Avionics Upgrade Rules

[logansc]

I'm in my first annual/condition right now combined with accomplishing an upgrade to my avionics. A friend told me today that I had to formally advise the FAA about the upgrade and do another 40 hour "Phase I" period before the airplane would be "legal" again for flight outside the limits of my original Operational Letter.

He said that he knew (or had heard of) a recent case where someone changed some radios (etc) in their Experimental aircraft and didn't do that, later crashed and then had their insurance coverage denied because of it. Did I miss something in "homebuilders school" or something? I don't think I knew about this one.

Regards,


Lee...

[Mel]

If you have the most recent version, which you should if you've been flying only a year, you can put the aircraft back in phase I yourself for MAJOR CHANGES.
Avionics change should not be a major change unless it involves installing an A/P or makes a notable change to your C/G. If you have installed an auto-pilot, then you have "modified" your control system. This would constitute a major change.
Even if you do have to go back into phase I, it can be for as little as 5 hours.

[logansc]

Thanks, Mel. Nothing major then, I'm just swapping out one Garmin for another and adding an AFS moving map display (which will mean though, that a different Garmin will be driving my TruTrak autopilot now than was the case with my original avionics suite).

Easy enough to put it back into Phase I as you suggest for a short period of time to check everything out.

Thanks for the info,


Lee...