alioth wrote:
The problem I see with recurring fees for EASA type certs and STCs is it leaves the sword of Damocles hanging over the aircraft owner. Should the manufacturer go bust or lose interest, the owner’s substantially valuable aircraft can become worthless overnight. It’s another reason I’d never own a certified EASA reg plane.
Hm. Wouldn’t the aircraft revert to Annex I if that happened?
I very much doubt it – that would be an amazingly convenient way to put say a TB20 on Annex 1, and bust the general principle (operated by both EASA and FAA) that a type capable of having a TC must have a TC.
Reading this thread and other stuff, it seems that what happens is that the airframe remains “IFR” (in the sense that no “VFR-only” restriction is created – more e.g. here) but the affected avionics become unusable, or VFR-only.
A similar thread is here.
