Wing interchangability

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

I was just getting started on this new websote and saw that you might have a radio for sale. Is it already sold? I was wondering if you knew right off the top of your head how to sign up for the electronic Flypaper. I haven't had much of a chance to look at all the stuff here but I was also wondering how much trouble it was to change a 170A into a 170B. I already have a B model but recently got an A model that had been ground-looped and didn't have any wings so I need to come up with a new pair of wings for it anyway. I would be interested in your thoughts on the issue. I worked as an A&P sheetmetal guy for about 4 years long ago but never rebuilt any planes so I'm sure this will be a learning experience. Any good books on the subject? I already have the SRAM from the association.

Let me speak about what it would take to modify an A model to a B model. While I haven't done it I own an A modle that was usppose dto have been changed to essentially a B model. So I have studied this scenerio more than most.

You will need B model wings and struts. The entire flap handle mechanism and the rear carry through spar. In fact you may need the fuselage former at that location. If you study your B model aileron and flap cable runs compared to the A model which are totaly different you will see how much work will need to be done.

And then if you really want to fully convert the A to the B model you'll have to change the horizontal stabilizer and elevators as well.

Then the paperwork starts.

[cessna170bdriver]

Sounds like it would be easier to put an A-model data plate on a B-model and just SAY you modified it!

[GAHorn]

The practice of relocating data tags/plates from one airframe to another is fraudulent and will result in FAA action if found to have been done. This is recently and rapidly becoming an issue with them. I have been contacted by FAA very recently about two airplanes they've come to notice undergoing inspection. Logbooks and datatags are supposed to represent the airframes which they were originally attached to. However, dataplate substitution became a popular shell-game played by some salvage yards and "rebuilders" several decades back, and the practice became so common that some folks began to actually consider it legitimate. Just goes to show how humans will rationalize things.
If you are restoring or extensively repairing an aircraft, not only should you document the work, and the source/condition of parts used, but extensive photographs of the repair work should be taken and included in the aircraft maintenance records. Photos showing the condition of the damaged/unairworthy sub-assembly, the same area disassembled while undergoing repair, and the repaired assembly when completed and being returned to service would go a long way to proving that actual repairs (and not simple datatag substitution) has been performed. Of course, a textual description of the work performed, and a Form 337 if the work was major, should also be logged.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

George.

Is it not acceptable and legal to replace every part of an aircraft with a replacement part that has been made by various legal means so that the airframe meets the TCDS, STCs and 337s which apply to a specific aircraft airframe?

It is then theoretically possible to "repair" an airframe to a brand new state. You would in this instance have to attach your aircraft data plate and the old log books would continue to apply.

Further if you had an airframe with a data tag which for one reason or another had become damaged you can, through various means of proof with the FAA, have a replacement data tag issued for the aircraft.

If log books are lost they can be replaced through various means of proof with the FAA which includes the airframe being inspected for conformity with the TCDS and new logs started.

So I can't simply unscrew a data tag from one airframe and screw it to another. But with documentation and patients with the authorities, I can "repair" everything the data plate is attached to with airworthy parts which may have come from another like airframe.

[GAHorn]

And I don't disagree. The only problem is lack of sufficient documentation which clearly describes the repair. There is a widespread practice to "decieve by omission" in many repairs/restoration records. To preserve the investment and the legality of the aircraft, it's important to completely and thoroughly document the job.
Bruce, your example describes a repair scheme of the airframe represented by that datatag. As opposed to an operation which essentially transfers identity from one airframe to another. (Only recently we had to deny a member permission to advertise on our website for a set of Cessna logbooks and datatag. What possible legality would that imply?)
Lost logs can never be replaced. New logs can be constructed which may represent, insofar as is known, the history of the airframe. The aviation authorities may allow the aircraft to retain it's airworthiness certificate based upon inspection. But the new logs never replace the originals.

