How did we ever manage to maintain our aircraft before the advent of Part-M?
From what I see at the companies I work for, they allready did do the work, and keep the cardex and all maintenance data upto date. The difference was that if something went wrong that the owner was responsible for an error made by someone else. With a CAMO this responsibility has changed. It can be an advantage if the aircraft stays within a controlled environment that the ARC renewal could be easier. Without a CAMO this ARC renewal is slightly more work.
On can for sure keep it’s own technicall administration, many owners don’t seem to bother with that. It takes quite some work if you want to keep everything up to date. Some just kept it the way it was in the past, having the maintenance company doing the technicall administration and take responsbility themselfs.
Again no need to use a CAMO if you don’t want to (for non commercial).
How did we ever manage to maintain our aircraft before the advent of Part-M?
I’m sure it was an overwhelming nightmare 
These are the scheduled maintenance operations for the more complex of my two C of A planes:
Annual Inspection per FAR (required by FAA)
ELT battery (two years, required by FAA)
Engine mount AD inspection (100 hrs, required by FAA)
Engine oil/filter change (I like 25 hrs or not too much longer, required by me)
Wheel bearing grease (annually, required by me)
Airframe lube (annually, required by me)
Magneto service (500 hrs, required by me)
The rest is on condition, and I keep a close eye on my stuff – that’s my maintenance program. My maintenance logs are close to hand if I need to double check when I and/or my A&P last did something, either scheduled or not. I would never under any circumstance give my logs to anybody, or negotiate with anybody how I maintain my property. The culture clash between EASA-think and the way most GA aircraft in the world are successfully maintained could not be much greater.
Silvaire, it is not much different in EASA land only that a few more manufacturer “recommendations” are mandatory. Typically that’s two or three items for a SEP. The rest is all on condition. It depends a lot on the national CAA, Germany is probably the most lenient in that almost everything can be on condition with only subtle differences to FAA land. In my aircraft it’s the aux fuel pump which has a 12 year limit although the aircraft doesn’t need it (therefore it hurts so much to replace it). All the rest even including hoses, vacuum pump, engine, propeller, seat belts, etc. are on condition.
I obviously don’t have a CAMO (useless overhead for the involved private pilot) and while the number of paper sheets generated has increased, the process has not changed. The workshop maintains a database with all timed items of the aircraft as well as an AD database and prints out everything every year. I would estimate it to be about half an hour to an hour of work every year, judging by how much time the guy spends on his office with my documents. The ARC is issued directly by the same guy who checks the work I’ve done on the 100/200h check together with a mechanic. I think it’s been like that for decades…
The biggest issue BY FAR is and has always been companies ticking boxes and not actually doing the work, or doing the work badly.
EASA and every national CAA before them is highly aware of this, but they are powerless because the GA maintenance industry is (apart from the firms which are also sales outlets for new aircraft) not making much money anyway, and they don’t want to destroy a business which is paying them 4 or 5 figure licensing fees every year.
No amount of paperwork or CAMO supervision will make up for this problem.
I see the same in my business (electronics) where the sham of ISO9000 was introduced to improve quality but in fact all the firms which made crap before it make exactly the same crap after it.
The GA industry gets away with it without lots of maintenance induced crashes because it is almost impossible for a plane to crash due to that and because very few pilots fly high up, etc. You more or less need a wing etc to fall right off. And that happens rarely because loosening wing attachment bolts is not a usual maintenance task…
With helicopters it is very different and there is a very different mindset in their maintenance, but you pay for it accordingly. There are large numbers of lifed parts for example.
I get asked almost daily by email, by some owner tearing his hair out and telling me some utter horror story about some company (often a well known one praised in some pilot forum) if I can recommend a good company. But this is difficult because it is so obvious that so many companies have Team A Team B Team C and you have no idea which one you will get when you bring your plane in. There are very good firms out there but there is no obvious process for finding them.
Peter wrote:
the sham of ISO9000 was introduced to improve quality but in fact all the firms which made crap before it make exactly the same crap after it.
But that’s exactly the point of ISO 9000, isn’t it. “Quality” in this sense doesn’t mean “good” but "according to specifications. Not less but also not more.
