The regulatory theory is that you should do that. The real world, of
course, is different.

Here are some scenario's:

1) You are ramp checked. The FAA inspector sees that you are renting and
asks if AD-xxxx was complied with. You look blank or say the FBO is
responsible for all that. He might bust you if he's in a really bad mood.
If you say you looked through the logbooks before the flight and all AD's
were complied with, there is a 99.9% chance that will be the end of the
story.

2) The airplane gets bent because something that is under AD failed. The
FAA will want to know if you looked at the logs. If you didn't, and the AD
was not complied with, they will probably tag you, the PIC, as well as the
FBO. If the logs say the AD was complied with, you can prove that you at
least looked through them briefly, and it is later established that the only
tool used in the compliance was a pen, they will probably only take action
against the FBO.

3) If there is a really serious accident and something that only could have
been found by very detailed examination of the maintenance records is
determined to be a primary cause, they may still cite you even though it
would have been impractical for you to have examined the records in such
detail. When people are hurt, the bar gets raised higher retroactively.

4) The FAA is pretty sure that you flew under a few bridges but can't prove
it. They can however, find a couple little glitches in the maintenance
record. They my use them to yank your chain.

The regulations are attempting to insure that you know a rental aircraft as
well as if you owned it. Sure it is impractical but, why should FAA
regulations be any more reasonable than other government regulations?

When you accept an airplane for flight, you are accepting a huge
responsibility. The real issue is whether you trust the FBO enough to
accept that responsibility. The intent of the regulations is to insure that
you won't accept the airplane on the "I don't have to worry, if anything is
wrong, it's their fault." basis. The FAA might reasonably look differently
at these situations: Y have been renting from an FBO regularly, had examined
logbooks before, and could say, "Everything was always in order so I didn't
look as closely this time and missed that." You walk into an FBO you've
never been in before and take a plane out without knowing anything about the
maintenance records.

The legal term is "due diligence". If you just ignore the whole thing on
the "it's impractical to 100% comply" you may get in trouble. However, if
you can prove a good faith effort to the basics you'll probably be OK unless
the FAA has another agenda like the bridge flying.

It's very similar to the information a pilot is required to have before a
flight. What are you required to know? Everything. That's obviously
impossible. If there is no damage, and you planning is questioned for some
reason, having a weather briefing, runway lengths, etc., will almost always
be sufficient. If an accident is caused by something you didn't know
however, the FAA will say you should have known it.

Remember, ship captains are often responsible, and even punished, for things
that they actually didn't have any control over. The same can happen to a
PIC. As a renter, you need to look at your FBO in that light and decide how
much you are prepared to trust them. You also want to take the basic
actions to be able to make a case later that you did something to verify
that trust. Being able to show that you spent a half hour sitting in the
office with the logbooks should cover you in most cases even if you don't
have a clue what you are looking at. Learn some buzz phrases to rattle off
in a ramp check like, "Yes, I saw the AD compliance section in the logs and
reviewed it. Everything appeared to be in order."

--

Roger Long



"Hilton" wrote in message
link.net...
Roger Long wrote:
Trust no one. When you are PIC, the buck stops with you.

In your opinion, is it really feasible/practical for a renter pilot to
ensure 100% that the aircraft is airworthy? By this, I mean, go through
the
logs, ensure every AD has been addressed including the recurring ones,
verify the W&B ensuring that nothing has been added or removed etc, the
signatures are all legal and valid, no pages are missing or have been
inserted, every part on the aircraft is 'legal', etc etc. I've read that
pilots do this when buying aircraft and it takes them days or longer.

Hilton