FBO's W&B Sheet Inaccurate

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ColeThePilot

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ColeThePilot
An FBO I'm flying out of right now has a very slightly inaccurate W&B sheet. I noticed they list the wheel fairings on it, but they've clearly removed them from the plane. It's a 172R. Does this disqualify the plane from technically having the required documents on board?
 
I believe there's a threshold for insignificant changes (something like 5lbs?) that don't require an update -- it's not like pulling a seat. Plenty of A&Ps here that know the correct answer, though.
 
The big thing is if there is no log book entry for the removal it is un-airworthy. If it's an Fbo airplane I'm surprised that has not been flagged on a checkrkide.

Bob
 
SkyDog58 said:
Did you bring it to the attention of management at the FBO?
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I have not. Didn't want to seem nitpicky and get a response like this:
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I'm surprised the aircraft hasn't already crashed into a school killing hundreds of children.
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Just trying not to seem like I'm one more person that overlooks the little things.

Thanks, guys.
 
Cole, this is POA and most people have a sense of humor. But my question to you is: Why would you bring the discrepancy to thousands (this forum) and not to the single digit/s that own the plane? Finding a W&B issue isn't being "nitpicky", its something that most owners would be happy to learn and get corrected.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Cole, this is POA and most people have a sense of humor. But my question to you is: Why would you bring the discrepancy to thousands (this forum) and not to the single digit/s that own the plane? Finding a W&B issue isn't being "nitpicky", its something that most owners would be happy to learn and get corrected.
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That's a good point Timbeck. Sorry. Haven't had my coffee yet...

It's because I have a history with this FBO. I caught them flying the same airplane unregistered once after doing an N-number lookup on the FAA site while I was still a student, and they made me feel kinda guilty for it. It made me less motivated to bring things up to them in the future.
 
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ColeThePilot said:
It's because I have a history with this FBO. I caught them flying the same airplane unregistered once after doing an N-number lookup on the FAA site while I was still a student, and they made me feel kinda guilty for it. It made me less motivated to bring things up to them in the future.
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Sounds to me like a good FBO to cease doing business with.
 
ColeThePilot said:
That's a good point Timbeck. Sorry. Haven't had my coffee yet...

It's because I have a history with this FBO. I caught them flying the same airplane unregistered once after doing an N-number lookup on the FAA site while I was still a student, and they made me feel kinda guilty for it. It made me less motivated to bring things up to them in the future.
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That's part of the reason why I don't rent much anymore. Can't trust the planes and sometimes can't trust the owners.

You can show your distrust by taking your money elsewhere to fly. No one is forcing you to fly out of that FBO. Don't like them just go elsewhere and let them know about it.

Remember, you are their customer, not vice versa.
 
ColeThePilot said:
That's a good point Timbeck. Sorry. Haven't had my coffee yet...

It's because I have a history with this FBO. I caught them flying the same airplane unregistered once after doing an N-number lookup on the FAA site while I was still a student, and they made me feel kinda guilty for it. It made me less motivated to bring things up to them in the future.
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I am pleased when a client finds some detail that is incorrect during preflight inspection.

It indicates to me they understand the importance of and the reason for the preflight.

It is not likely a danger and it is unlikely a DPE would catch it in a check ride.

It is never the less not right.

I feel your FBO is teaching you bad habits by example.

in my opinion correcting something like this is easy.
 
A couple things to consider (I'm assuming a corrected W&B is required for fairings):

1) the official W&B should be in the POH. I have seen copies or summaries in the renter's notebook. Verify the W&B inside the POH for correct/incorrect.

2) the W&B might be old. It's possible there is a new W&B for the no-fairing condition and that it just didn't get put into the POH.

Simple question: "Hey, I noticed the W&B shows wheel pants, but they've been removed. Is there a new W&B that someone forgot to put in the book?"
 
ColeThePilot said:
That's a good point Timbeck. Sorry. Haven't had my coffee yet...

It's because I have a history with this FBO. I caught them flying the same airplane unregistered once after doing an N-number lookup on the FAA site while I was still a student, and they made me feel kinda guilty for it. It made me less motivated to bring things up to them in the future.
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The FBO should've been happy and thankful that you brought the registration issue to their attention before a FAA ramp check did. Same with the W&B issue.

