Just a comment on Mike O.'s information: Though the Mexican Export C of
A for my Stemme was not acceptable for a US Standard Airworthiness
Certificate, there does exist a German Export C of A for that ship and I
made that available to the DAR. I believe that was the basis for my US
Standard Certification and the DAR's inspection was to verify that the
ship conformed to /_that_/ C of A. Of course, I've misunderstood things
before...

On 2/16/2017 8:25 PM, Michael Opitz wrote:
At 01:39 17 February 2017, Duster wrote:
Bill,
Mssrs Optiz and Marotta's experience will guide you well. Don't
underestim=
ate the guidance the local FSDO might provide to you if you
contact the
FAA=
first, instead of using them only to troubleshoot. They're not
supposed
to=
be obstructionists. That 505 looks like a great ship; good luck
with it.
https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certifi...tification/air
craft_r=
egistry/import_aircraft/

https://www.aopa.org/training-and-sa...hive/aircraft-
ownership/bus=
iness-justification/importing-and-exporting-aircraft#importing

There is a critical item missing from the AOPA web site. They refer
to a bi-lateral airworthiness agreement between the USA and the
other country, and list a bunch of countries, where South Africa is
included. The problem is that those agreements are only for
aircraft manufactured in either of the two signing countries. (USA
and S.A. in this case) In the DG-505 case, the glider was not
manufactured in S.A., so what you are really looking for is a 3rd
country manufacture bi-lateral agreement which does NOT exist
between the USA and S.A. That means that the USA FAA will NOT
recognize an Export C of A for a glider imported from S.A. but
manufactured somewhere else.

Also, if you search the FAA TCDS listings, there is no TCDS for the
DG 505 Orion ELAN (only for the DG-500). So, without a 3rd
country bi-lateral agreement and a USA TCDS, the glider will have to
be registered in the Experimental category once you get it here. If
there were a valid TCDS (which I somehow missed), and lacking a
3rd country import bi-lateral agreement, you could then still get a
USA Standard airworthiness by going Dan's route in hiring a DAR
and going through a very expensive conformity inspection.

See the table in appendix 4 on page 63 of the pdf file. Look at the
fourth column from the right for 3rd country manufacture bi-lateral
agreements with the USA FAA:

https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/..._circular/ac21
-23b.pdf

Here is a note which I found in the Import Requirements section of
the FAA DG-500 TCDS:

"Gliders manufactured in Slovenia under jurisdiction of the
Slovenian Directorate of Civil Aviation are not within the scope of the
current agreement or past agreements and therefore are not eligible
for a U.S. standard airworthiness certificate."

RO


--
Dan, 5J