Fellow Lancerians,

There was much recent squabbling about the lack of an electronic copy of the POH.  Well, I became greatly inspired after Bob Mackey sent in the PDF of our venerable document.  So much so that I tried to OCR all the text in order to create a MS Word document of it.  That turned out to be a nightmare, so I just typed it all in and tried really hard to match the original format.

When Marv gets it posted, take a look and start modifying to make it correct for your little speedster.  I noticed the original had quite a few factual errors (or maybe they were true in 1994), but they aren't today.  These relate to the privileges associated with the "Repairman's Certificate" and the restrictions on maintenance by a non-builder owner.  The only privelege that certificate grants is the signing off of the condition inspection.  Maintenance and alterations can be done by anyone, because Part 43 does not apply, see the reg itself ---  "43.1(b) This part does not apply to any aircraft for which an experimental airworthiness certificate has been issued, unless a different kind of airworthiness certificate had previously been issued for that aircraft".  Major alterations do require coordination with the local FSDO.  This should all be detailed in your "Operating Limitations".  Those may list specific sections of Part 43 that do apply and that is fine, so they do apply.  Hope these comments do not start a flame job.  If you think I am wrong, please contact your local FSDO first and ask "What restrictions are there on maintenance/alteration of experimental aircraft?"  Also, see the EAA site which very explicitly states the same thing.

Of course, some specific forms of maintenance/inspection do require a certificated person, ex. the biennial pitot/static/transponder checks.  There are others, such as on TSOd equipment, if the rules require a TSO on the equipment for it to be used for the intended purpose, ex. IFR GPS.

That is just one area that is wrong in the original, 1994 version of the POH.  There are others, related to V speeds not consistent in different parts of the book and some others I can't remember.  Those I did not correct in this Word doc but you should be correcting those to match your specific aircraft anyway.  I did clean up some spelling, grammar, formatting etc.

I will be re-doing the POH for my A/C starting now.  First thing will be to eliminate all the references to the other models of the A/C, putting in the right numbers for the limitations, performance etc. and the descriptions of the actual systems installed.  You should be able to scan parts of the builder's manuals or blue prints to find other useful drawings and the most correct wiring diagrams, especially around the hydraulic pump, since there was certainly a lot of traffic on that topic.

Enjoy,

Tom Thibault
N4XB, "Dream Catcher"

P.S.

Joe B., please don't get mad at me for posting this electronic copy, I still want to come to the Labor Day Fly-In.