By the way, flying an unregistered aircraft is a US Code violation, not just a CFR violation. Any pilot who flew that aircraft while it was not registered would have been in violation. You potentially saved them and some of their customers from having to pay a fine. You definitely saved them some embarrassment and quite possibly saved them from the FAA deep diving into their records.

They owe you an apology if they made you feel guilty or gave you a hard time over your very proper attention to detail.

You are the kind of customer they should relish having.
 
Thank you guys for the support. :D Means a lot. I take so much pride in flying "by the book". On Tuesday I overheard them talking about how a plane has been flying in IMC without it ever having a pitot/static check.

I think I'm done with them. I don't want to put myself at risk. At the end of the day I don't want to be responsible for their technicalities.
 
ColeThePilot said:
On Tuesday I overheard them talking about how a plane has been flying in IMC without it ever having a pitot/static check.
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Isn't that more on the pilot to verify it's been done? I dunno - I'm a VFR guy. Is that required for VFR operations?

I've seen different levels of maintenance at different FBOs. Some will defer things until the annual or 100/hr, others will jump right on them right away. For airworthiness issues, all you have to do is decline the rental - they lose money, and they generally fix it ASAP. For other things, like a vent cover that keeps falling off, or a loose muffler bearing, or cosmetic items, some places get right on it, some put it off.

But I've never had a place give me a hard time about anything that made the aircraft not airworthy.
 
ColeThePilot said:
That's a good point Timbeck. Sorry. Haven't had my coffee yet...

It's because I have a history with this FBO. I caught them flying the same airplane unregistered once after doing an N-number lookup on the FAA site while I was still a student, and they made me feel kinda guilty for it. It made me less motivated to bring things up to them in the future.
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Expired registration, failed to transfer a registration, I understand. But how does one un-register an airplane.
 
ColeThePilot said:
It's because I have a history with this FBO. I caught them flying the same airplane unregistered once after doing an N-number lookup on the FAA site while I was still a student, and they made me feel kinda guilty for it. It made me less motivated to bring things up to them in the future.
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Stop renting from them.

Matthew said:
1) the official W&B should be in the POH. I have seen copies or summaries in the renter's notebook. Verify the W&B inside the POH for correct/incorrect.

2) the W&B might be old. It's possible there is a new W&B for the no-fairing condition and that it just didn't get put into the POH.

Simple question: "Hey, I noticed the W&B shows wheel pants, but they've been removed. Is there a new W&B that someone forgot to put in the book?"
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I've seen W&B paperwork in AFMs but rarely in POHs. Especially considering the POH is usually barely bigger than pamphlet sized on most things that have a POH.

ColeThePilot said:
Thank you guys for the support. :D Means a lot. I take so much pride in flying "by the book". On Tuesday I overheard them talking about how a plane has been flying in IMC without it ever having a pitot/static check.

I think I'm done with them. I don't want to put myself at risk. At the end of the day I don't want to be responsible for their technicalities.
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Good. You're up to three items now where they are either willingly or neglectfully ignoring mandatory and easy to do things. All sorts of places manage to keep the paperwork correct on their rentals nationwide daily without needing customers to remind them to do it, other than during an occasional oversight.

Even then, most places organize the front page of the rental book with dates and times of everything that can expire on the aircraft for renters to see at a glance. It's just not that hard to organize it. Really professional places will have all of those items flagged in the maintenance records when they hand you the maintenance book prior to a checkride so you can read all of the entries for yourself.
 
Stand alone, 16.5 less pounds slightly aft of the CG, in a 172, I'm probably not worried about. . .the pitot static check is gonna bother me. It's your comfort level that matters - you made the right call for you.
 
Sundancer said:
Stand alone, 16.5 less pounds slightly aft of the CG, in a 172, I'm probably not worried about. . .the pitot static check is gonna bother me. It's your comfort level that matters - you made the right call for you.
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Nobody in this thread has for a moment suggested it's a safety of flight issue.
 
ZeroPapaGolf said:
Nobody in this thread has for a moment suggested it's a safety of flight issue.
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I think the "suggestion" was the FBO may be cavalier about documentation, and/or aspects of maintenance - and those things gave the OP a bad vibe.
 
