Hello all, long time lurker, first time poster here. I am looking at buying an experiemental airplane because of the freedom to do my own maintenance and ability to use modern technology in the engine and panel that’s so limited in the certified world. I understand if I build a kit, I can apply for the Repairman’s certificate for that aircraft. If I buy a flying airplane I can still do everything except the yearly condition inspection. How difficult is it to find an A&P to do that inspection? I’m looking at something like a Kitfox or Rans, maybe a Glastar. Thanks for any input.

It’s a pretty common thing to do, and depending on your location it may be easier or harder to find an A&P that will supervise and sign off your work.

Are you in Petaluma , CA? If so, it should be pretty easy, there are tons of guys in the North Bay Area that can probably help you.

The only differences on an experimental are:
For maintenance an A&P can do the Annual condition inspection, and the builder can get a repairman certificate to act as an A&P for that aircraft.
Parts don't need to be certified.

So If you build the plane and get a repairman certificate then you can perform all maintenance/ inspections on that particular aircraft.
If you buy an experimental plane then you can work on the plane as long as you are supervised by an A&P other than the list of items in the cfrs that owners can legally perform.
As far as working on the plane you will be basically in the same situation as a certified aircraft unless you build and get the repairman's certificate for that particular aircraft.

14 CFR Part 43 does not apply to amateur built experimental aircraft. Anyone may perform repairs, modifications, and alterations on them. No supervision is required. Heres an EAA webinar explaining. Drag the time line at the bottom forward to 0:34:11 where this discussion begins.
http://www.eaavideo.org/detail/video/52 ... aintenence

As far as log book entries, only the annual condition inspection is required to be logged. here's a short 3 min video explaining that. Listen very carefully to what he says.
http://www.eaavideo.org/detail/video/41 ... aintenence

It’s good practice to have someone double check or supervise your work whether you’re a licensed mechanic or not.

The whole point is the safety of having another set of eyeballs go over everything to catch what you may have missed.

tcj has provided the regulatory info and some good references.

Here's what I found to be the hitch; many mechanics will not sign the logbooks of an EAB aircraft if the owner is doing work that the mechanic is not supervising. Legally an owner can have a mechanic sign off the condition inspection with a "squawk list" then take the airplane home and fix all the squawks himself. The mechanic may not be comfortable with that and therefore may not be willing to sign off any more condition inspections.

Aryana wrote:It’s good practice to have someone double check or supervise your work whether you’re a licensed mechanic or not.

The whole point is the safety of having another set of eyeballs go over everything to catch what you may have missed.

I totally agree. Problem is that in small shops where many GA aircraft are worked on there is no second set of eyeballs. The shop is a one man show. The owner of the plane is the only other person that might look over the airplane and I've met plenty of owners that shouldn't be trusted with a screwdriver.

I don’t recommend going to shops. There’s only a handful of them across the country that I would trust with my planes.

I’m biased because I’ve done 100% of my maintenance myself for the past 30 years. It helps to have A&P/IA’s in your family.

Seen some horrid stuff from shops and to add insult to injury, they charged folks astronomical prices for their subpar work.

Just advocating my recommendation to have OP pursue his plan to do his own maintenance, and not saying all shops are bad. I think it’s really good for all owners to get intimate with their aircraft. (Not like that!!! LOL)

My favorite story is of an owner/pilot who gave the the funniest answer. They were asked a question about the vacuum system on their aircraft and answered back that the carpet is fine and doesn’t need cleaning! LOL

I wish I could experience what folks like that think they are seeing when they open a cowl door.

We were all there at some point, and IMO you should always be learning if you plan on wrenching on airplanes. There’s no way to know everything and the moment you think you do know everything about a subject, it immediately turns into a weakness since you’re susceptible to an error from overconfidence.

ggehrke,
Join a local EAA chapter. It's the best place there is for people unfamiliar with experimental planes and maintenance of those planes to get help. They most likely will know an A&P willing to work with you on the condition inspection of your experimental airplane too.

Thanks guys for all the advise. What whee said is what I was concerned about, finding an A&P to sign off the log. I had a customer who owned a small FBO that wouldn’t touch experimental, and truth be told I don’t blame him. It would be his a$$ on the line if he missed something that the builder didn’t do correctly. A bolt not having tiewire and falling off after he signed off the logs.

