A Guide to Commenting on the Repair Station Rule

November 13, 2012 by Leave a comment

Don’t forget that the deadline for commenting on the FAA proposed rule concerning repair stations is approaching quickly.

This rule will likely affect most ASA members, whether directly (because the member is also a repair station) or indirectly (affecting repair station customers or affecting repair stations that the member uses as repair vendors).

AEA has just published an article that I wrote about why the industry should comment on the proposed rule, and how to go about commenting.  The article can be found online.

After explaining why and how to comment, the article examines some of the issues rasied by the rule, and offers a radical alternative to ratings … the elimination of the ratings system in favor of reliance on the already-common capabilties list system.  The article examines several other issues raised by the proposal.

This is a rule on which every member of the industry should file comments.  Comments on the proposed rule are due to the FAA by November 19, and should reference dockste number FAA-2006-26408.  Click here to comment!

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SBA Repair Station Meeting Rescheduled

November 1, 2012 by Leave a comment

The Small Business Administration roundtable to discuss the FAA’s proposed Aviation Repair Station Rule – postponed due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy – has been rescheduled for Monday, November 5, 2012, from 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

The proposed rule, which the FAA claims is necessary to keep pace with current industry standards and practices, is expected to have a secondary effect on repair station customers and business partners. This includes aircraft parts distributors.  The SBA has recognized that there is significant small business interested in the proposed rule, and will typically write and file comments in response to industry concerns.

Those interested in attending the roundtable should RSVP to Bruce Lundegren via email.  A dial in conference call option may also be available with advanced request.  If you wish to dial in, contact Bruce Lundegren so that SBA can make the appropriate arrangements.

SBA Contact Information:

Bruce E. Lundegren, Assistant Chief Counsel, SBA Office of Advocacy
U.S. Small Business Administration
409 3rd St. SW, Washington, DC 20416
tel: (202) 205-6144
email: bruce.lundegren@sba.gov

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SBA Repair Station Meeting Postponed!

October 29, 2012 by 1 Comment

The Small Business Administration’s small business roundtable to discuss the FAA’s proposed Aviation Repair Station rule has been postponed due to the severe weather effects of Hurricane Sandy.  The meeting will be rescheduled in the next couple of days.

The FAA’s proposed rule would revise the system of ratings, repair station certification requirements, the regulations on repair stations providing maintenance for air carriers, and even the way that repair stations record maintenance.  The rule is expected to have a secondary affect on repair station customers and business partners, including aircraft parts distributors.

The SBA has recognized the potential effects of the rule changes on small businesses and originally scheduled a roundtable meeting on October 30, 2012, to discuss the changes. Typically, the SBA will file comments to address industry concerns.  The roundtable is an excellent opportunity to make your concerns heard.  ASA will also submit comments on the proposed rule.

The ASA blog has periodically offered updates on the proposed Aviation Repair Station rule and will post an update when the SBA meeting is rescheduled.  Those interested in attending the rescheduled roundtable should RSVP to Bruce Lundgren via email.  A conference call option is usually available upon request.  If you wish to dial in, contact Bruce Lundgren in advance so that SBA can make the appropriate arrangements (but please wait until after the hurricane has passed and the federal Government is open again).

SBA Contact Information:

Bruce E. Lundegren, Assistant Chief Counsel, SBA Office of Advocacy
U.S. Small Business Administration
409 3rd St. SW, Washington, DC 20416
tel: (202) 205-6144
email: bruce.lundegren@sba.gov

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Repair Station Rule to Require Recertification

October 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

Many in the industry have been weighing-in on the FAA proposed rule concerning repair stations.  Many people feel that the proposed rule would increase costs without achieving correlative safety benefits.  This is bad for repair stations and it is bad for those distributors and air carriers who rely on repair stations.

There are many details to the proposal that have caused concern in the industry.  One of those is that the rule would require recertification of repair stations, without achieving any safety benefit.

The proposed rule would require that certificated repair stations surrender their existing certificates and have them replaced with new certificates under the new regulatory scheme.  This seems like a tremendous burden on the industry, and it appears to be entirely unnecessary.  This burden is important to repair stations, but it is also important to distributors and air carriers who rely on repair stations as business partners.

