want to buy a homebuilt with cancelled registration

greetings, all.

i want to buy a sonerai2 midwing at a local airport that has been deregistered. i ordered the CD from the FAA containing all the records they had. the aircraft was deregistered with the reason "totally destroyed or scrapped." i cannot find the airworthiness certificate with the aircraft, and the current owner of the aircraft does not have it either. i do not know if the airworthiness certificate has been withdrawn/revoked/returned/etc. The original builder is long dead and i am not sure what to do. the aircraft has been sitting for 20 years but i see no reason that it couldnt be returned to airworthiness status with some work. the wing will require the "s" mod work be done to it but that shouldnt be too difficult.

what options do i have here? is the airframe only good for parts at this point?

If you don't have it, it likely doesn't exist. Given that it was deregistered as destroyed, chances are as an "aircraft" this thing has no status.

You probably can do what you need to get it flyable and take it through the ExAB certification again as if you had started with parts.

Does it have a builder data plate?

Just remember that any advice on this that you get from the Internet is going to be WRONG...including this post.

We don't get a vote; your local FSDO will be the arbiter. Someone might wave their hands here and say, "No problem," yet the FSDO official may decided to go by the exact letter of the law. Someone else might shake their heads and say, "No way," but ANOTHER FSDO official might decide things are in the spirit of the rule. Note that attitudes differ between FSDOs, too, there have been folks who have FSDO-shopped to get the answer they were looking for.

What is clear is that there is no formally-established process. It will depend on who you talk to at the FAA. Any money you spend on this, before you get FSDO guidance, is in the form of a wager on a bet with uncertain odds. If the parts are cheap enough, and the bucks to buy won't stress your finances, wouldn't hurt to try.

Ron Wanttaja

Something to consider; part of obtaining the airworthiness certificate for an experimental aircraft is signing Form 8050-88 stating the aircraft was at least 51% amateur-built. The builder's log is the documentation needed to prove this status. If you don't have the builder's log you will most likely have a difficult time working with this requirement. A non-amateur-built experimental airworthiness certificate might be possible but that certification carries many restrictions that pretty much prohibits the type of flying we associate with E-AB.

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Originally Posted by rwanttaja

We don't get a vote; your local FSDO will be the arbiter. Someone might wave their hands here and say, "No problem," yet the FSDO official may decided to go by the exact letter of the law....

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Ron (and all),

In a case like this one, I would NOT suggest talking to the FSDO. They are not aircraft certification experts. They don't do enough of it, or have enough training specific to certification, to know all the ins and outs of special situations.

I would instead strongly suggest talking to a MIDO inspector. The MIDO is the office that is specifically charged with aircraft certification, so there is a much better chance of finding an inspector that will a) know more about the process, and b) know where to look to find answers to these less-often-asked questions.

In this particular case, a lot would depend on what records are still with the aircraft. It has already been mentioned that the airworthiness certificate is missing. That's not so good. If the data plate is still affixed to the airframe, that would be a great step in the right direction. But if the data plate is missing as well, it's going to be nigh impossible to legally tie the parts back to the original certification. And without some sort of verifiable "chain of evidence", it's going to be difficult to impossible to revive the certification of the aircraft under the original paperwork. And if that's the case, it's just a pile of parts.

Thanks, Joe.

Main message is that, prior to taking a chance like this, one needs to coordinate things with the portion of the bureaucracy that will make the final decision BEFORE investing a lot of bucks in it....

Ron Wanttaja

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Originally Posted by rwanttaja

Main message is that, prior to taking a chance like this, one needs to coordinate things with the portion of the bureaucracy that will make the final decision BEFORE investing a lot of bucks in it....

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Amen to that! You are spot-on Ron. Sage advice indeed!

Forget about the FSDO and the MIDO, find a DAR who will cooperate with a rebuild and recertification.

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Originally Posted by a6bn69

Forget about the FSDO and the MIDO, find a DAR who will cooperate with a rebuild and recertification.

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You need to remember that the DARs all work under the authority and supervision of a FIDO or MIDO, so ultimately whatever you want to do will have to pass the smell test at the FAA office that the DAR works for. DARs cannot make unilateral decisions. Everything must be coordinated with and cleared by their supervising office.

Yes, I know that. I didn't mean to sound glib. If you just call the MIDO, you don't know who you'll get and what their background is. If you can find a DAR who is familiar and comfortable with rebuilds, he will know the process and will do things properly without a lot of go-backs.