Datatags may have become a more complicated factor of late. About 1985 I was to ferry a Hawker 125 from Austin, TX to Dublin, Ireland. The export inspection performed by a genuine FAA Inspector revealed the complete absence of a datatag. (It was surmised that an overzealous interior shop didn't wish to spoil their cabinetry with riveting the dataplate back onto the cabinet, so they just tossed it.)
So here we had a complete jet aircraft with no hard evidence of serial or construction number. With the manufacturer's technical representative and the FAA guy standing by, I simply went to the local hardware store and purchased a small sheet of stainless steel, took it over to the sheet metal shop and cut/drilled it to size, took it down to the local jeweler who engraved it with the appropriate words and numbers, and then back to the airport where we screwed it onto the airframe. Voila! Which way to Ireland?

(Don't try this at home.)

[GAHorn]

When we are exitedly looking at the airplane of our dreams, we are vulnerable to cheats and thievery. Several years ago I wrote about a personal experience I had while attempting to buy an airplane. Here's the relevant part of that story:
================================

About three and a half years ago, while shopping for a twin, I located a Travel-Air in Calif. that seemed to fit the bill. Owned by another professional pilot who cared about maintenance and who had taken care of the bird for many years, I was confident that I'd found my dream plane. Before spending too much time and money on travel (to avoid the ever frequent junk one finds at the end of the expensive trip), I'd begun to request faxes of 1)the last annual, 2)the last engine overhaul(s), and 3)any logged damage,... before spending any money on an annual inspection. As the seller and I made final arrangements to get together to actually perform the annual inspection (which is the ONLY inspection that I accept as a "pre-buy"), we came to the question of logbooks. (Only a properly performed complete ANNUAL inspection checks an aircraft thoroughly for airworthiness. Only a properly performed complete ANNUAL inspection has a legal definition. There is no such thing as a "pre-buy" inspection and you will not be able to hold any inspector or seller's feet to the fire should you later find the new bird to be illegal. You ARE trying to buy an airplane that is AIRWORTHY, aren't you?)

It seems that all the logs weren't available, which for me, killed the deal. I was ready to hang up. BUT, he explained, there was an irrefutable explanation. The airline pilot he had bought the plane from had once owned a flight school, and the hangar burned in 1971 at "Podunk" airport, (obviously not the real name to avoid embarrassing the seller), and all the flight school records were burned up including the aircraft logs. BUT, he added,...the accountant for the school had all the business records at home working on taxes, and the logs were completely re-constructed from invoices. Besides that, the school and it's owner had owned the bird SINCE NEW, and the chief inspector of the school had been the one to perform all inspections and repairs since new, so, it was a simple matter to accurately and completely re-construct the logs. The seller stated that the first logbook entry he was in possession of, ...explained all this, and he was sure I would find everything acceptable. I told him to fax that entry to me as well. Since he had owned the airplane so many years himself, and since he was a professional pilot in charge of airworthiness of his employer's aircraft I gave him a little more leeway than I would have granted anyone else. (Besides, this little Travel-Air really, really, really appeared sweet and I was probably hoping beyond hope that it could be "mine-all-mine".)

But I've become a dubious sort, having been in this business for over 30 years, so I followed up on the story. I got very persistent, and I eventually called the public library in "Podunk" and asked the librarian to research a 1971 hangar fire at the airport. The next day she called me to inform me she would fax me the newspaper article about the hangar fire in hangar #2 which burned up all the local flight schools records, but the planes were safely gotten out of danger. I couldn't believe it, but it seemed to be true! Perhaps this WAS an otherwise perfect airplane for me. So, just as I was about to break my rule and buy a plane without all the logs, the librarian casually asked, "Why are you interested in that fire?" I explained, and miraculously, she said she wondered because her ex-husband was a mechanic who had worked at the flight school that burned. I couldn't believe the coincidence.

