JohnB wrote:
Well, technically the Mariner is "Lockheed Martin" now...
No, it is not!
Technically speaking, the only thing that is true in that regard is that the
company that once built the Mariner is "Lockheed Martin" now but that does not change the fact that all Mariners were simply "Martin" aircraft - and they remain such in spite of much later changes to the company.
Just because the company
later changed names or ownership merged with another company does not alter the fact that the A-20 and P-70 Havoc series was "built" by Douglas, not by McDonnell Douglas or Boeing, etc. (And DC-3 series too!) Same with the PBM Mariner series; they were all "built" by Martin, not Lockheed Martin, and Lockheed Martin certainly has never had anything to do with the Mariner - not to mention the fact that almost none still exist, certainly not actually in service anywhere, since Lockheed Martin has been in existence.
Stupid bureaucrats at a certain Federal agency in Washington DC make the very same mistake and apparently too often ignore (or just don't understand) their own regs (i.e. 14 CFR 45.13a) - aircraft do not change their formal identification just because of a change in ownership or name of the company that once built them. They are supposed to be formally identified solely based on who actually "built" them and as what - i.e. the
builder's model and
builder's serial number, etc.
For example, after the tragic crash of Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 in December 2005, the FAA eventually issued
AD 2006-01-51 which nominally specified applicability to all "
Frakes Aviation (Gulfstream American) Model G-73 (Mallard) series airplanes..." but
there is no such thing, never has been and likely never will be. No G-73 Mallard currently in existence has ever been formally identified (registered or certified) as either a "Frakes" or "Gulfstream American" model G-73. Those companies are only subsequent owners of the TC under which the G-73 series was originally built and certified (i.e. TC A-783) but neither company ever "built" a G-73 Mallard. In fact, every G-73 Mallard that has ever existed was actually "built" by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation (aka just "Grumman") and remains formally identified as such in spite of subsequent changes to either the company or the TC in question.
It's not like there is any regulatory requirement to reissue or replace an aircraft's data tag simply on the basis of a change in ownership of the company that built a particular aircraft or of the TC under which it was built. Such "revisionism" is plainly wrong and incorrect.
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