Sunday, December 1, 2013

Decision: E-LSA

I’ve got an interesting job.  I work the night shift at a small ER in rural Ohio.  Sometimes we have patients waiting for hours to be seen, other times we are bored silly.  Tonight would be the latter, so I have time to post a blog, even if there’s no progress (regarding building) to report.

One of my other aviation hobbies (besides building ‘012) is collecting ratings.  I currently hold a CFI-Airplane and am studying to add on CFI-Instrument.  I don’t instruct for a living, and have only accumulated about 17 hours of Dual Given since I earned that ticket 2 years ago.  Nonetheless, it’s that CFI-A that finally helped me to decide that N76012 will be an E-LSA with any customizations done after obtaining her airworthiness certificate.

What’s that, you say?  How do those facts fit together?  Simple.  You may not use an EAB aircraft for commercial purposes.  I might, just might, get a fancy to do instruction in 012.  Can’t do that if she’s EAB, but it is legal if she’s an E-LSA.  All of the other advantages of potential sell-ability, no need for the dreaded ‘Experimental’ warning / label, and potentially lower insurance all apply.  

I will be meeting with an EAA Tech Inspector next week.  I’ll check with him how much provisioning for future modifications may be made without endangering the E-LSA designation.  I’ll do whatever is easy to do during assembly, as long as it doesn’t put that E-LSA at risk.  I will also have to work with the FSDO and the bank to change the paperwork that has already been started by First Pryority Bank, since they have established their lien on the plane by legally creating it as an EAB.  Those bridges can be crossed.

Oh, by the way, work is seriously interfering with my life.  I’m working 10 out of 11 days right now, and have had no appreciable time to make any progress in the garage.  Just so you know, I’ve started work on the R wing and have half of the main ribs attached to the main spar.  I don’t expect that I’ll have any shop time until the 11th... :(

talk to you then,

-dbh

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