot. This will consist simply of orbiting the airport at high power
settings. Now comes the kicker, then for the next ten hours, two pilots
will be required. Apparently Lancair sold this to the insurance companies
and the FAA by using the argument that Lancairs are such complex planes
that there should be two pilots aboard at that time. One to fly and one to
monitor systems. 

My friend was quite certain that Lancair had ran this by the FAA. Whether
they were given a formal waiver or whether the FAA just agreed to look the
other way, I don't know.

It looks as though we are about to see a typical bureaucratic shift, going
directly from forbidden to required.

Don Royer





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