Clip4 said:
Expired registration, failed to transfer a registration, I understand. But how does one un-register an airplane.
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It's called deregistration:

Deregistered Aircraft
  • An aircraft that has been removed from the U.S. Civil Aircraft Register at the owner's request. Aircraft are generally removed for the following reasons: exported, destroyed, salvaged, dismantled, or permanently retired from service.
 
Caramon13 said:
It's called deregistration:

Deregistered Aircraft
  • An aircraft that has been removed from the U.S. Civil Aircraft Register at the owner's request. Aircraft are generally removed for the following reasons: exported, destroyed, salvaged, dismantled, or permanently retired from service.
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Or possibly expired registration?
 
Clip4 said:
Expired registration, failed to transfer a registration, I understand. But how does one un-register an airplane.
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Caramon13 said:
It's called deregistration:

Deregistered Aircraft
  • An aircraft that has been removed from the U.S. Civil Aircraft Register at the owner's request. Aircraft are generally removed for the following reasons: exported, destroyed, salvaged, dismantled, or permanently retired from service.
Click to expand...

Unregistered means that it is not currently registered. That could be for any of the reasons you two state.
 
SkyDog58 said:
To gain more understanding of the subject matter at hand, please read this. You will see terms like expired and unregistered.
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I just quoted that above. My point is you won't see the word "expired" in a n-number search. Review my post above yours (#28). The FAA likes to use terms like "Registration Pending" and "In Question".
 
SkyDog58 said:
The registration expires and the aircraft is considered unregistered.
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Wrong. Registration ties a plane to an owner. You can't unregister a plane by not paying your registration dues on time. You can DEregister a plane though.

Just because your registration is expired doesn't all of sudden make the plane fall off the radar. There's no such term anywhere.

If I don't renew my car registration this year, is it all of a sudden unregistered? Of course not..

My status at the DMV is whatever they want to call it and if a cop pulls me over, they aren't going to see a blank "unregistered" when they run my plate. They'll see my name with a status of..whatever it is at the DMV.

Same with a plane. Cept the FAA calls that "In Question/Registration Pending". It's still registered..to you.
 
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Caramon13 said:
Assuming you don't pay for the registration?

Look here: https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/reregistration/

Expired is not a status. It's just a condition.

If you want to know what the "status" means, go here: https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certif...cation/aircraft_registry/registration_status/
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According to the link you provided, "in question" would be the "status". If the status is "in question" with no sale pending, there's nothing in the link you provided that says what the "condition" is, but unless you can explain otherwise, I'd say the difference between a "status" and a "condition" is irrelevant from an operational standpoint.
 
Probably a oops somewhere, let them know, shouldn't be too hard for a mechanic to whip up an updated W&B, if you got ramped it wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'm sure the inspector would mention it.

As for the pitot static, it's not a required check unless you're IFR or using the transponder. Did some CFII take a plane that was on the line as a VFR plane and launch with a student for a instrument IMC training flight, or did a renter take a VFR plane on a IMC trip? I'd want a few more details before I pointed the finger at the FBO.

The registration, many planes have had that expire, the system is garbage and it's easy to miss the letter with your secret code.

None of the above would be a deal breaker as long as they fixed these things when brought to their attention, that said I might be interested to flip through the logs, see if the ELT batt was replaced, make sure all the annual sign offs aren't verbatim copies of each other, etc.
 
So here's how I look at it.

If ramped, the pilot flying the plane will be held responsible for flying in violation of the rules. Most likely, you will be asked if you knew about the discrepancy - if you say yes, you've acted willfully in violation of the rules, but if you say no they you will receive a violation for not conducting a proper preflight. There simply is no win in that situation. Even if you don't get asked whether you knew, the violation will be hung on you and it'll be up to you tp prove otherwise. I personally don't like to be put in a potential lose-lose situation. Other people have a different opinion, that's their choice.

In theory, the FAA could ask the FBO for all the names of renters when planes were out of compliance and hit them all with a violation. That applies for registration, W&B, pitot-static, and otherwise. A few days out and it probably won't be an issue (unless the FAA has a bee in their bonnet for that FBO), but longer term it will be. Not likely that the FAA will do this, but possible. They have gone after all students who used certain DEs for example.

