p.mulwitz(at)worldnet.att
Guest
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 Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:48 pm Post subject: E-LSA airworthiness certificates. |
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There was such a negative reaction to my post on the transition
regulation for fat ultralights that I decided to go look up the
regulation number so everyone can try to make sense of it.
The reference is FAR 21.191.i.1. This is the paragraph that expires
January 31, 2008. While many magazine article authors claim this
provision covers only fat ultralight trainers, the fact is it covers
anything that is not part 103 compliant.
I asked the friendly FAA inspector if this was a mistake on the FAA's
part when writing the regulation. He said it was not - that they did
this intentionally. My own interpretation (not his) is that the
paragraph covering the kind of E-LSA we all thought was the only kind
(21.191.i.2) was written by folks that knew no such S-LSA planes
existed yet. I think they wanted to make an easy way for home
builders to get an experimental LSA certificate in the transition
period while S-LSA designs were going through their approval and
market shake-out.
On a slightly different topic, the inspector told me they did indeed
make a mistake on this whole regulation package, but not in the area
of E-LSA transition certificates. It was in the approval for people
to fly with state driver's license so long as they have not been
rejected for their most recent medical. Apparently the FAA
bureaucrats thought most pilots would keep applying for medical
certificates until they were turned down. It didn't occur to these
rocket scientists that pilots are smart enough to not apply for a
medical certificate when they know they won't qualify. That means
that lots of the older pilots who take advantage of the new Sport
Pilot privileges without FAA medical approval will have conditions
that the FAA would have grounded them for and the bureaucrats are
very unhappy about that.
Let me say one more time that this whole story came to me as a big
surprise. I thought only exact duplicates of S-LSA planes could get
E-LSA certificates. That is what all the magazine articles have
said. I was shocked when the local club member got the E-LSA
certificate for a plane that had been started before the LSA rule was
even considered. That led me to ask the right questions from the
right people to learn that this "Fat Ultralight" rule really covers
anything that is not an ultralight including most of the kit built
planes we are building.
Paul
XL fuselage
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