Originally Posted by
Mike M
Very true. Consider. They may be willing to take on the aircraft but not the owner.
First. Aircraft. Not all E-AB are engineered professionally and competently. Not all are built exactly to the engineer's design. Not all have been maintained to that design through the years and subsequent owners. My limited experience indicates there are basket cases out there with years, perhaps decades of pencil whipped inspections, and some of them are E-AB. When an A&P agrees to perform a condition inspection and finds one of them, we arrive at...
Second, the owner. Operator, sure. Not all of us are maintainers. Operators know it flew into the inspection. They know what they've done to it to keep it going. It should fly out. But. What about the stuff found wrong? The ops limits contains the magic phrase for a successful inspection, but nothing about signing off a "NOT in condition" result. So. Will the owner pay for the inspection alone, up front? Does the owner want the A&P to fix until it passes? Or tie up A&P's shop space until owner gets parts and time to do it? Finish inspection, no signoff, watch owner button up and angrily fly away in an unsafe aircraft (ok, maybe ferry permit, but really?) then race to the bank before the check is voided?
Pretty sure there are more reasons to refuse some people's request to perform a CI. Personality alone, perhaps.
A qualifying path for a make&model or airframe-specific E-AB Repairman certificate is a logical outgrowth of that LSA provision. Yep. Oughta be on the to-do list after abolishing the 3rd class medical?