Highlights from our January
Chapter Meeting
Pierre Fournier, who is the Minister Delegate -
Recreational Aircraft (MD-RA) representative for the Quebec Region,
gave a very animated and interesting talk on the process of getting
your amateur-built project from purchase to flying in terms of
inspection requirements through to the related paperwork. Pierre
emphasized that the MD-RA mandate only applies to the inspection
of the Amateur-Built category of aircraft and that their purpose
in life is to apply the letter of the law as defined by Transport
Canada.
MD-RA, a Canada-wide non-profit organization has
undertaken to put everything you need to know and do on their
web site at http://www.md-ra.com.
Pierre said he often takes calls from home builders, but is reluctant
to answer questions as to whether some particular construction
technique would pass inspection or not, due to concern that any
misunderstanding could become a contentious issue later at inspection
time. Technical compliance questions about construction techniques
should be addressed to Transport Canada for regulation interpretation.
Marc Bisson, Pierre's counterpart in Transport Canada for the
Quebec Region, should be contacted, preferably by email so there
is a paper trail of all understandings and agreements. Marc Bisson's
email address at Transport Canada is marc.bisson@tc.gc.ca
Two important messages we took from the presentation
were: 1) Inform the Minister (i.e. MD-RA) before you make any
commitment to purchase or put any money on the table. This can
be done with the "Letter of Intent", which is available
on the MD-RA web site, and,
2) that if one person has to be upset at the end of an inspection,
it should be the builder, not the inspector! ;-)
For a limited time, you can review Pierre's presentation
by clicking on "here".
Again, thank you to Pierre Fournier for a very informative
and entertaining evening!
Check out our last Air Rally
in Lachute