But that’s exactly the point of ISO 9000, isn’t it. “Quality” in this sense doesn’t mean “good” but "according to specifications. Not less but also not more.
Yes, but nobody with a straight face will
It’s like me selling you my plane, while telling you it is free of defects, and then giving you an ISO9000 Certificate of Conformity which also says it is free of defects
The only achievement there is that if you are an ISO9000 quality manager, you will now sleep soundly in the sure knowledge that you bought a plane free of defects.
It’s a very European approach to quality management. You certify the organisation to operate a certain process and issue CofCs saying they have done that. But if they don’t follow it, nothing can possibly happen (in practice).
If I was ISO9000 (actually I am not; I just lost interest some years ago even though we could get it done for about 5k by a consultant) then I could put in my Quality Manual that all my products will self destruct within 12 months. If they actually did that, nobody could strip off my ISO9000 certification. The product would be useless, of course.
In the same way, a MO will always tick all the boxes on the work sheets.
The basic issue is that when dealing with a company (rather than an individual) you (usually) never know, and you formally never know, who actually did the actual work. In the FAA system, non 145 scenario, you deal with individuals, not companies.
So when you get this (see under “Installer Performance”) you can’t tell who actually did it. I have a fairly good idea who did it but (a) can’t be at all sure and (b) cannot avoid him for the next job.
And to prove a point, I had an MO, who, faced with scrapping an ex RAF aeroplane, and losing a number of years of lucrative maintenance, (ha,ha), due to fatigue index, and total life on a starboard wing, changed the total life, from 15500, to 16000, and the aeroplane flew on for the additional 500 hours, some four years, each time being maintained by the ISO registered MO. Each time signed off, by the Maitenanace Manager, who changed the lifed time, in the first place.
No replacement wings could be bought.
The CAA, were aware, and knew about it, but chose to ignore…..
Oh, and I still have the actual piece of paperwork in my possession. Should frame it..
EASA and every national CAA before them is highly aware of this, but they are powerless because the GA maintenance industry is (apart from the firms which are also sales outlets for new aircraft) not making much money anyway, and they don’t want to destroy a business which is paying them 4 or 5 figure licensing fees every year. No amount of paperwork or CAMO supervision will make up for this problem.
It took me a while, years ago, to understand why there are only a couple of aircraft maintenance companies (with facilities etc) working on small single engined planes in my corner of FAA land… and not doing a lot of work, really only on new, complex high spec planes. It’s because the market has eliminated them. Aircraft ownership has instead become a thing for involved, technical owners working with independent mechanics. Flight schools hire their own mechanics. It works OK, the aircraft were designed for it and the overhead is reduced. FAA encouraged the market by long ago eliminating airworthiness certificate renewals and other office work.
BeechBaby, a lot of those “ex-RAF planes” with expiring wings fly on in FAA Experimental category, probably not doing a lot of hours in individual ownership, and I imagine providing their owners with some pleasure. Same thing with Yak 50s IIRC. I don’t recall either ever having had a wing failure – the life was spec’d by manufacturers doing 70s era fatigue calcs. If there ever is a failure, I imagine the market will figure out how best to react – as it did for T-34s.
Silvaire, absolutely, and in fact that is a common sense approach to all of this.The Experimental Cat. Problem, and the, ‘what I was getting at’, is the system, and how ludicrous it can be. Now, with ISO9000 SOP, and under a CofA, the MO changed the paperwork, to suit themselves. Forget Part M, CAMO, ISO blah blah. They hid under the banner of Quality, which in fact, did not exist. This the same outfit, who did not do a log book entry for an interior upgrade on an aeroplaneof mine, and when the DAR asked to see the certs and log book, transferring to FAA, they denied they had done the work. I caught them out by producing the invoice they had given me for the work, but no other record existed. And as all good stories go, they then tried to deny they had raised the invoice…..when caught out again, copy of cheque, they then said the Inspector was freelance, and did it as a favour, not related to the company…..I am now in FAA land with everything, and use my own independent mechanic, and I/A. Works superbly I might add.
This thread contains more words than I exchange with my CAMO every year. I send them my hours, hey send me a precise list of what has to be done and keep track of all SBs, ADs and that kind of stuff. And they send me the necessary parts that have to be changed.All very simple and comfortable.
