On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:04:29 -0500, T o d d P a t t i s t
wrote:

" jls" wrote:

Would this be a case of forgery of official documentation---or a common
practice???

Both.

I don't know if "Both" was intended solely for its humorous
effect, but I'll jump in here with a few comments about
current practice as I understand it.

1) It is not uncommon to build an airplane up from a data
plate. Data plates are often sold for substantial sums of
money with this purpose in mind..

2) The FAA has taken no official position on whether this
is legal or not, but the practice continues and is known to
the FAA. There appears to be nothing in the rules to limit
how much "repair" one can do when the aircraft being
repaired has nothing more than the data plate left.

3) I doubt that anyone has yet taken the road you have been
asked to tread - which is essentially swapping out the data
plate on an SLA ineligible aircraft for an SLA eligible data
plate.

4) Since the practice of building up an aircraft from a data
plate is relatively common, (although mostly used for rare
or unique aircraft that would otherwise be lost) I suspect
what you are being asked to do would be legal under current
interpretations.

5) However, I'm inclined to think the FAA "could" permit
building up an entire aircraft from a data plate, while
still prohibiting a data plate swap, so you would be on
riskier ground. Using wings and fuselage from different
aircraft might be safer than a simple data plate swap.

6) You are not required to do this if you don't want to.

7) Someone out there will do this.

Crystal ball is now closed.


T o d d P a t t i s t
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It is illegal to remove the data plate from a plane, or to change the
data plate on a plane. PERIOD.

However - what constitutes a plane???? If you have the remains of a
plane, with a data plate, you can "repair" that plane and make
basically a new plane around that data plate.
The wings and other parts of the plane are not identified as part of a
particular plane, if memory serves correctly - so taking the "parts"
plane and the "repairable" plane, and moving all the good parts to the
"repairable" plane would be kosher, according to current
interpretation of the law.

The big question still remains - how much of the "repairable" plane do
you need to use to satisfy the FAA?????