The Minister Does It Again

I am providing this preamble to clarify my usage of abbreviations, etc. These abbreviations are all commonly used in the aviation industry and you may come upon them in your day-to-day work.

Preamble and Acronyms
(Italicized type denotes a quotation.) CAR: Canadian Aviation Regulation, which is a law of Canada; CofA: Certificate of Airworthiness; EASA: European Aviation Safety Agency; FAA: Federal Aviation Administration; FAR: Federal Aviation Regulation (FAA); ICA: Instructions for Continued Airworthiness (including maintenance manuals et al); STC: Supplemental Type Certificate; STD: TC-approved standard; TATC: Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada; TSB: Transportation Safety Board of Canada; TC or minister or “tower of darkness” or “the Tower” indicates Transport Canada headquarters in Ottawa; TC Data Sheet: Type Certificate Data Sheet; TC Holder: Type Certificate Holder/Owner; USA: United States of America.

Here we go again. The minister of transport (TC, or the minister) has once again fulfilled my dearest hope for a topic. His latest Aviation Safety Letter (TP 185E, Issue 1/2013) includes, in its standard “Maintenance and Certification” slot, a composition about Canada’s Bilateral Agreement with the USA and their FAA. The article does give some good general information, but highlights one of my constant issues with the minister’s constant state of nescience radiating from the Tower of Darkness at 330 Sparks Street in Ottawa. From Sparks we receive no “scanty flame of the lamps that struggle against the darkness.” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton).

From that article, I quote that famous and irritating advice emanating from the tower: “Canadian AMO are encouraged to contact their local TCC or TCCA regional office regarding the procedures and requirements of the MIP should they be looking to perform maintenance on U.S. registered aircraft or components meant for installation thereon.” (The minister likes that word “thereon”.)

That is TC’s standard bureaucratese for “we don’t know what to tell you but we are sure that the inspectors can figure out something”. The minister has six regions, dozens of “centres” and a bountiful supply of “procedures and requirements”. What information you get depends on where you live and which inspector you talk to. Always take doughnuts. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has guidance for a supplement but the FAA doesn’t have anything I can find, nor does TC. In my humble opinion, the minister ought to step up and give us some help with a useful FAA supplement guide containing sample wording. The minister approves these supplements, so he ought to tell us in writing what he wants. Yes I know, the minister is not reading this, and I know that no one in TC is going to tell him anything about this. That’s the “Plausible Deniability” rule that governs all communication in The Tower and government in general.

There is the “sample manual” that TC has on their internet site which is of minimal help, but that’s another rant that deserves its own space. Speaking of rants reminds me of another topic. Canadian Aviation Regulation (CAR) 571 and Standard (STD) 571 are in focus. The CAR is the law, and the STD is the minister telling you how to comply with the CAR.

CAR 571.09 states:

(1) No person shall install a used life-limited part on an aeronautical product unless the part meets the standards of airworthiness applicable to the installation of life-limited parts; and
(a) the technical history of the part within the meaning of Section 571.09 of the Airworthiness Manual is available to show that the time in service authorized for that part in the type certificate governing the installation has not been exceeded; and
(b) the history referred to in paragraph (a) is incorporated into the technical record for the aeronautical product on which the part is installed.

STD 571.09 Installation and Disposal of Life-Limited Parts states in part:

Pursuant to section 571.09 of the CARs, life-limited parts and assemblies incorporating life-limited parts shall:
(a) have a technical history that includes the total time in service of the life-limited part; and
(b) be installed in accordance with section 571.13 of this standard.

Information Notes:
(i) The technical history, referred to in (a), may be limited to providing the traceability of the part to the previous airframe, engine, propeller, appliance, or component from which it was removed, or from which the technical history was obtained.

