Oh c'mon George. This gentleman opened the door to all comments when he posted it on YouTube. If he had humbly dismantled the airplane in the privacy of his hangar we wouldn't be talking about this.

Okay, fine - let's leave the legal aspects off the table and stick to the obvious: this man's wealth hinders his common sense. There were many alternate options that would have zeroed his liability instead of casting away a perfectly good flying machine to airplane heaven.

Would a bonanza look that flimsy in the same situation?

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Oh c'mon George. This gentleman opened the door to all comments when he posted it on YouTube. If he had humbly dismantled the airplane in the privacy of his hangar we wouldn't be talking about this.

Okay, fine - let's leave the legal aspects off the table and stick to the obvious: this man's wealth hinders his common sense. There were many alternate options that would have zeroed his liability instead of casting away a perfectly good flying machine to airplane heaven.

Group,

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Again. Read the comments by many of the Beech members. This is much deeper than just "opened the door" comments. The members of this site would never put up with this amount of nasty comment under other conditions.

Also, I saw the pile of parts after disassembly. After removing tracable parts there was not enough to sell to make any real financial benefit. There was a lot I would have loved to have, like the owner I could see no real benefit to not just destroying everything. Sad to see, but not near as sad as I would have thought.

In reality it was just another RV that can be easily reproduced. Not a rare, antique, unique or exotic plane. This comes from an RV8 builder who has flown the destroyed plane and loves everything associated with aviation.

George Meketa
Rv8 (1450 hours), N35, Cessna 180, PA12 (all at the same time)

whole video affair is kinda sad really to see on an otherwise good aviation site...goes to show you that wisdom and maturity doesn't necessarily come with age...the lack of civility is down right discouraging really...I've seen more maturity demonstrated from the average teenager--even troubled ones....

Interesting to watch. I am thinking of building an RV-8 or maybe a -14. He built it and can do whatever he likes. Obviously making a public statement.

If it was mine and I took it out of service, my thought would be more towards hanging it over my great room vs smashing it to bits. Not sure SWMBO would go for that though...

Having completed the metal work on an RV-8, I cannot imagine spending a couple thousand hours building an airplane and then sending it to the scrap pile due to liability concerns. If you are that concerned with liability just buy one, fly the %#$@ out of it, and then sell it to the next guy.

It's his plane and he can do whatever he wants but I cannot figure out whether this guy has more money than time, or more time than money. To me his decision making process is very strange.

Robert

Sorry George but I'm just not seeing the nasty comments that you're referring to. I see good discussion on legal liability, good suggestions on alternatives to scrapping the airplane, and some humor mixed in. We'll just have to disagree on that.

With respect to comparing this forum and this thread to Pilots of America, well that's just a flat out wrong characterization. Were you purposely trying to slap us all in the face? I sincerely and respectfully think your impression of our comments is off.

Group
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George but I'm just not seeing the nasty comments that you're referring to. I see good discussion on legal liability, good suggestions on alternatives to scrapping the airplane, and some humor mixed in. We'll just have to disagree on that.

With respect to comparing this forum and this thread to Pilots of America, well that's just a flat out wrong characterization. Were you purposely trying to slap us all in the face? I sincerely and respectfully think your impression of our comments is off.
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There are plenty of not so well meant comments in the thread. Again, it is not the normal civility on this site. Many a good educational forum site has been destroyed like the "Pilots of America" site.

-Did I mention stupid
-Makes me wonder why he is flying in the first place
-The guy is either an expert in questionable decision making or there is something else going on
-Why even fly at all if risk/liability is such a big deal for this guy. (Reply "right")
-Cutting up a wonderful RV8 is a deed that makes a person undeserving to be an aviator
-on this video this was someone wanting to make a statement, not someone truly worried about liability
-I figure this guy is a "nut"
-I have words to describe you, none are good./This guy reminds of those bratty kids you grey up that had nice things but would never share them, (exact words)
-stupid
-IMHO he's an attention seeker who loathed another pilot getting compliments over the plane he built. The video is his scheme to prevent that, continue to feed his own appetite for attention, and maybe even take a stab at trial lawyers
-It sounds like he lost more than his medical
-I doubt is he even met with an attorney. He probably conjured up this terrible idea on his own and justified it himself.-
-internet much (what is that)

Discussion, suggestion, humor? Not in my eye.

George Meketa
RV8, N35, Cessna 180, PA12

Simply repeating yourself three times is not going to change my position. You copied and pasted every post that disagreed with your viewpoint. The only thing that shows me is you are taking this thread personally. We are just going to have to agree to disagree.

You judge a person by their actions. Nothing wrong with that even though you don't like it.

Simply repeating yourself three times is not going to change my position. You copied and pasted every post that disagreed with your viewpoint. The only thing that shows me is you are taking this thread personally. We are just going to have to agree to disagree.

You judge a person by their actions. Nothing wrong with that even though you don't like it.

Nishant

Really? Surely you will get the last word.

George

That "quote" button on the lower right will really help you to differentiate your response text from the quoted text. Just hit that button before you respond.

or not.

Well, he hasn't mitigated all of his liability exposure. Watching that video caused me significant distress. I'm going to start a class to include every affected RV lover and we're going to sue!

But back to LLC's and liability. What if I form an LLC for the purpose of building airplanes, which buys an RV kit which I assemble? Would that protect my personal assets?

I would like to see FAR which supports this assertion.

From AOPA:


FAR 61.53: Prohibition on Operations During Medical Deficiency

Operations that require a medical certificate. Except as provided for in paragraph (b) of this section, a person who holds a current medical certificate issued under part 67 of this chapter shall not act as pilot in command, or in any other capacity as a required flight crewmember while that person:
Knows or has reason to know of any medical condition that would make the person unable to meet the requirements for the medical certificate necessary for the pilot operation; or
Is taking medication or receiving other treatment for a medical condition that results in the person being unable to meet the requirements for the medical certificate necessary for the pilot operation.
Operations that do not require a medical certificate. For operations provided for in FAR 61.23(b) of this part, a person shall not act as pilot in command, or in any other capacity as a required flight crew member, while that person knows or has reason to know of any medical condition that would make the person unable to operate the aircraft in a safe manner.

You may notice some ambiguity in the language of this regulation. There is no reference to any specific medical conditions. Vagueness is not unusual for the FARs, and in this case, it's a good thing, although it does make understanding and complying with the regulation a little more difficult. Hopefully, we can shed some light on the several ways FAR 61.53 can be interpreted.

Part 67 of the Federal Aviation Regulations specifically mentions 15 medical conditions that are disqualifying by "history or clinical diagnosis." These include:

A personality disorder that is severe enough to have repeatedly manifested itself by overt acts
A psychosis
Bipolar disorder
Substance dependence (including alcohol)
Substance abuse
Epilepsy
Disturbance of consciousness without satisfactory explanation of the cause
Transient loss of nervous system function without satisfactory explanation of the cause
Diabetes requiring oral hypoglycemic medications or insulin
Myocardial infarction
Angina pectoris
Coronary heart disease that has required treatment or, if untreated, that has been symptomatic or clinically significant
Cardiac valve replacement
Permanent cardiac pacemaker
Heart replacement

As far as I can tell, all of this, except for the bolded part, refers to operations which require medical certificate. Only the bolded part is related to LSA flying, and all it says that you cannot know of "any medical condition that would make the person unable to operate the aircraft in a safe manner". So if you, through self-certification, determine that you are able to operate the aircraft in safe manner, you are good to go.