Dilemas of an airworthiness engineer
Interesting problem I hit today, hope you'll accept that I don't want to give specifics, but the generalities might be interesting.
I got asked today to go and spend a few hours with a man who has acquired an aeroplane. It's small, currently non-flying (although in excellent condition), and although obscure, nonetheless occupies an important slot in British aviation history - it's also probably the only example still in one piece. The aircraft hasn't flown for some years and has never held any documentation that would currently allow it to fly.
The gentleman who owns this fascinating antique wants to be able to fly it, he's also a fairly experienced pilot with a reasonable grasp of engineering - a good start. But, as I go through the aircraft and it's documentation it became very obvious that I couldn't possibly make it fly legally without some modification to the aircraft's basic design, and to meet current safety standards would mandate a huge redesign. It was also designed as a 2-seater, and there were potentially good reasons why it could only be allowed to fly solo.
Now, there's an excellent argument here that this beastie belongs in a museum. However, the owner is firmly of the view that aeroplanes should either be flown or scrapped, and he's no interest whatsoever in allowing it into a museum (not necessarily my own view, but I can see his point) - he is also fairly adamant that he wants to fly it (well, that's why he bought it!). Since he's the sole owner of it, if I'm to help preserve this piece of history, I have to find some way of allowing it to fly - and try and make sure he never crashes it !
An interesting dilema. The solution (or at least the general intent at present), which will no doubt take a fair while to achieve, is to reach a compromise of a fairly drachonian set of operating restrictions within which it can be safely operated, together with a minimum number of changes to the aircraft design - and trying to make those as visually identical to the original as we can manage.
Just thought I'd share that.
G