Regarding paragraph (i) above, nobody with any significant aviation experience or knowledge would write that balderdash which contradicts the CAR. That pernicious advice could lead industry members directly to court a visit from the TSB and a session with the TATC. My advice to you is “DON’T DO IT” with emphasis. Always demand the full technical history and component card that goes back to zero. That has always been the standard procedure followed by all reputable people.
Another strange and contrary bit of advice is found in STD 571.10(4) the Types of Work table item (c) that states as follows:

Types Of Work
(c) Non-destructive Testing (NDT)
Information Note:
Where NDT has been performed, but where the inspection findings have not yet been assessed against the published limits, a maintenance release shall not be signed in respect to the NDT requirement. Hence, a maintenance release is only required where disassembly and reassembly were involved to provide the access necessary for the inspection.

Applicable Standards Of Airworthiness (related to the above)
That the inspection findings have been analysed and any defect or discontinuity noted in the inspection findings supplied by the person performing the NDT is within the manufacturer’s published limits for that aeronautical product.

This means that NDT AMOs do not provide maintenance releases for any of the NDT inspections that they do. You, the AME or AMO first remove a part and send it to an NDT AMO for NDT inspection. You get the part back with a bit of paper with some statement that mumbles “NDT IAW ASTM etc.” but without a maintenance release. After you reassemble the aircraft, engine or other product, you sign the standard maintenance release for the work entered into the record. So you are on the hook for the maintenance release for NDT. Likewise if you are a non-specialized AMO who hires an NDT AMO to X-ray a wing or do other on site work. When the NDT technician leaves, all you get is a nod, a wink and a “thanks for the tea and crumpets”.

In my view, NDT is the same as any other inspection.
An AME or AMO does a required inspection, records the findings, and “signs off” that inspection was done per the applicable airworthiness requirements. Repair and modification actions are extra. The NDT AMO uses the instructions stated in the maintenance manual, service bulletin or airworthiness directive to set up the specialized equipment, to use that equipment, to record any discontinuities such as cracks. They then provide the record of that inspection with the noted discontinuities, followed by maintenance release. That is needed by the product owner, the non-specialized AMO, and required by all civilized nations.

We could ask the minister to get rid of this type of direction that is directly detrimental to safety. I would send a Civil Aviation Issues Reporting System (who-CAIRS) report to The Tower but I see that as more futile than reporting bogus parts or reporting that the sky is falling. We can’t expect the minister to understand that because he is protected from reality by his loyal and upwardly mobile mandarins. TC can’t even get its advisory material up to date.

Now for something completely different. In my previous article I went in depth explaining the “type certificate data sheet”. To follow up on that, I examine some related points.

I have often seen it written and heard it stated, that an aircraft must comply with its type certificate. This assumption is very commonly held but is wrong. Very few aircraft literally comply with their type certificates. In our last issue I described how this certificate is issued to a person or a company that becomes the “certificate holder”. Remember that term. The factory builds the aircraft to conform to that design specified in the type certificate. For the sake of this discussion, that new aircraft comes out of the factory and off to the new owner.

The new owner flies around a bit and decides to change something and installs an STC or after-market part. Now the aircraft no longer conforms to that type certificate that the TC Holder has. Likewise with after-market repair design approvals. In line with this view, the Canadian CofA application form now states:

I hereby certify that the aircraft described above has been inspected and found to conform to its approved type designation and is in a fit state for flight.

The term “type designation” has been loosely used in other documents but has not been defined. The term “type design” is defined in CAR 101.01 and refers to “aeronautical product”, which includes aircraft and the aircraft parts. Loosely used, one might say it refers to all parts on the aircraft addressed in design approval certificates such as STCs.
That brings us to Airworthiness Notice B073 Documentation Required for the Installation of Parts onto Canadian Registered Aircraft. Specifically, I refer to the document that you receive with an STC. Some individuals have assumed that a copy of the STC document is what they needed. Wrong. All that certificate indicates is that the STC was issued. You must get a release document that indicates that it came from a company approved to manufacture the product.

In Canada, you can check on company approvals by going to the TC Applications web site at “http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/opssvs/applications-537.htm”. Then go to “Approved/Accepted Organizations” and then to “Manufacturer” and look for the company that you want to check up on. I have not been able to find that same information at the FAA website.