Most likely, things that you can't detect (a pencil-whipped annual, for example) are not likely to fall on individuals. But things that are easily detected might.

I know most will think that the FAA won't do that, but the possibility exists and I've seen other agencies take similar steps. YMMV. And putting aside the FAA, it would also raise potential liability issues if there were a crash - if you knew of operations outside of the FAA rules you might well be roped into the case. Again YMMV. Different folks have different tolerances for risk.

Kudos for asking the question. If it were me, I'd find another FBO (I bought my plane during IFR training because of maintenance issues - broken stuff - that left the planes OK for VFR training but not for IFR flight). If you're still using an instructor there, you might also mention your concerns to him as his ticket is on the line, too.
 
wsuffa said:
So here's how I look at it.

If ramped, the pilot flying the plane will be held responsible for flying in violation of the rules. Most likely, you will be asked if you knew about the discrepancy - if you say yes, you've acted willfully in violation of the rules, but if you say no they you will receive a violation for not conducting a proper preflight. There simply is no win in that situation. Even if you don't get asked whether you knew, the violation will be hung on you and it'll be up to you tp prove otherwise. I personally don't like to be put in a potential lose-lose situation. Other people have a different opinion, that's their choice.

In theory, the FAA could ask the FBO for all the names of renters when planes were out of compliance and hit them all with a violation. That applies for registration, W&B, pitot-static, and otherwise. A few days out and it probably won't be an issue (unless the FAA has a bee in their bonnet for that FBO), but longer term it will be. Not likely that the FAA will do this, but possible. They have gone after all students who used certain DEs for example.

Most likely, things that you can't detect (a pencil-whipped annual, for example) are not likely to fall on individuals. But things that are easily detected might.

I know most will think that the FAA won't do that, but the possibility exists and I've seen other agencies take similar steps. YMMV. And putting aside the FAA, it would also raise potential liability issues if there were a crash - if you knew of operations outside of the FAA rules you might well be roped into the case. Again YMMV. Different folks have different tolerances for risk.

Kudos for asking the question. If it were me, I'd find another FBO (I bought my plane during IFR training because of maintenance issues - broken stuff - that left the planes OK for VFR training but not for IFR flight). If you're still using an instructor there, you might also mention your concerns to him as his ticket is on the line, too.
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Probably cause of accident -- removed wheel pants not updated on W&B lol

I agree with the essence of what you're saying, but man you're taking it a wee bit far.
 
wsuffa said:
So here's how I look at it.

If ramped, the pilot flying the plane will be held responsible for flying in violation of the rules. Most likely, you will be asked if you knew about the discrepancy - if you say yes, you've acted willfully in violation of the rules, but if you say no they you will receive a violation for not conducting a proper preflight. There simply is no win in that situation. Even if you don't get asked whether you knew, the violation will be hung on you and it'll be up to you tp prove otherwise. I personally don't like to be put in a potential lose-lose situation. Other people have a different opinion, that's their choice.

In theory, the FAA could ask the FBO for all the names of renters when planes were out of compliance and hit them all with a violation. That applies for registration, W&B, pitot-static, and otherwise. A few days out and it probably won't be an issue (unless the FAA has a bee in their bonnet for that FBO), but longer term it will be. Not likely that the FAA will do this, but possible. They have gone after all students who used certain DEs for example.

Most likely, things that you can't detect (a pencil-whipped annual, for example) are not likely to fall on individuals. But things that are easily detected might.

I know most will think that the FAA won't do that, but the possibility exists and I've seen other agencies take similar steps. YMMV. And putting aside the FAA, it would also raise potential liability issues if there were a crash - if you knew of operations outside of the FAA rules you might well be roped into the case. Again YMMV. Different folks have different tolerances for risk.

Kudos for asking the question. If it were me, I'd find another FBO (I bought my plane during IFR training because of maintenance issues - broken stuff - that left the planes OK for VFR training but not for IFR flight). If you're still using an instructor there, you might also mention your concerns to him as his ticket is on the line, too.
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All true. Potentially. ;)

My experience with the FAA is that if it was inadvertently missed and not more than a few days old, they'd rather make sure you understand the problem, don't fly the airplane until it's resolved, and save themselves the paperwork of a violation.

YMMV,
 
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