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Question on serial numbers

cdeerinck

Well Known Member
From the Mothership...

"When registering your plane with the FAA, please retain the serial number assigned by Van?s Aircraft to your RV project. With over 10,000 RV?s in the sky, replacing an assigned number with an original number may be a nice touch, however, down the road, it is not practical. Scenario: plane is registered with an ?original? serial number. Plane changes hands, Van?s isn?t notified, and someone changes the tail number. Now there is no way to track down the original account. In essence, this means that if a service bulletin is issued regarding some parts intrinsic to that plane, the current owner will not receive the notice. I know the EAA has information to the contrary, but with over 10,000 flying RV?s, it is a matter of safety that Van?s has the ability to contact all RV owners should it become necessary.

I have a QB kit, and the fuselage had a serial number on it (4 digit). Is that the serial number, or is our builder's number (5 digit) the serial number?
 
I have a QB kit, and the fuselage had a serial number on it (4 digit). Is that the serial number, or is our builder's number (5 digit) the serial number?

It is your "builder' number issued with the tail kit.
 
In essence, this means that if a service bulletin is issued regarding some parts intrinsic to that plane, the current owner will not receive the notice.

Well, that's all peachy, but I don't recall receiving any notices of any service bulletins in the past. Always find out about them here first, and of course by checking the website at annual time.

I say give it whatever serial number you want...not sure what the big deal is here.
 
Well, that's all peachy, but I don't recall receiving any notices of any service bulletins in the past. Always find out about them here first, and of course by checking the website at annual time.

I say give it whatever serial number you want...not sure what the big deal is here.

If it was ever determined that a critical safety notification warranted immediate notification of owners, if the airplane had been originally registered using the standard model designation and company issued serial # it would be possible.

There is no benefit to not using them.

There could be other benefits to using them.
It is fully possible that the accident / hrs flown ratio of RV's might be even better than the currently published #, because any RV that wasn't in the databases under a standard model designation wouldn't be counted as part of the total fleet size.
Another could be perceived value. In the context of selling an RV, some buyers might think twice on an advertised as an RV-X but all of the paperwork says it is a Super Scooter X74. One of many reasons for this is that it is common (and strongly recommended) that highly modified RV's not be designated by their original model # for obvious reasons. That means any RV with an unusual model designation might look suspicious to some buyers.

The NTSB made an official recommendation to the FAA many years ago, to require that for airplanes to be eligible for an Airworthiness Cert., that they be registered with proper model #'s. This would allow them to better track accidents and accident rates by specific model #. The FAA never implemented that requirement, so builders are free to call it what they want.

You are correct. It is not a big deal, and builders are still free to use what ever they want as the model designation, but why? There is zero benefit from doing so (unless you have a high anti establishment viewpoint), but there could be numerous benefits from doing as requested.
 
Totally agree with putting in the standard make / model information.

Since a builder has a single number assigned to them, what is the guidance for "repeat offenders"?

If someone builds two RV-7 kits, they would need different serial numbers, so not sure how using the builder number truly helps. (I realize that this doesn't impact most builders, but just trying to follow the logic).
 
Out of courtesy to Vans, I opted to use my own serial number and make since I had modified an RV12 quite a bit. Did not think it was right if I crashed and burned to have that a mark against Vans. The arguments against doing what I done are strong too, not sure I would do what I did if I built another one.
 
Totally agree with putting in the standard make / model information.

Since a builder has a single number assigned to them, what is the guidance for "repeat offenders"?

If someone builds two RV-7 kits, they would need different serial numbers, so not sure how using the builder number truly helps. (I realize that this doesn't impact most builders, but just trying to follow the logic).

Although they are "repeat offenders" the two kits would have differing kit numbers. These are the builders #'s regardless of who builds them. Think of it this way, Jon Smith built two RV7's, kits 741xx and 749xxx. Still one builder but two kits with 2 serial #'s.
 
Although they are "repeat offenders" the two kits would have differing kit numbers. These are the builders #'s regardless of who builds them. Think of it this way, Jon Smith built two RV7's, kits 741xx and 749xxx. Still one builder but two kits with 2 serial #'s.

Correct
A repeat customer gets a new customer # assigned to the second kit and that # is used for all accounting and records to establish a tracking history for issuing a bill of sale for registration purposes.
 
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