She went on to explain that he was now a professor of aviation maintenance technology at a leading tech school in St. Louis. I got his phone number from directory assistance, and called the man, simply to glean whatever other interesting memories he might have of what I was now certain was to become my new dream-plane. He and I had an interesting conversation in which he confirmed the fire, and the fact that the Travel airs had escaped damage. In fact, the school had two Travelairs, and they both had been fine aircraft. "Which one are you buying?", he asked. I told him the tail number. "Funny", he said, "You know, it's funny how time plays tricks on one's memory. I now realize I can't even remember the tail numbers of any of those planes. That one doesn't ring a bell at all." Well, I said, tail numbers can change, of course. I read him his log entry, which had seemed professional and correct.

"That doesn't sound like the way I make my sentences.", he said.

"Do you have a fax machine?", I asked. "Yes." "Then I'll fax this to you", I said.

Now, how many people would have gone this far, I ask you? And how many people would have had the good luck to actually talk to a librarian divorced from the man who made the log entry in question? Is there a God, or what?

In less than ten minutes, the man called me back and said, "That's NOT MY SIGNATURE! That's a forgery!!" It turned out that this particular airframe probably had a data-tag riveted to it that had at one time belonged to a DIFFERENT airplane! A previous owner had apparently tried to disguise THIS airframe as one that had escaped the well-publicized hangar fire. But clearly, there was no way he could do that without destroying the airplane's legitimate logbooks. So he "lost" those logs, created the cover story, and then sold the airplane with a "borrowed" data tag to my seller in California.

When I called the seller back and delivered the bad news, he nearly went orbital. His irate comment was to the effect that he was not ABOUT to lower his price! I informed him that I was not trying to induce him to lower his price. I was only informing him I was not interested in his airplane, and that perhaps he might wish to visit with the man from whom he had purchased it, Goodbye.

================================

Would you buy a CAR under these circumstances? I wonder who REALLY owned the airplane that I had almost bought. (Even if it really was a fine airplane, it was not using it's real name. I wonder why? Was it stolen? Was it's title clouded and it needed a new identity? Was it a salvage-yard creation?) If ever it is proved, then whoever has possession of it will lose it.

[johneeb]

George,
Great story, thanks for sharing it with us. It sure reinforces the leason of Caveat emptor.

[blueldr]

George,

I must compliment you on the brevity of your posts.
Do your typing fingers bleed much?

[Indopilot]

blueldr, Let me answer for modest George. I'm sure he is much to modest to brag that both his typing fingers are well calloused.

[lowNslow]

George,

I must compliment you on the brevity of your posts.
Do your typing fingers bleed much?

Oh-oh, now you did it. We're going to get extensive quotes from "Grey's Anatomy" and the note from his doctor.

[GAHorn]

George,

I must compliment you on the brevity of your posts.
Do your typing fingers bleed much?

Oh-oh, now you did it. We're going to get extensive quotes from "Grey's Anatomy" and the note from his doctor.

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Ha! On a more serious note,... the above, true story was painstakingly typed several years ago (copyrighted) and is distributed here as an "online article" and may appear someday in print in the quarterly, as a "help" to those who shop for airplanes. I hope it demonstrates that whenever money is involved, there are myriad ways that crooks/theives are imaginative and bold.
If you are not suspicious when you are vulnerably eyeing your potential purchase, you may fall victim to those who make deception their profession. Airplane transactions rate among the slipperiest of all such dealings because of a subconscious belief that federal authority oversees such deals. That is the basis of the charade,...that legitimacy is lent to the transaction purely by the creation of a "cover story" and calling it a "logbook".

If you don't have all the logs from day ONE of your aircraft then you own, at least in part, a mystery. No amount of creative authorship can completely substitute for the original logs. (Heck, even owners of aircraft with all their logs find "fiction" written in them. How much more deception is involved with "missing" logs?)

Bottom line: There is no one in airplane ownership/selling circles who do not understand the value of the aircraft logs. They are never just ... "lost". There is always evil involved with "lost" logs. The question left for the purchaser is:
What is the purpose of the deception? (Is it to hide damage? Or is it to hide a changed identity/datatag? Or both?) Keep in mind that a thoroughly wrecked airplane will probably never have it's logs record additional, regular maintenance. But it's datatag, if drilled off and installed on another airframe, can make that other airframe assume the identity of an undamaged airplane providing the accident/hurricane-damage was never logged! If an owner is not insured and hurricane Katrina/Rita comes by and flips it....then all that needs to happen to make a crook some money is to find another, less worthy airframe and make that junky airplane assume the identity of the hurricane-damaged (but unreported-lost) airplane. I expect lots of these to hit the market in the near future.

