I've attached a copy of the latest
Airline Transport Pilot and Type Rating for Airplane Airman Certification Standards pub from the FAA. Appendix 5 has guidance on removal of type rating limitations like the
'CIRC. APCH.-VMC ONLY' I mentioned above. It mentions removal of the 'SIC Required' limitation which is not the same as the 'SIC Only' you're trying to get removed for someone else.
Being the government, a limitation is probably different from a restriction but my all of my type ratings are unlimited and unrestricted as far as I can tell. I've learned not to ask a fed for clarification lest I be put under the microscope by the paperwork police.
Years ago I had one of them fancy British style ATPL's from an overseas job. It looked like a passport with a picture and a little string and ink stamps for all sorts of base checks, instrument checks, emergency checks and the like. Each stamp had a signature and there were different dates on the stamps and the signatures. A British civil servant's dream document. The dates were written bass ackwards from the American style and it was hard to figure what expired in six months, 180 days or what? Was it the end of the month, was there a grace month? I never could remember. You know where this one is going.
I took a sim check from a sharp young local instructor (years later destined to be CEO of the airline) and things went well. At the debrief he filled out the paperwork and I turned in my license to get updated and picked up later. He asked if I had any questions and I asked if it was the date on the stamp or the date on the signature which determined the expiry date. He showed me my license pages and started to explain. Doh! I had misread the expiry as April 3 and it was actually March 4. 
The sim check paperwork was somehow backdated and my license was returned without any expiration. Perhaps wasta and bribes were involved, I knew not to ask any more questions.
Originally Posted by
bafanguy
I looked at the web page for the FAA Chief Counsel Office thinking I'd ask for a legal interpretation but don't see how to approach them in a proper way.
Again, I'd recommend not getting FAA legal involved in an administrative or operational issue unless you really need to.
Some years ago my airline colleagues got into a dispute with the company over when the airline could use a cockpit jumpseat to move a pilot when a pax seat wasn't available, if say, a plane broke at an out station. The contract was fairly specific but there were some hypothetical borderline cases that were 'subject to interpretation'.
Traditionally the captain had final authority over who could and couldn't ride the jumpseat so some geniuses down at the union hall decided to use this authority to show the company who was boss.
One of the young Turks got a letter from some guy at FAA legal saying the captain's authority was the last word and folks started writing checks with their egos that their bodies couldn't cash. I had militant FO's lecture me on who I could and couldn't take as an ACM (Additional Crewmember). Commuting FFDO's got bumped by tree huggers. Dispatchers doing required observation flights (without golf clubs
) were bumped for crew comfort.
The company had enough and got another letter from the FAA that clarified the legal status of captain's authority in the company's favor. A few folks got termination letters for ignoring the company's subsequent guidance which the FAA supported. They ultimately got their jobs back after some time off without pay. The guy in FAA legal who wrote the original jumpseat empowerment letter? He went back to private practice.
When the dust settled I felt that I had less authority to bump a jumpseat rider, not more.