I did contact one FAA office regarding approval of a company to manufacture a product, but that office couldn’t tell me because the approved product list was in a letter sent to the company. If the FAA can’t give you that approval information, then I suggest that you get the manufacturer to send to you some proof that it is approved to manufacture.
Your final and best line of defence is the manufacturer’s Authorized Release Certificate for new manufactured products. Canada, the USA and the EASA all have rules and regulations in place regarding use of these documents. The Canadian Form One, the FAA 8130-3 and the EASA Form-One all follow the same agreed format.

For new products, box 11 states “New”, box 13 contains the certification/release and box 14 is not used and must be struck out or darkly shaded. You ought to demand that the manufacturer send these certification forms with their products. You, I and the judge call that “due care”. On another note, some news reports at “canada.com” have been focussing on the evolving regulatory oversight, or lack thereof, of the aviation industry in Canada. Try to make sense of this statement by another government mandarin:

“We felt that it doesn’t make sense to have one way of inspecting an SMS company and another way of inspecting a non-SMS company,” Transport Canada assistant deputy minister of safety and security (name deleted) said in an interview. Having been recently promoted from the TC Boats Branch he is just not familiar with the way aviation people hear. Nobody seems to know who is going to be thrown under the train when this SMS bologna fails. They just keep playing musical chairs until the music stops.

What is the reality of all this move to SMS? That it saves money seems to be the only known fact. Everything else is hot air for now. I agree with the concept of companies examining themselves for problems, but I do not agree with the opting out by TC. My issue with the whole program is that it is a huge experiment. The program of normal government audits, inspections and other oversight is gone. They, whoever they are, have done away with safety oversight and have substituted SMS without knowing what the results are going to be. All we have is new and untried SMS “visits”. Most experiments done in the modern world involve lab rats that will grow warts or die when things go wrong.

SMS is an experiment on a grand scale far too complex for lab rats to undertake, so the Canadian government uses humans. I don’t like being treated like a rat. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand or care – something that senior government leaders know this from experience. With the money that we save at TC, we can fund the recent pay increases for the members of parliament and senators.

Now for something completely different, we go back to the topic of type certificates, basis of certification, and aircraft categories. This affects those AMEs signing off work on medium- size aircraft. Looking at the CofA for your aircraft, you will see a block for Category. Categories are specified in the TC data sheet and are usually listed as Normal, Commuter, or Transport. As I mentioned before, the TC data sheet will specify the aircraft category and the “Basis of Certification”. Going to the basis of certification for most of you means going to the FAA website, although Canada has equivalent documents. In most cases, those in the Normal and Commuter category refer to FAR 23 for fixed wing aircraft and 27 for rotor wing, and in the Transport category FAR 25 for fixed wing and FAR 29 for rotor wing.

This can be most confusing in the commuter category. Our example here is the Beechcraft 300 series Super King Air. You will note that the Model 300 was certified in 1984 in the normal category under SFAR 41C (Special FAR). The B300 was certified in 1989 in the commuter category under FAR 23. SFAR 41C was an interim regulation to allow the certification of larger aircraft without requiring them to meet the more stringent and demanding FAR 25 for transport category aircraft. In 1987, between the certification of the Model 300 and the Model B300, the requirements of SFAR 41C were incorporated into FAR 23. This became the commuter category. We now see aircraft that are in many ways identical but certified in different categories. This may answer some of the questions regarding TC’s advisory AN C004 and AME licenses in the M1 category.

In the next issue of AirMaintenance Update, I will try to tackle the topic that I have heard proposed: “Log Books Made Easy”. That’s the same as everything; it’s easy if you know how – just like the Space Station, the Large Hadron Collider, and good apple pie. We’ll examine the authoritarian direction being implemented by Transport Canada, twisting and misusing the law to intimidate the aviation industry that they know so little about.

With that thought, I leave you until next time with the hope that you will all remain well and have the confidence that the minister of transport will continue to provide me with topics that I can gently point out and bring to your attention.  That’s all for now, so until next time, study those Data Sheets and be skeptical.

Please be aware that I am not a lawyer or a legal expert. What I write in my column is not legal advice or legal opinion. If you face a legal issue, you must get specific legal advice from a lawyer, and preferably one with experience in aviation matters that arise in your own country.