fly without air worthiness certificate

I would like to know the percentage of pilots who fly an airplane without their Air Worthiness Certificate..... My boss seems to think that it would be about 90%. I think that over 90% would NOT fly an Airplane unless it had it's Air Worthiness Certificate. He thinks he can bring the Lear Jet in for an inspection and have squalks written up and then fly the Jet to a cheaper mechanic to have it fixed. Mean while the Lear Jet will no longer have an Air Worthiness Certificate b/c of the Squalks. I refuse to put myself in this unsafe(to say the least) situation! He seems to think, "what is the big deal? It is only a few squalks..." I am wondering, How many of you out there would fly an Aircraft without your certificate?

 

I think we have a misunderstanding of just what an airworthiness certificate really is. All it REALLY is is a piece of paper that stays in the airplane. SO in that sense, I would say it is pretty close to 100% that DO fly with the airworthiness certificate.

It is the LOGBOOK entries of the various required inspections that need to be made to prove continued airworthiness. Squawks that result from an inspection may or may not affect airworthiness. Those that DO affect airworthiness need to be fixed before further flight, or a ferry permit needs to be issued to fly the airplane to another shop.

Your boss is perfectly within his rights to do what you say he wants to do. That is, have one shop do the inspection and have another shop fix the squawks. I really don't know why he wants to do it that way. But having said that, do NOT get in the airplane to fly it to another shop with open and noted squawks WITHOUT a ferry permit.

 

Indeed i would not fly it unless he wants to go get a temporary flight cert then it would be lega to fly but i would like to see how he does that...

 

Greg got it correct.

When performing any inspection it is the shop's determine whether the aircraft is airworthy from an inspection point of view for return to service and will provide the owner/operator with a list of items which need to be taken care of and which do not affect airworthiness.

There is an awful lot which goes into this and much is dependent on the type of aircraft, the type of operation, etc, etc.

An example of taking items to another shop may include avionics which needs attention, a piston engine which, although is not ready for TBO may have compression or oil concerns which do not render it unairworthy but the owner may want to take it to an engine shop rather then have the inspecting shop do a field overhaul, cylinder change or otherwise. It may, in fact, be beyond TBO and airworthy from a mechanical standpoint for certain operations but not others. There was much consternation about this several years ago when the FAA began requiring ALL aircraft to have MELs (minimum equipment lists) Most older single engine piston aircraft were not provided with MELs by their manufacturers. For a while a zero tolerence policy was in place by the FAA for aircraft without MELs, that is to say that if an inspector found a cabin light bulb out he was issuing violations to the pilot and/or owner operator. It got ugly in a hurry!

Or an owner may want to just placard the offending equipment as being inoperative.

I have interviewed so-called "Gold-Plated" shops where the business model involves fixing everything down to the cigarette lighter, if inoperative, with the claim that it makes the aircraft un-airworthy, This is where the proverbial $15,000.00 annual frequently occurrs. (single engine piston) Some shops actually hold the owner's logbooks hostage and will not sign off inspections unless they fix ALL sqawks at their prevailing shop rate. Needless to say, I will not take my aircraft to any of these shops.

The debate will go on, because it is the aircraft owner/operator who is ultimately responsible for airworthiness both mechanical and paperwork.

Additionally, beware of the FAA ramp check. It is often said that an FAA inspector can find fault with any aircraft out there and declare it to be unairworthy thereby issuing violations on the pilot, and/or owner/operator. I recall that at an airport I used to keep my plane at, an FAA inspector was tagging several aircraft as unairworthy for bent propellers only to find out later that these aircraft had Q-tip props! True story, I jest not. It took a lot of time and effort for the owners to have their aircraft returned to airworthy status in the eyes of the FAA. I, for one would be leary of even submitting my aircraft for an FAA "courtesy" inspection even though the stated purpose is not to issue violations but to inform the owner/operator what needs to be done to bring the aircraft into full airworthiness.

As airworthiness often becomes subjective due to the chapter and verse format of the regs, there will be debate over meaning and interpretation as sure as there is debate over scripture.

Y'all fly safe.

Planeflyr