Having another set of eyes is always a great idea, I just did not want to be placed in a position where I could not find a person to sign the books, or the person wants to spend a week tearing the plane apart.

Real good advise on going an EAA chapter, those guys have already found a mechanic that is willing to play ball.

Thanks again for all the great advise

ggehrke wrote:Thanks guys for all the advise. What whee said is what I was concerned about, finding an A&P to sign off the log. I had a customer who owned a small FBO that wouldn’t touch experimental, and truth be told I don’t blame him. It would be his a$$ on the line if he missed something that the builder didn’t do correctly. A bolt not having tiewire and falling off after he signed off the logs.

Having another set of eyes is always a great idea, I just did not want to be placed in a position where I could not find a person to sign the books, or the person wants to spend a week tearing the plane apart.

Real good advise on going an EAA chapter, those guys have already found a mechanic that is willing to play ball.

Thanks again for all the great advise

Actually, his ass isn't on the line at all compared to the guy in the pilots seat. Given that many A&P's are unwilling to sign off a experimental that they are unfamiliar with, you've got to take a second and consider whether you want to fly a airplane that was built by someone you don't know.

I'm not anti-experimental at all, but I'd never own an experimental airplane that someone else built. I also lack the patience to build my own, so I went with a certified aircraft, despite all the limitations.

Sometimes those limitations seem insane and frustrating beyond words, but the longer I fly, the more sense they seem to make. Take the almost century-old magneto ignition on my Lycoming...seems pretty primitive and inefficient, which I guess it is. But it's also damn near as reliable as gravity.

On the other hand I had a name-brand German car with state-of-the-art electronic ignition go completely tits-up on the freeway, and the only thing that was wrong was that ONE of the six cells in the standard lead-acid battery had gone bad. That's all it took for the engine to be unable to make even 30% power. In an airplane, many places, that would have been fatal. I got really, Really, REALLY fond of my old, inefficient magnetos after that.

I have no idea what your flight experience is, or what your mechanical knowledge is, and once again, I'm NOT anti-experimental...but if you're new to the game, I'd think twice, or maybe three times about embracing experimental aviation just because you can tinker with it as you like. For some people that's a great option, and for some it's not. You just have to figure out where you fit into the equation.

Best of luck!

I own and fly an experimental that someone else built. I’d love to build one day but don’t have the time right now.

Not all builders are cut from the same cloth, and not all aircraft (certified or experimental) are easily categorized into safe or dangerous.

A common fallacy is that certified = safe and experimental = risky. Depends on a ton of factors to include the build quality(or rebuild quality for certificated) and the quality of the general maintenance practices used on the aircraft since.

Maybe more so than in the certified market, when shopping for an experimental you need to know the model and it’s quirks. Most build communities are small enough, so finding someone qualified to give an expert opinion on build quality shouldn’t be difficult. One-off experimentals might be better left to a more experienced builder/purchaser.

If you’re handy with a wrench and have good oversight from an experienced aircraft mechanic, owning an experimental can greatly reduce your operating costs.

I disagree that only stone-tool simple devices that have been used for decades (such as magnetos) should be considered reliable. Technological advances are a good thing and shouldn’t be so quickly eschewed. Otherwise one could argue we should all be wing-warping for roll control and flying fixed pitch props because ailerons and prop governors have too many moving parts.

It’s not often I disagree with Hammer, but I think he missed the nail on this one.

Just another opinion for you to chew on.

tcj wrote:14 CFR Part 43 does not apply to amateur built experimental aircraft. Anyone may perform repairs, modifications, and alterations on them. No supervision is required. Heres an EAA webinar explaining. Drag the time line at the bottom forward to 0:34:11 where this discussion begins.
http://www.eaavideo.org/detail/video/52 ... aintenence

As far as log book entries, only the annual condition inspection is required to be logged. here's a short 3 min video explaining that. Listen very carefully to what he says.
http://www.eaavideo.org/detail/video/41 ... aintenence

I stand partially corrected, I must have been thinking of old modified aircraft turned experimental.
Thanks

Double checking if the aircraft had been issued an airworthiness certificate other than experimental you would still need to be an a&p
And surprisingly if the aircraft is "Light Sport" then part 43 does apply

(d) This part applies to any aircraft issued a special airworthiness certificate in the light-sport category except:

(1) The repair or alteration form specified in §§43.5(b) and 43.9(d) is not required to be completed for products not produced under an FAA approval;

(2) Major repairs and major alterations for products not produced under an FAA approval are not required to be recorded in accordance with appendix B of this part; and

(3) The listing of major alterations and major repairs specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of appendix A of this part is not applicable to products not produced under an FAA approval

So interpreting the regs I guess it would be legal to work on say a Bearhawk but not on a Wag Aero Trainer without an a&p or repairmans cert????

