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mlwynn

Well Known Member
Hi all,

When my DAR, a really good guy Name Dan McGehee, inspected and signed off my plane for phase I, he indicated that when I had finished flight testing, minimum of forty hours, that I would make the appropriate entry in the log book and that was about it. I also need to enter information about aerobatic maneuvers and Vx, Vy.

When I went to the Oakland FSDO to get my repairmans certificate, the gentleman there was critical of the DAR's failure to specify the aerobatic maneuvers and told me I would need a Phase II inspection from him or someone like him in order to have the initial restrictions removed.

I wrote back to Mr. McGehee who basically said, that was news to him and he had never seen anyone require a second inspection. I think we have some DAR's and FAA guys on the site. What is the right answer?
 
Off hand, I'd say that your FSDO guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Not uncommon - I had the chief maintenance inspector at the Houston FSDO try to tell me that my single-seat RV-3 was not airworthy without an ELT (which is not required).

Jim is right - the logbook entry you need is in your Ops Lims. The Aerobatic maneuvers are your choice - when you sign them off, you specify which ones you did, and technically speaking, you can't do any others unless you put it back in Phase 1 later - so test all that you might want to do. (Gee, did I test "accidental inverted spin"....?!)

It's unfortunately surprising how many builders/pilots I find that don't know what their Ops Lims say because they don't know where they are - and the airplane isn't technically legal to operate without having them in the plane, since they are part of the airworthiness certificate.

Paul
 
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When I certificate an aircraft, I go over the operating limitations with the applicant word for word, and make sure that every sentence is understood.

I intentionally stress the part that says the op lims must be in the aircraft at all time. And again, point out that the airworthiness certificate says the same thing.
 
End of Phase I

My DAR did go over the operating limitations word for word, including the entries to make in the log for aerobatics and to move into phase II. It was the FSDO guy that confused me by saying he or someone from FSDO would need to come sign off the end of phase I. Gees. Sounds like he didn't really have this right.
 
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