Consultations
Headset review
Consultation is key
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Could this be a threat to our Permit to Fly… Steve Slater reports
he word ‘consultation’ seems to be a fashionable buzzword at the moment, whether it is born out in actual listening by those involved is of course another matter. Currently we’ve got more than 20 airspace change consultations on the go, but two recent consultations on other subjects stand out, as they could have potentially serious implications on how we fly in the future.
CAA FUTURE PERMIT AIRWORTHINESS CONSULTATIONS
After much to-ing and fro-ing over an 18-month period, the CAA has moved to a public consultation
stage on their review of the BCAR CAP 553 regulations by which they delegate their authority for permit to fly aircraft airworthiness to the BMAA and LAA. As I wrote in CEO Thoughts last month, both Associations queried the need for this, but were merely told ‘it’s in the programme’.
A bit of background
The LAA (and previously PFA and ULAA) approvals from the CAA date back to 1948, when the first agreements to delegate oversight of aircraft on Permits to Fly were developed with the Ministry of Aviation. Then, in November 2013, after more than three years’ work by a joint CAA Airworthiness and LAA Engineering team, the current A8-26 publication was drawn up for the ‘Approval of Organisations Supporting Recreational Aviation’. The actual agreement is part of a wider CAA regulation, British Civil Airworthiness Requirements, known as BCAR or CAP 553, and its Section A has two segments which are of direct relevance to the LAA and BMAA. Section A3-7 states that it establishes the measures to be taken to ensure that the aircraft remains airworthy and includes details of the maintenance to be carried out. It also specifies the conditions to be met by the persons or organisations involved in such continuing airworthiness management. A8-26 is effectively one step down from this and is the mechanism by which the CAA delegates the oversight privileges to an approved organisation. It is, of course, dependent on each bit of the approval meeting the requirements of A3-7. We then demonstrate our compliance with A8-26 by the production of a comprehensive Exposition and Engineering Procedures Manual (EPM), to which we are regularly audited, either internally via our Quality Manager ‘Taff’ Stone, or externally by CAA Surveyors.
The devil is in the detail
So, what’s being changed and why is it important? While all of this may appear as dull as ditchwater at first sight, these documents regulate the whole airworthiness oversight processes of both the BMAA and LAA, and some of the changes will likely fundamentally change the way we process, in particular, Permit renewals. If they go ahead in their present form, they may also lead to added costs as 34 | LIGHT AVIATION | May 2021
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