By Lisa Turner, EAA Lifetime 509911
This story first ran in the July 2019 issue of EAA Sport Aviation.
We love two things in our restoration shop. The first is inviting people in for tours. The second is providing free advice over the phone. When you’re in business, you’re supposed to make money. But when you’re in this kind of business, the work fills your soul.
We love answering the phone because we don’t know what we are going to hear. Sometimes, when it’s a calamity and an owner or prospective owner needs advice, we are happy to help. And we are really happy if we end up saving the day. But we don’t always end up saving the day.
“Hello.”
“My name is Roger. I’m about to purchase a Stearman project, and I was wondering if you could help me with a few things.”
“Be happy to,” Jerry said.
Roger spent about 20 minutes asking where he could get parts and drawings, and he picked Jerry’s brain about engines and props. Roger said he was going to do the restoration himself, under the supervision of an A&P.
“That’s great,” Jerry said. “You’ll love the experience. There’s nothing more satisfying than restoring a great airplane. Make sure you get all the paperwork with it and that the person who is selling it is the registered owner.”
“Okay, thanks. Can I call you again for advice?” Roger said.
“Sure.”
Two weeks later, Roger called back. “I’ve got it! The airplane is in my hangar!”
“Wonderful! Did you get the paperwork?”
“No, not yet. We’re working on that.”
“Did you pay the owner?”
“Yes.”
The line went dead quiet for a moment.
Jerry said, “Well, look, I know this is advice I’m giving you that you don’t have to take, and you can do what you want, but I do tell my customers to make sure they see and get all the paperwork, including the original data tag, for the airplane before they buy it.”
“The owner said he could make a new tag. So what? I can work on that later, after I finish it, right?”
The line went quiet again.
“Roger, all you’ve got right now is just a collection of airplane parts.”
“So what? It will work out,” Roger said.
I saw Jerry shaking his head. It’s not going to work out, he thought.
And it didn’t work out. The person selling the airplane was not the registered owner.
The ‘So What?’ Factor
Typically, you think about experimental aircraft owners taking the heat for creative modifications. But, that’s what “experimental” means: create, try, invent, build, and experiment. Of course, we want everyone who builds, restores, or maintains an airplane, experimental or certified, to be attentive to safety.
The surprise for me, working on certified aircraft restorations, is that the “so what?” factor is alive and well. I hear stories at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh; I love listening to pilots and builders and enjoy hearing how they solved a particular build problem. Three years ago, I was talking to an A&P/IA mechanic who spent much of his time helping people restore antique aircraft.
“I have owners ask me all sorts of things,” he said. “In particular, they always want to know why I can’t just help them make a change without running it through an engineering review. They say, ‘So what? It’s no big deal.’”
“I’m surprised,” I said. “I expect more of that in the homebuilt world.”
“No, it’s there with the certified stuff, too,” he said. “I wish there was a way to let people know that cutting corners could bite them. I had one owner say he wanted metal covers on his Stearman fuel tanks. I said fine, but that will require a designated engineering representative. The method of attachment, screw size, and spacing, along with the type and thickness of the cover, should be engineered. The owner said, ‘No, you don’t need to go through all that. How complicated could this be? I mean, it’s just metal instead of fabric.’”
The point I am trying to make is to not settle for the “so what?” theory of airworthiness, even if you think everything will be okay. Here are some tips to keep you both airworthy and legal — and head off gotchas.
Get a prebuy. If you haven’t bought your project already, get a prebuy on the one you’re considering. For most folks, this seems intuitive. But, you’d be surprised how many people come to us with a project and say they never got a prebuy and are shocked to find out what it needs. In particular, they discover that they spent too much money on it and didn’t get all of the parts they thought they were getting.
Paperwork. Before buying a project, make sure you will be able to get everything you need to restore and operate the airplane.
- Does the aircraft have a standard airworthiness certificate?
- Does the airplane have a clear title?
- Are you buying the aircraft from the registered owner?
- Does the aircraft have a data tag?
- Does the serial number on the registration and title match what is on the data tag?
- Have all applicable AD notes been complied with? Better to know what needs to be done now than later.
To fly your restoration, you will need a current registration and an airworthiness certificate, and you will have to have complied with all AD notes. Then the aircraft will need an annual inspection. That will also be recorded in the logbooks. You don’t have to have the logbooks — they can be re-created — but it makes life a lot easier if you have them.
Inspection once you get your project. Even though you may have had a prebuy, this next inspection happens as you tear down the assemblies of the airplane you’ll be working on. You might think this is unnecessary since you’re going to be restoring it anyway, but get past this “so what?” moment and invest the time. Take more pictures and make more parts labels than you think you’ll need. Take copious notes. You’ll be glad you did when that “Where does this go?” moment arrives — and it will.
Be thorough and detailed. When you fly or trailer your project home, don’t let the excitement of a fast restoration get you into shortcuts. Restoring an aircraft may end up being difficult. If you go into it thinking you can’t wait to get in the air, you may find yourself saying “so what?” when you should be digging in to get it right. If you bought a basket case (“restoration in a box”), then I recommend you tear the assembly all the way down to structure and identify any problems.
One of our acquaintances decided to skip the teardown to the frame on a Staggerwing Beech. After getting in the air, it suffered a structural failure in the tail. He found a spot where someone had welded a repair on the already heat-treated tubing, causing it to crack. A thorough inspection would have caught this flaw.
In another case, we were restoring a Stearman from the frame up. As we media-blasted the frame prior to inspection, we found corrosion holes in the tubing. Had we not taken the frame all the way down and stripped it for inspection, a structural failure was in the making.
Modifications. We all know that there are certified airplanes flying that are not legal. It is rare — but by no means unheard of — that one of these illegal mods causes an airplane to fall out of the sky. The regulations and approvals are there for safety reasons. Get the engineering help you need to stay airworthy.
Can You Do the Work?
FAR 43.3 (d) reads “A person working under the supervision of a holder of a mechanic or repairman certificate may perform the maintenance, preventive maintenance, and alterations that his supervisor is authorized to perform, if the supervisor personally observes the work being done to the extent necessary to ensure that it is being done properly, and if the supervisor is readily available, in person, for consultation.”
Annuals. When we get a new customer who wants an annual for their certified aircraft, we warn them before taking the job. We tell them that we’re going to inspect the aircraft as if it was our own. We are going to inspect everything. We are going to identify the “so what?” items and recommend solutions. Then the customer can decide. We should not have to offer the caveat, but the “so what?” attitudes drive it.
The next time you hear yourself saying “So what?” dig in and determine all the consequences before proceeding.
Lisa Turner, EAA Lifetime 509911, is a manufacturing engineer, A&P, technical counselor, flight advisor, and former designated airworthiness representative. She built and flew a Pulsar XP and Kolb Mark III and is currently restoring a Waco UPF-7 with her husband. Lisa is a member of the EAA Homebuilt Aircraft Council and Women in Aviation International. For more from Lisa, check out her Airworthy column each month in EAA Sport Aviation.