On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:13:51 -0500, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:


"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
Jeff Findley wrote:
They don't have the qualifications to "look under the hood". ;-)

I believe, if I remember correctly, that the FAA *is* involved in
oversight of private launches done by any person who is a US citizen,
even if the launch does not take place in the US. For private launches
there are permits to get and paperwork to fill out and everything had
better be in order *before* you launch.

FAA AST does launch licenses, not vehicle certification. They're not the
same thing at all. Airplanes get certified because there is a standard to
certify them to, and that standard arose from decades of experience.

True. These rules don't apply to NASA, do they?

Only for the aircraft that are only used to carry people around in
much the same manner as commercial aircraft. The research and support
aircraft at Dryden, like F-18s and F-15s and stuff, aren't covered by
FAA rules, but the KingAirs used to haul management and other staff to
and from Ames are.

This doesn't include certification, just maintenance and operation.
Military aircraft aren't certified and the KingAirs were bought from
the maker, who did the certification before introducing the aircraft
to the market.

These rules, requiring adherence to FAA regs for aircraft used like
commercial aircraft, apply to all Federal agencies. It's mostly only
agencies like NASA and the military that also have aircraft to which
the rules don't apply.

Mary "Works until you want to hang an experiment on the KingAir."
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
or
Visit my blog at http://thedigitalknitter.blogspot.com/