Importing a Mooney to the U.S. from Canada

[Ario]

Just imported my Mooney from Canada to the U.S. I want to share my experience as a guide for anyone who may be interested in importing from Canada.

It was an unusual case because I already owned the Mooney for 5 years.

The process is simple but can be quite stressful at times:

0. Remember you have to be a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident to be able to own an American aircraft. There may be other ways like by creating a company but I didn't follow that route.

1. Reserve the call sign you like with FAA. It takes a month to receive the reservation letter.

2. Find a service shop and a DAR. Many shops know DARs and have experience importing to the U.S. Finding an experienced shop is important to do a good inspection of the aircraft and documents to make sure the aircraft can be imported without big issues. You don't want to deregister your aircraft and then find out e.g. due to a missing document, you're in big trouble. Also plan with the DAR and make sure he doesn't charge too much (for a Mooney, something between 1000 to 2000 bucks is normal according to my shop-around in SoCal).

3. Call Transport Canada civil aviation to deregister the aircraft, and get them to email you a copy of the deregistration letter (it takes about one week to deregister it). This is pretty straight forward and TC is very helpful when calling them. Remember that you can't fly the aircraft after you deregister it. So, the aircraft must be already in the shop when you submit the deregistration request to TC. Also, I had to explain to TC that the aircraft is not sold, it's just being exported to the U.S. and I'm going to continue owning it in the U.S.

4. Register the aircraft with FAA. They requested an original Bill of Sale from 5 years ago when I first purchased it. It's good to have more than one inked-signed copy of that at home so you can send one to FAA.

5. The shop needs to do an annual inspection and fix any issues they find. An experienced shop would do whatever is needed to issue the airworthiness certificate like adding missing placards, etc.

6. When the shop is done with the annual,  the DAR comes for inspection to issue the airworthiness certificate, this should be a one day job if nothing is wrong that can't be fixed on spot. The DAR will do a thorough inspection and will go line by line through the POH to make sure everything is as said in the POH. This is important because the DAR can halt the process if he finds e.g. a switch not working as said in the POH no matter how unimportant that switch is.

 

I can explain a lot more about the experience and the stressful days and hours I had before and during the DAR's inspection. But my aircraft had no big issues other than some missing placards, some cable straps tightening, and a switch on the panel that was fixed on spot. The DAR issued the airworthiness cert after about 5 hours of inspection. He was very happy that the aircraft is low time and he didn't have to spend a lot of time going through tens of modifications.

Hope it helps those considering buying from Canada.

I also want to thank Clarence @M20Doc and his team (especially Ryan) for supporting me with the maintenance in the past 5 years.

 

 

[carusoam]

Great experience and pirep, Ario!
Thanks for sharing the details....

+1 For M20Doc and shop!
 

Best regards,

-a-

[ohdub]

2 hours ago, Ario said:

I also want to thank Clarence @M20Doc and his team (especially Ryan) for supporting me with the maintenance in the past 5 years.

 

 

Clarence and Ryan are both great guys! I feel fortunate to have them as my mechanics!

[Sixstring2k]

Thank you for this, It’s something i have being thinking about.

[Guest]

20 hours ago, Ario said:

Just imported my Mooney from Canada to the U.S. I want to share my experience as a guide for anyone who may be interested in importing from Canada.

It was an unusual case because I already owned the Mooney for 5 years.

The process is simple but can be quite stressful at times:

0. Remember you have to be a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident to be able to own an American aircraft. There may be other ways like by creating a company but I didn't follow that route.

1. Reserve the call sign you like with FAA. It takes a month to receive the reservation letter.

2. Find a service shop and a DAR. Many shops know DARs and have experience importing to the U.S. Finding an experienced shop is important to do a good inspection of the aircraft and documents to make sure the aircraft can be imported without big issues. You don't want to deregister your aircraft and then find out e.g. due to a missing document, you're in big trouble. Also plan with the DAR and make sure he doesn't charge too much (for a Mooney, something between 1000 to 2000 bucks is normal according to my shop-around in SoCal).

3. Call Transport Canada civil aviation to deregister the aircraft, and get them to email you a copy of the deregistration letter (it takes about one week to deregister it). This is pretty straight forward and TC is very helpful when calling them. Remember that you can't fly the aircraft after you deregister it. So, the aircraft must be already in the shop when you submit the deregistration request to TC. Also, I had to explain to TC that the aircraft is not sold, it's just being exported to the U.S. and I'm going to continue owning it in the U.S.

4. Register the aircraft with FAA. They requested an original Bill of Sale from 5 years ago when I first purchased it. It's good to have more than one inked-signed copy of that at home so you can send one to FAA.

5. The shop needs to do an annual inspection and fix any issues they find. An experienced shop would do whatever is needed to issue the airworthiness certificate like adding missing placards, etc.

6. When the shop is done with the annual,  the DAR comes for inspection to issue the airworthiness certificate, this should be a one day job if nothing is wrong that can't be fixed on spot. The DAR will do a thorough inspection and will go line by line through the POH to make sure everything is as said in the POH. This is important because the DAR can halt the process if he finds e.g. a switch not working as said in the POH no matter how unimportant that switch is.

 

I can explain a lot more about the experience and the stressful days and hours I had before and during the DAR's inspection. But my aircraft had no big issues other than some missing placards, some cable straps tightening, and a switch on the panel that was fixed on spot. The DAR issued the airworthiness cert after about 5 hours of inspection. He was very happy that the aircraft is low time and he didn't have to spend a lot of time going through tens of modifications.

Hope it helps those considering buying from Canada.

I also want to thank Clarence @M20Doc and his team (especially Ryan) for supporting me with the maintenance in the past 5 years.

 

 

We’re glad to have been able to help out with the maintenance both remotely and onsite.  Hope you’re able to get used to an N number!

Clarence

[Guest]

17 hours ago, ohdub said:

Clarence and Ryan are both great guys! I feel fortunate to have them as my mechanics!

Thanks!  We’re also lucky to have you in our customer base.

Clarence 

[carusoam]

Those first few flights in IMC with a new tail number have got to be interesting...  

Best regards,

-a-

[RobertGary1]

1 hour ago, M20Doc said:

Thanks!  We’re also lucky to have you in our customer base.

Clarence 

I wonder what the process is the other way around. For some reason I imagine it would be harder to register in canada 

 

-Robert  

[Ario]

2 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

I wonder what the process is the other way around. For some reason I imagine it would be harder to register in canada

I read about it several years ago, and it's not really hard if all modifications are STCed.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

I wonder what the process is the other way around. For some reason I imagine it would be harder to register in canada 

 

-Robert  

The import process into Canada is not more difficult, in fact it mirrors what @Ario wrote above.  

From experience importing US airplanes into Canada, many have horrible log books(scratch pads really), missing STC’s, 337’s and crappy weight and balance reports.  A simple thing would be to number weight and balance amendments sequentially.

Clarence

[Ned Gravel]

On 8/16/2020 at 12:51 AM, ohdub said:

Clarence and Ryan are both great guys! I feel fortunate to have them as my mechanics!

Me too.  Annual is next week.  

[Ario]

2 hours ago, Ned Gravel said:

Me too.  Annual is next week.  

You go all the way from Ottawa to Kitchener, it's well worth the trip.

I used to be based at Rockcliffe with a Cherokee.