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Is it necessary to make an AFMS fit inside the POH (and can the POH be electronic)?

For each installed feature (of significance) there is an approved flight manual supplement and this has to be printed out, hole-punched and fitted into the pilot operating handbook.

That is the standard process for mods on a certified aircraft. The POH has defined sections, so a pilot can find the stuff where he expects it to be.

Now… what if the AFMS is too big to fit into the POH, or is supplied in a format which after messing around for hours you cannot find any way to print so it fits into the AFMS?

Can it be “a part of the POH” while separately bound?

I have actually done it but it did take me several hours to work out how, and it was finally done by cutting up A4 paper into A5 sheets and putting them into an adjustable tray on a duplex-capable inkjet printer. I could not find any way to print it on a duplex laser (it would not feed A5). Neither printer would print A5 onto A4 such that the 2-sided prints aligned front to back. The AFMS was supplied as a PDF with each PDF page containing two pages, like this

I can see various esoteric ways of doing it, and some crude ones like doing screenshots and combining and printing those, but frankly I can’t see anyone who does aircraft maintenance for a living being into IT at that level

So, can it be a separate physical publication?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

So, can it be a separate physical publication?

For EASA, yes. (At least if Sweden applies the correct EASA procedures.) Each aircraft has a reference sheet which lists all the parts of the approved POH.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 13 Mar 05:54
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

I don’t know of any regulation that requires a flight manual supplement to be physically bound in the same book. I have a POH that the manufacturer provided and an 8 1/2 by 11 binder with other AFMS materials. The title of the binder is displayed on an Insert to the binder outer cover that says, Flight Manual Supplements, Volume 2. The only portion that carries regulatory weight is section 2, limitations. Everything else is advisory.

KUZA, United States

For EASA you can have the AFM and all supplements in digital format, so just merge the PDFs and store it on the obligatory tablet…

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Many thanks all. It seems clear that it can just be a separate booklet.

I would not keep it electronically because that will work as long as the batteries keep going… I wonder if electronics storage of these has come up in FAA-land? I know airlines are moving towards this but they have individual approvals for procedures – as well as having to carry in some cases hundreds of kg of manuals.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

From the most current version of AC 120-76D Authorization for Use of Electronic Flight Bags:

APPENDIX B. TYPE B ELECTRONIC FLIGHT BAG (EFB) APPLICATIONS
B.1 Type B EFB Applications.
1. Airplane Flight Manuals (AFM) (or Rotorcraft Flight Manuals (RFM)) and Airplane Flight Manual Supplement (AFMS) (or Rotorcraft Flight Manual Supplement (RFMS)).

KUZA, United States

If I may add another question: Is it acceptable to reformat the POH and its AFMS? Because with all the additions you get differently designed and typeset documents and would it be OK to reformat them to get the same look? Or is the signed original the only real original allowable? And for the digital represenation would then an interactive format (e.g. HTML) be allowed as well instead of a poor PDF scan?

To be honest with the quality of some POHs (e.g. german translation of C172), a reviewed version by a third party would in any respect be even superior to the original. ;-)

P19 EDFE EDVE EDDS

I don’t know if there are any regs on this (FAA or EASA) but in 2011 when I was doing the field approval for the Sandel SN3500 installation, the ACO which was separately processing the AFMS approval wanted a sample of the existing POH layout and they wanted the new AFMS to match that.

I did not get any similar request on two subsequent field approvals – the KLN94 GPS approach authorisation, and the B&C backup alternator. Those used an AFMS straight out of the back of the respective IM (installation manual).

Sure; a lot of AFMSs are copies of copies of copies and of poor quality, especially where the STC is 20-30 years old, as so many in GA are. The original is sometimes a typewritten document because it pre-dates desktop computers. One can rightly take the p1ss out of this but it shows the decades-long continuity which the US GA scene has enjoyed. You could install a 30 year old STC today… just do it and send the 337 to the FAA.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
8 Posts
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