JAWS said:
How do you detetmine if the aircraft you are wanting to fly is airworthy? Is a rental any different from a personal aircraft? How far do you go? How far are you supposed to go?
This is a GREAT question. At first glance, it appears to be amenable to a very simple ‘technical’ answer – 1. The aircraft must conform to its type design (TC);
2. The aircraft must be in a condition for safe operation.
Yet, at the same time it incredibly challenging to answer, at least for me. In fact, some of the responses posted thus far may appear to be a bit flippant, but I suspect that reflects the perceived difficulty in providing a satisfying and objective answer.
I fly with a 375 member Club that maintains 13 airplanes in its fleet. I began my original training with the Club, starting 22 years ago, and have continued to train and fly with the organization, so I do have history. The planes are all owned by the Club, or by individual / groups of Club members who lease them to the Club. But, they are all maintained by the Club’s A&I. I regularly fly multiple Club aircraft, and honestly, I haven’t looked at aircraft logs in years to verify that inspections have been done, that routine maintenance has been properly performed, and in a timely manner, etc.. I do check documents as part of the pre-flight; and we maintain a squawk book which I (as do all Club pilots) check before every flight. But, essentially, I
TRUST our A&I, I
TRUST our maintenance program. Maybe I should be more cautious. But, for me airworthiness is a combination of a) whether the Club aircraft is on the schedule – i.e. the A&I has signed off that it is available for scheduling, in which case I will consider it airworthy - AND b) the results of my pre-flight inspection and my Before Take-off checklist assessment (flight controls, instrument check, run-up results, etc.).
So, in thinking about the question, I realize that my assessment of airworthiness reflects a combination of subjective and objective data. To quote another poster:
bflynn said:
Bottom line, a gut check - do I find any reason to believe the airplane will not accomplish the flight and get me back home again? If I find none then I make an assumption that it is airworthy. There are a lot of thing that feed into that - my history with the airplane, other pilots that fly it, squawks, recent maintenance records if I know them, pre flight inspection and pre-takeoff procedures.
Well said! I agree.