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veeduber@isp.com wrote:
> Needing some high-strength 7/16ths bolts, over the holidays I visited
> one of the unofficial RV assembly plants here in San Diego county.
> Located in an industrial park adjacent to the airport, the fellow has
> set-up permanent fixtures just like a real aircraft factory, allowing
> him to assemble an RV with perfect accuracy in remarkably little time.
> RV's use NAS bolts to hold the wings on and I would come a'begging.
>
> He had a new helper, a guy about my age. He was over at the
> leading-edge fixture, struggling to install a cleco. From his body
> language I guessed the thing was bent. I'd have tossed it but he
> kept wrestling with it, finally got it in and went on to the next. But
> damned if he didn't do the same thing.
>
> I found my friend in his cubby hole, told him what I was after, showed
> him what I had to trade. He poked around in his cabinets, found what I
> needed and gave me four. Looking past me he saw the fellow working on
> the leading edge. Heaved a big sigh and shook his head. The guy was
> struggling with yet another cleco.
>
> "Somebody bend all your clecos?" I asked.
>
> My friend gave a bark of laughter. "There's nothing wrong with the
> clecos," he said shaking his head. We both watched the guy. He
> finally got it in, flexed his hand and started doing an other in the
> same awkward manner. We watched him put in three then the fellow must
> of sensed he was being watched because he looked up.
>
> "He doesn't know how to cleco," I said in surprise.
>
> "Yeah," my friend agreed. He told me how the fellow was
> ex-military, had his ticket and a zillion years experience. "But
> nobody ever showed him how to set a cleco," he sighed.
>
> I tucked my bolts in my pocket and got the hell outta there, not
> wanting to be around when my friend, who was never in the military and
> is not an A&P, tried to explain to a card-carrying sixty year old A&P
> that he doesn't know how to cleco.
Sounds like an aircraft factory to me. The products of that factory
are not "homebuilts" and the FAA is failing to do its job by allowing
said aircraft to be certificated as Experimental Amateur-Built.
Dick van Grunsven knows this is going on. He knows it is not really
right. but I do not blame Dick even though he is becoming a
multimillionaire from this scam. I blame the FAA.
Homebuilts should be that, built in one's domicile or in a
single-ooccupant wholly owned area with the builder a _nonprofessional_
aircraft constructor. An A&P should not be allowed to touch a homebuilt
unless he is also a pilot and can testify under oath it is for his
personal use and will not be sold, at least for some period of time.
If you want to be in the business of building aircraft, you should be
building a type-certificated aircraft. Else, why have such a thing at
all? Get rid of type certification entirely.
Either type certification is good or it is bad. Let's poop or get out
of the outhouse instead of allowing a kitchen business of foolish old
farts to mess with progress. Especially since they are not interested
in educating anyone else, expanding aviation, or developing the
technology.
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Re: The Man Who Couldn't Cleco
