EAA Sport Aviation - March 2012

de-icing boots that you’d like to have
repaired or replaced by a boot specialist.
(I’m a huge believer in using specialists.)

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate just such a situation. The owner of a Cessna 340 had an annual inspection performed by Cutter Aviation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Cutter’s inspection apparently uncovered a bunch of airworthiness discrepancies that the owner decided he’d prefer to have addressed by another shop, Mountain View Aeromotive in Alamosa, Colorado. Consequently, he directed Cutter to do only the minimum work required to put the airplane into ferryable condition (mainly complying with some recurrent ADs), then obtained a ferry permit, flew the airplane to Alamosa, and had Mountain View address all the airworthiness items on Cutter’s discrepancy list.

Note that the Mountain View logbook
entry (Figure 2) has an approval signature
that states “A&P” and not “IA.” That’s
because the mechanic at Mountain View
was performing repairs in his capacity as
an A&P mechanic, not performing an
inspection in his capacity as an IA. Cutter
performed the inspection, and no further
inspection was required by regulation for
another 12 calendar months.

OWNER/IA DISAGREEMENTS

Another reason you might want to flunk
an annual is when you find yourself dis-
agreeing with your IA about how to deal
with one or more discrepancies.

Suppose, for example, that your engine
is 500 hours past TBO. It’s running great,
oil consumption is moderate, oil filter is
clean, and compressions, oil analysis, and
borescope results are good. You see no
reason not to keep flying it until there’s
some good reason to tear it down. But
your IA has a different view: He believes
strongly that the manufacturer’s TBO
should be respected. “I’ve gone along
with your TBO-busting for the past two
years, against my better judgment, but
500 hours over TBO exceeds my thresh-
old of pain,” the IA tells you. “I’m just not
comfortable signing off this annual unless
we overhaul or replace the engine.”
Now, obviously it would have been
better if you had this discussion with the
IA before you hired him to perform the
annual inspection on your airplane. But
unfortunately that didn’t happen. Your
airplane is in pieces, midway through the
annual inspection, and now the IA is tell-
ing you he’s not willing to approve the
aircraft for return to service without
$40,000 of engine work that you consider
unnecessary and superfluous.