1. If it is to hide a damage history, ...then what evidence does the airplane exhibit that damage has occurred? (Or will it be years later before it's ...hopefully... doubtlessly expensively... found?) And, what has been done to correct the damage...or what has been accomplished since the "lost" records to alleviate if possible, any shortcomings of the airplane? (My own airplane does not have all it's original records. I assuaged myself with the facts that a/ my airplane left the factory with an El Salvador tailnumber and was shipped directly to the Cessna Dealer down there, where b/ it was operated and it's maintenance records were compiled in Spanish, and c/ the authorities in El Salvador confiscated the records from the owner for unpaid taxes and micro-filmed the pertinent portions of those records, and d/ I have a microfiche copy of those documents, and ....finally....my airplane was sold for the taxes and re-imported to the US and underwent 17 years of carefully documented/photographed restoration by a well-known U.S. airframe mfr's airframe inspector as a personal project. So much has been replaced/renewed on my airplane (including a completely different engine) as to make old Spanish logbooks describing work performed prior to an awarding of an Original U.S. Airworthiness Certificate virtually irrelevant. When the restoration was complete, the airframe was in fact, a new airplane. Still, I it would be nice to have the original logs, but they no longer exist except on microfiche.)

2. If the deception is to hide an ownership trail, then the problem is much more complicated. An old bank lien, paid or not, may either still exist on the disguised airframe,... or, even if paid,...may have gone unrecorded as paid. The bank may no longer even be in business, in which case the problem becomes a much more complicated one. If the bank's assets were acquired by a a succeeding institution (or worse, merged by the gov't in an old Savings & Loan take-over) ...the surviving bank has virtually no interest if absolving you of liability for the previous owner's obligation. (It would cost them money and time to clear up a title they have no interest in clearing up. The airplane is an asset they can/and will foreclose and sell at auction.)

3. Another way a cloudy title can get a current owner is if an old maintenance facility has an unpaid work-order on that airplane. A lien filed by them has no expiration date. You can end up having money invested in an airplane whose financial obligations (including interest and penalties) to an old work-order exceed the airplanes total worth! If a bank forecloses on a failed business, especially (and this happens more than you might imagine) an aircraft maintenance business which once worked on that airplane and had an outstanding Invoice against that airplane,...then good luck getting them to clear up the title and not confiscate the aircraft for unsatisfied indebtedness. You are in possession of their property and must return it to them. They won't/don't have to give you a thing for your trouble. A constable or server will show up and take it.

4. An old tax-lien on an airplane is also a serious problem to clear ownership. A prior owner's tax liabilities are not even required to be registered with the FAA! (And probably isn't. Aircraft title-searches frequently miss this loophole.) Subsequent owners will be sinking money into an airplane that is not really theirs. A tax-investigator may take years to discover and prosecute the tax-payer, and when the disappearance of the aircraft is discovered the present owner will not be compensated for the loss. Additionally, the current owner may come under suspicion of complicity and may find him/her spending money in their own defense.

To add insult to injury, the datatag on your airplane does not protect you if the datatag actually came from another airframe. So,...the original logbooks become a lot more important than a purchaser might suppose...when he is enamored of the bright, shiney airplane of his dreams with the "missing" logs... and the grinning seller.

(You guys are just joking, I know. But this subject could have gone on. An on. There are so many ways a new owner can get burned when he accepts explanations of missing paperwork. No one...absolutely no one, in this business is so naive as to "lose" paperwork ...unless it needs to be lost. If this long msg is not of interest to you, disregard it. If it saves you a bunch of money by preventing you from making a big mistake.... my bleeding fingers will be happy.)