Originally posted by 2ciewan
Yes, they get painted... but ive yet to see one fly without so much as a registration on the aircraft.... don't think that really happens unless its
military or ex military.
As I have said, I have personally seen it happen, and I have personally worked on aircraft in that condition.
Originally posted by 2ciewan
This is the same for most countries, and for an aircraft to be airworthy, it must display markings, for ATC and ground operations
identification.
Again, if the aircraft was purchased from another airline the certificate was already issued under the old owner.
Originally posted by 2ciewan
"FAA 100% all the time, either because its not practical, or because of time/money, sometimes they just take the fine." - thats not true.
Absolutely 10,000% true, if you like it or not.
Again, this is something I have seen in person. I have seen aircraft fly with lists of no-ops that would make peoples hair stand on end. The FAA only
has to deal with a relatively small group of professional companies when they deal with airlines. If you think they have some kind of traffic cops who
ride around out there and enforce all their rules, then you obviously don’t know much about the subject. They entrust that the airlines will follow
the rules they set forth, and will fine them if they are caught violating those rules. Many of the rules are nothing more then guidelines anyway
(hence that they are called FAA GUILDLINES), and not really rules per say. The airlines have their own sets of operational rules that they follow,
which in many cases are even more stringent then the FAA’s rules. It does not behoove an airline to get caught breaking those rules, or to operate
in an unsafe manner as that would hurt their customer reputation. However, that said, it can and has happened. The times I have seen it has been with
new or restarted airlines, who don’t have maintenance departments at most locations, have to contract out their ramp operations, and don’t have
aircraft to ferry in to replace the aircraft being taken out of service.
The FAA does not look for those tail markings anyway, they don’t really use them in their operations, what they FAA is concerned with is that the
aircraft ID shows up in the transponder ping so they can identify it on radar. Those markings are used to identify the aircraft if they had to have
another aircraft identify the tail number in-flight, and for the ramp to ensure they are parking the correct aircraft at the correct gate then
loading/fueling the correct aircraft with the correct load.
