Question - Gray Area on Use of Certificated Major Parts

Hi All,

I have read over the circular on the 51% rule. I have a question. But let me digress first.

My wife like's Ercoupe's. But, it will never work for our mission of flying around the USA for a year when we retire. However, in researching Ercoupe's, I ran across something really odd. A couple of guys in the late 1940's Siamese two Ercoupe's together. See http://ercoupe.com/story_4.php

If I wanted to build this aircraft and did it from nothing but smallest individual parts, what is the chance that my local FISDO would rule it on my side of the "gray area" in the rule? Is such an aircraft radically different enough so that like a kit if I start with everything in parts and use different engines and controls and skin it with aluminum not rag and on and on...I could get t by?

Thanks, JD

If you build everything with certified parts, the rules seem to be against you getting a homebuilt experimental certificate. (Even if the FAA would work with you, you'd need extremely deep pockets....)

But why fight it? A number of years ago, the FAA liberalized the operational limitations of the Experimental Exhibition category, so that the oplims look very similar to Homebuilt Experimental. The biggest practical difference (there are numerous minor differences) is that you can't get a Repairman's Certificate, so an Exhibition category a/c must have its annual inspection performed by the holder of at least an A&P certificate (IA not required). As long as you are building to 'exhibit' new/different ideas in a/c construction/operation, pretty much anything goes.

Charlie

The chances of doing this as an Experimental Amateur Built are pretty slim. It's not a gray area. However, you could build it as an Experimental Exhibition, then file a program letter listing all the various destinations you want to travel. That would allow you to do the travel you wish. It just requires a bit more planning. The most definitive answer you will get is to talk to your local FSDO as the answers do vary somewhat from one region to the next subject to local interpretation. However, I don't know of any FSDO that would approve your project as an E-AB. But as I said, what you want to do could be done as an Experimental Exhibition, and you wouldn't need to start with the tiniest of pieces to put it together. If I had a burning desire to build a dual plane from two, I would approach the local FSDO with the proposal to build it as an EE. It's been done with Cubs and TriPacers, and apparently an Ercoupe. I rather kind of expect the one shown on the reference web site, while Experimental, was in the EE category. You can get there, the route is just a little different.

-Cub Builder

Would need a multi-engine rating. One engine performance would be marginal, I think. Why not just fly two Ercoupes?