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E-LSA Registration

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Light Sport Aircraft

My friend and I are about to buy a used E-LSA from local hobby shop. It is T-Bird II from Indy Aircraft Inc. Problem is, that he doesn't have any, ANY paper work including registration, airworthiness, and log books. And N-number registry tells us that registered owner lives in Alaska (we live in Central Region). To be honest, I'm not sure what to do. Can this be solved so that we can legally transfer registration from that random guy to us? In case y'all want to know, the N-number is 51319.

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2 Answers

  1. Best Answer


    Russ Roslewski on Jul 31, 2017

    Warning – this information may not be complete with everything you need to consider.

    Your task is not insurmountable. But, you’re buying it from a hobby shop? Interesting. It also likely means that the shop will not be very knowledgeable about the process.

    An airworthiness certificate is easily replaceable by contacting the FAA. https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/aircraft_faq/

    The registration is not particularly important in itself, since you will apply for a new registration when you buy the aircraft. A bill of sale will be used in that application.

    https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/register_aircraft/

    However, the “seller” on the bill of sale needs to be the previous “buyer” on the previous bill of sale to establish proper chain of ownership. I would try to get a copy of the previous bill of sale, from when the previous owner sold it to the shop. Unless of course the shop is just acting as an agent and the previous owner still owns it. Then you’d need the previous owner to sign the bill of sale.

    You can have the FAA send you all the paperwork they have on the airplane by going to this link:
    http://aircraft.faa.gov/e.gov/nd/

    The last issue you ask about is logbooks. Typically, an aircraft without logbooks will be priced at a steep discount compared to one with logbooks. As an E-LSA, it still has maintenance requirements like an annual condition inspection, and you certainly would want to know when various other maintenance tasks were performed (that are appropriate to this aircraft). Being sold at a hobby shop, it may already be steeply discounted, OR it may not be, depending on how savvy the hobby shop is. I assume this aircraft is being sold fairly inexpensively, regardless, I would have a pre-buy inspection done on this aircraft just like any other aircraft.

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  2. Russ Roslewski on Jul 31, 2017

    Not sure why it’s showing “0 answers” but hopefully my answer is visible to everybody.

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