What are the FAA maintenance rules for purchased experimental
aircraft?

Suppose you make a major change? Do you become
the builder and have to fly off the 40 hours?

Paul Lamar

Paul,

There are almost none (in the US) ANYBODY can work on the aircraft and
make all changes in accordance with the limitations given with the
Airworthiness cert.

The only required certificate is for the conditional inspection(annual).
That must be signed off by an A&P (not AI) or the person holding the
Repairman's cert for that specific aircraft.

Now the rub is that if you make major changes to the aircraft, you,
depending on the limitations issued, have to log, I think 5 hours and
notate that in the log, or have the FAA issue you their blessing and
additional testing time.

Now the confusion is that if you don't have the repairman's cert can you
just fly and log, if your restrictions allow, or must you have an a&P
get involved in some way.

In effect, you can totally rebuild the aircraft as long as it was
substantially the same as when you took the crow bar to it with no body
else looking at it whether you have the repairman cert. The conditional
must be done by the cert holder or an A&P.

Rich

Thanks Rich

Paul Lamar