There are statutory standards that apply to modification of certificates.  44 US 44709 explains that the FAA may modify a certificate if the modification is required by (a) safety in air commerce or air transportation and (b) the public interest.  The language of the statute refers to orders of the Administrator, but this language may preclude regulatory changes that are inconsistent with the standards that apply to orders.

The proposed rule admits that the potential benefits of the rule are difficult to quantify, and it explains that that the potential benefits are as follows:

(1) Giving the FAA authority to

(a) deny a repair station certificate to an applicant whose past performance resulted in a revocation, and

(b) revoke all FAA issued certificates held by any person who makes fraudulent or intentionally false entries or records;

(2) defining what operations specifications are and providing a well-defined process for both industry and the FAA to amend them; and

(3) updating the ratings system.”  77 Fed. Reg. 30072.

Based on the FAA’s list of reasons for this change, there appears to be no safety justification for the recertification requirement.

None of the three stated benefits of the rule require the administrative burden of revoking or sun-setting existing repair station certificates.  Each one could be accomplished through a less onerous method.  Therefore revocation and replacement of existing certificates is unnecessary.

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Small Business Meeting on Repair Station Rule

October 18, 2012 by 1 Comment

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published a major proposed revision to the Repair Stations rules in the Federal Register on May 21, 2012.  FAA’s proposed rule would amend FAA regulations for aviation repair stations by revising the system of ratings, repair station certification requirements, the regulations on repair stations providing maintenance for air carriers, and even the way that repair stations record maintenance.  The rule is expected to have a secondary affect on repair station customers and business partners, including aircraft parts distributors.

The FAA has stated that the proposed rule is necessary because portions of the existing repair station regulations do not reflect current repair station aircraft maintenance and business practices, or advances in aircraft technology, and that the proposed rule would modernize FAA regulations to keep pace with current industry standards and practices.

The comment period for the proposed rule was scheduled to close on August 20, 2012; however, FAA extended the comment period until November 19, 2012.

The Small Business Administration has recognized that there is significant small business interest in this proposed rule.  Therefore, the SBA Office of Advocacy will host a roundtable meeting to discuss the proposed rule.  Typically, SBA will write and file a comment in response to industry concerns, and these comments tend to carry significant weight, so this is an excellent opportunity to get your voice heard on the issues that matter to you.

The meeting will be held at SBA on Tuesday, October 30, 2012 from 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. in the 7th Floor Conference Room.  SBA is located at 409 Third Street, SW Washington, DC 20416 (at the Federal Center SW Metro stops on the Orange and Blue lines).

This meeting is open to the public.  Please RSVP to Bruce Lundgren by email if you would like to attend the roundtable meeting.  A conference call in option is usually available upon request – if you would like to dial-in to participate, please contact Bruce Lundgren before the date of the meeting so he can make appropriate arrangements.

SBA Contact Information:

Bruce E. Lundegren, Assistant Chief Counsel, SBA Office of Advocacy
U.S. Small Business Administration
409 3rd St. SW, Washington, DC 20416
tel: (202) 205-6144
email: bruce.lundegren@sba.gov

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Proposed Part 145 Could Eliminate Spot Repairs and Increase the Cost of Many Repairs

July 17, 2012 by Leave a comment

There are a number of problems with the FAA’s proposed revisions to the repair station rules.  One of those problems is that it could essentially do away with spot repairs.  As a matter of practice, it could require repair stations to overhaul parts every time they get them.  The reason for this is because of a subtle change in the quality system rules.

The current rule for those performing repairs is that they must ensure that the work performed is done correctly.  See 14 C.F.R. 43.9(a)(4) (signature constitutes approval for return to service only for the work performed).  But if their workscope does not encompass a finding of airworthiness for the entire article, then they do not need to also verify the airworthiness of the entire article.

I once represented a repair station that was asked to perform a simple alteration to a helicopter.  In their due diligence, they discovered that an AD was necessary for the rotorcraft.  When they called the owner, though, the owner said that they already had a contract with another repair station to have the AD work performed.  As a matter of their own due diligence and good record-keeping, they made a note that they had communicated to the owner that additional AD work was necessary before the rotorcraft flew.  An FAA inspector saw this note and brought an enforcement action against the repair station for failing to ensure that the entire rotorcraft was airworthy.  We were able to quickly get the enforcement action dismissed because the approval for return to service was limited only to the work accomplished, and not the work that was not described.  But this illustrates the issue –

Proposed 145.1211(a) would impose a burden on the repair station’s quality system to ensure the airworthiness of each article on which the repair station works.  Although based on existing quality system language, it could preclude spot repairs, and essentially require an overhaul in every component repair situation, in order to be able to ensure the airworthiness of the article.