That doesn't make much sense

CamTom12 wrote:It’s not often I disagree with Hammer, but I think he missed the nail on this one.

Hahaha...good pun!

I think you have some very good points, and I suspect you choose to fly an experimental built by someone else at least in part because you have enough mechanical knowledge to decide for yourself that its airworthy. I don't have that knowledge, and I'm inherently untrusting of something as critical as an airplane being built without the oversight of multiple people, so I would not fly someone else's homebuilt.

But the point I was trying to make is that there are people who have the mechanical expertise and critical thinking to make the freedom of an experimental airplane worthwhile, and there are others (like me) who are really well served by the constraints of a certified airplane.

Some of the seemingly outdated technologies that certified aircraft are limited to actually have some upsides that aren't obvious at first glance. There are people who have the ability to say "I can do better", and they're correct. Others, not so much...

Someone like the OP wanting to employ "modern technology" in their aircraft engine and panel would be well advised to really consider whether they have the skills and expertise to do that safely, or whether they're better off sticking to old but proven methods. Very minor mistakes can have catastrophic consequences, and venturing away from the tried-and-proven is not without risk. The stakes are pretty high when you're up in the air...get it...pun.

TangoFox wrote:So interpreting the regs I guess it would be legal to work on say a Bearhawk but not on a Wag Aero Trainer without an a&p or repairmans cert????

That doesn't make much sense

And it's not correct. Both the Bearhawk and the WagAero Trainer are certified as "Experimental Amateur Built", and as such ANYONE can perform the maintenance on either aircraft, with the proviso that the "Condition Inspection" (think "annual") would have to be signed off either by the builder who has the FAA Repairman's Certificate for that aircraft, or by an FAA A&P rated mechanic. (Of course, an IA can do it as well.)

You're confusing the regulations for Light Sport Aircraft (a different certification category) with the regulations for the types of aircraft someone with a Light Sport Pilot certificate can fly. A Light Sport Pilot can fly experimental aircraft such as the WagAero Trainer IF it has a cruise speed of <= 120 kts, max gross weight of 1320 lbs or less, two seats, day VFR, etc. Some WagAero Trainers might well have higher gross weights than 1320 lbs, and as such could not be legally flown by a Light Sport Pilot. (Same issue as the Cessna 150/152 – they don't meet the criteria for a Light Sport Pilot to legally fly them.)

JP256 wrote:
And it's not correct. Both the Bearhawk and the WagAero Trainer are certified as "Experimental Amateur Built", and as such ANYONE can perform the maintenance on either aircraft, with the proviso that the "Condition Inspection" (think "annual") would have to be signed off either by the builder who has the FAA Repairman's Certificate for that aircraft, or by an FAA A&P rated mechanic. (Of course, an IA can do it as well.)

Good post and correction on the topic.

Hammer wrote:

CamTom12 wrote:It’s not often I disagree with Hammer, but I think he missed the nail on this one.

Hahaha...good pun! [snip] The stakes are pretty high when you're up in the air...get it...pun.

Nice pun back at you!

I think we might be saying fairly similar things and I misunderstood your first post. My apologies there.

Something for the OP or anyone considering an E-AB aircraft that come already assembled: just because the freedom to use more modern technology is there doesn’t mean it it needs to be used. My airplane flew just fine on Bendix mags for 250 or so hours. It currently runs pmags, which (if I’m not screwing this up) aren’t too different from the electroair system you can put on most certified engines. Only I can run two and mine are self-powered. And they cost less.

I think a level of maturity and understanding is necessary to safely operate in the relaxed atmosphere of E-AB. Just because I can run some cobbled-together ignition system doesn’t mean I should. So I picked a system after watching its performance and reliability over a number of years and upgrades.

Hammer, I think with your self-awareness you’d probably be among the safest E-AB owners.

Here’s a lesson in good maintenance practices, both certified and experimental: http://www.supercub.org/forum/showthrea ... b-Or-Is-It