Page 38 - Volume 15 Number 8

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out of service, the device must be either:
• Removed from the aircraft, the cockpit control placarded, and the maintenance recorded (in the airplane’s logbooks, including a change to the Equipment List and the Weight and Balance information); or
• Deactivated and placarded “inoperative,” with the pilot determining that the inoperative
36 • TWIN & TURBINE
equipment does not constitute a hazard to the aircraft.
“Okay, then,” my Baron student says, “we have to deactivate the annunciator and place a placard on the instrument panel stating the left alternator warning light is inoperative. Then we can fly.”
“Well,” I reply, “that may not be entirely true. There’s one more place we need to look.”
The POH
Remember, “the airplane’s Pilots Operating Handbook does not otherwise require the equipment be in working order” from FAR 91.213 (d)? Turns out that like many airplanes, the Beech Baron has a Kinds of Operations and Equipment list in Section II of the Pilots Operating Handbook. 91.213 (d) that says “...a person may takeoff an aircraft in operations conducted under this part (FAR 91) with inoperative instruments and equipment without an approved Minimum Equipment List provided...the inoperative instruments and equipment are not...indicated as required...on the Kinds of Operations and Equipment List for the kind of flight operation being conducted....”
We do NOT have flexibility to placard equipment inoperative and continue flight operations, IF the inoperative equipment is listed as “required” on the POH Kinds of Operations and Equipment table.
In my student’s Baron, the POH Kinds of Operations and Equipment List allows one of the alternator warning annunciators to be inoperative, so long as the alternator loadmeter for that engine is functioning and are monitored by the pilot. So the answer is YES. He CAN take off again with the malfunctioning alternator warning, if the associated alternator loadmeter continues to work. Pull out the annunciator’s light bulb, install a placard on the panel, and fly.
Minimum Equipment Lists
The regulations refer to the Minimum Equipment List, often called the “MEL.” An MEL is an airplane model- and operator- (registered owner or certificated carrier [charter or airline]) specific agreement between that operator and the FAA. The MEL lists the minimum items required to safely (read: legally) begin a flight. The MEL is thoroughly reviewed by
AUGUST 2011