In this months (UK) AOPA magazine Martin Robinson the Chief Executive outlines his diary, one of the meetings he has had has been with AOPA Germany and the UK CAA to discuss the option of putting aircraft from Germany on to the UK register to avoid the way the German Authorites are administering the SID’s checks.
This seems at odds with the level playing field that EASA is intended to be.
One can only assume that moving the aircraft to the UK register would involve using the EASA non compliant LAMP maintenance program.I have to ask if this is a good move in the light of the fact that LAMP is likely to be replaced by the manufacturers maintenance program to enable the UK to become EASA compliant. It follows that when the UK ditches LAMP all the Cessna’s will have to follow the manufacturers maintanence program or the owners write their own program that has to demonstrate equivalent safety.
Comments from the floor please, the German view to this move by AOPA would I think be most interesting.
From what I have read the German SID problem is caused by the LBA directly and in contradiction and conflict with EASA’s own intentions and clarification on the matter.
You are right that this is at odds with the level playing field EASA is supposed to provide.
In the view of that, it is the question whether the German actions actually violate European law. Unfortunately, until this is decided and actions taken if appropriate, German Cessna owners are de facto held hostage by the LBA.
Personally I feel the LBA is shooting themselfs in the foot with this but it may be a while until they get sorted out. In the mean time it appears to be that moving registers is one of several possibilities. Others seem to include getting the SID’s “done” and documented in places outside Germany who offer this kind of service.
Jan Brill of Pilot und Flugzeug has written some excellent material on the subject of the LBA’s current situation on the Pilot und Flugzeug website as well as in the currrent issue of Pilot und Flugzeug. Amongst other issues, he takes up the SID problem, licencing problems and others. It appears that it is not a particularly good time right now to be under German register or being a pilot relying on the LBA for their licencing issues.
I believe that on the formal level LBA is correct and CAA is incorrect, violating EU law. The way MA 3.0.2 is written, it is not possible to declare the Cessna SIDs to be “within the owner’s discretion”. There is nothing in the wording that would allow that. EASA are a bunch of hypocrites, pretending the CAAs are to be blamed for the SIDs. EASA neither originated the law (it is not a law making body) nor is it responsible for its implementation, that is entirely up to the national governments.
Having said that, requiring the SID is utterly stupid and counterproductive. The correct solution is to modify Part M to enable owners to have the discretion. Right now owners benefit from the CAA’s deliberate violation of EU law and can only hope that it will hold up until (if) Part M gets replaced by something that doesn’t take the “this is how to maintain an A380 and a C152” approach.
PS: LBA had a non EU law compliant “LAMP” (called Standardinstandhaltungsprogram, SIHP = standardized maintenance program). During an EASA audit of LBA it was found to be non compliant and if you tell a German government employee that his implementation of the law is too lax, you are going to get an extreme reaction. This is where we are today, the LBA will at any cost make sure it will never again be accused by EASA/EU of being sloppy.
Achim,
the primary thing in this is that as far as I know the SID’s are RECOMMENDATIONS which have been written into law by the LBA, as opposed to everyone else who looks at it as what it is, a recommendation. From what I heard Cessna themselfs are quite horrified at the result, as within Europe this has damaged the name massively and was NOT their intention.
Part M needs to be modified to reflect this if indeed it calls every recommendation compulsory. A recommendation is just that, you can read it and then decide if you follow it or not. Otherwise, if an issue is such that it MUST be done, then an AD needs to be issued via the competent authority in the manufacturers country, in this case the FAA. Cessna knew darn well that this would cause tens of thousands of their own planes grounded so they did not pursue that and apparently the FAA saw no reason to insist either. Both of them also knew what would happen on the side of AOPA and others if they were to issue an AD like that. If I hear correctly, there is a hot engine AD out which has caused a similar uproar over there.
Apparently the LBA are the only authority who insists on them to be taken as compulsory, all other EASA countries CAA’s do not. So they all are in breach of EU law then.
What will be very dangerous is that imho Cessna won’t be the last to issue such recommendations. And if the LBA continues to insist on this, then they are going to ground most airplanes older than a few years or force them into other registers.
Re your PS: Good Lord! If that is how aviation regulators act then we are gonna be in for an even worse ride in the future.
The SID does appear to require inspections which go beyond the most thorough of annual inspections – presumably based on some field evidence of airframe problems.
Hopefully a pragmatic standard for these SIDs emerges for all legacy types, which reflects a reasonable safety case.
I have become a believer in tube and fabric, at least the airframe gets stripped down every fifteen years or so.
Mooney Driver, have a look at the Part M law code, the section I mentioned. It is rather clear, it requires manufacturer maintenance documents on such special inspections to be incorporated into the maintenance program.
Apparently the LBA are the only authority who insists on them to be taken as compulsory, all other EASA countries CAA’s do not.
There are many others that take the same approach as LBA, unfortunately. I would even say the CAA is pretty alone. I am sure the Swiss will require it as well.
I am sure the Swiss will require it as well.
Except they will only notice 20 years later 8-)
(I’m hearing this is starting to pop up, though)
Well if I was in the market for Cessna 100 series I wouldn’t go anywhere near an aircraft that hadn’t had the SIDS and ‘lifed’ items completed. As far as I know the UK CAA require these items to be done. I recently got a chance to look at a 150 where none of this maintenance had been done and it was in a really poor shape with many perished pipes and much corrosion.
As far as I know the UK CAA require these items to be done.
Nope. The CAA doesn’t At least not until the next EASA audit.
I don’t know anything about these inspections, but why are they hard?
It is a requirement for any Part 23 certified plane that all structural parts can be visually inspected. You may need an endoscope… Sometimes this is not possible on the original aircraft (e.g. the Socata TB elevator, where holes have to be drilled for an endoscope, or in King Airs where inspection panels have to be added) but it is usually possible if you drill endoscope holes and then plug them with plastic plugs.
I would not want to fly a 30-40 year old plane on which the structure cannot be inspected.