§ 145.1211 Quality control system.

(a) A certificated repair station must establish and maintain a quality control system acceptable to the FAA that ensures the airworthiness of the articles on which the repair station or any of its contractors performs maintenance, preventive maintenance, or alterations.

Let’s look at this from a practical point of view.  A distributor has an overhauled avionics unit in their inventory.  The OEM issues a software upgrade.  The distributor wants to send the unit to a local avionics repair station for the sole purpose of installing the software upgrade.  The distributor does not want to pay for a complete overhaul of the unit, and a complete overhaul of the unit is not necessary.  But the local repair station performing the software upgrade would not be able to ensure the airworthiness of the component without performing a complete overhaul.  At first glance, this seems foolish, and some people might ask “why can’t the repair station simply rely on the approval for return to service from the earlier overhaul?”  The repair station is responsible for making its own findings.  The repair station is not automatically allowed to rely on the earlier approval for return to service because that sort of reliance would reflect a form of subcontracting (which is not permitted unless the task was approved in their subcontracting task list (14 C.F.R. 217(a)(1)) and the vendor is listed in their approved maintenance subcontracting vendor list (14 C.F.R. 217(a)(2))).

The proposed rule can be found at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-05-21/pdf/2012-11984.pdf

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FAA Releases Repair Station Rules

May 21, 2012 by 1 Comment

Today, the FAA issued a significant new proposed rule for repair stations.

The proposed rule would change the ratings system for repair stations. The following table comes from the new proposed rule, and it illustrates the proposed way that the ratings system is expected to changed.

Current Proposed
Airframe Class:

1. Composite Small

2. Composite Large

3. All-Metal Small

4. All-Metal Large

 

 Airframe Category:

1. Aircraft certificated under part 23 or 27.

2. Aircraft certificated under part 25 or 29.

3. All other aircraft.
Powerplant Class:

1. Reciprocating Engines of 400 HP or less.

2. Reciprocating Engines of more than 400 HP

3. Turbine Engines.

 Powerplant Category:

1. Reciprocating engines.

2. Turbine engines.

3. Auxiliary Power Units.

4. All other powerplants.

 
Propeller Class:

1. All Fixed and Ground-Adjustable

2. All other propellers.

 

 Propeller Category:

1. Fixed-pitch and ground-adjustable propellers.

2. Variable-pitch propellers.

3. All other propellers.

 
Radio Class:

1. Communication.

2. Navigation.

3. Radar.

 

 Component.
Instrument Class:

1. Mechanical.

2. Electrical.

3. Gyroscopic.

4. Electronic.

 

 Component.
Accessory Class:.

1. Mechanical.

2. Electrical.

3. Electronic.

 

 Component
Limited Rating Specialized Service.

 

 Specialized Service.
Limited Ratings (§ 145.61(b) lists 12 possible limited ratings). Eliminated.

 

The most significant difference is that FAA is proposing a new “Component” rating that would replace the Radio, Instrument, and Accessory ratings.

The proposed “Component” rating would allow repair stations to work components that are not installed on an airframe, powerplant, or propeller (bench work).  A repair station with a Component rating would be required to have an Airframe, Powerplant, or Propeller rating to install components or appliances. The FAA expects that such a product-level rating would be limited to only installation and removal.

The preamble to the rule states that the FAA expects that Component-rated repair stations would have a list of their components in their operations specifications.  In light of the difficulty now faced by some repair stations in amending their operations specifications, keeping the component list in the op specs would likely make it very difficult for a component repair station to add new components to their list of permissible components, which in turn would probably cause many smaller component shops to stagnate as new products come out but the operations specification amendment process limited their ability to add them as capabilities.

The FAA will accept public comments on the proposed rule through August 20, 2012.  Comments should reference FAA Docket Number “FAA–2006–26408.”

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