Help please from EASA savvy engineers

[WorkingHard]

I wish to move an EASA registered aircraft from another state to the UK. The a/c has afully valid C of A and current ARC. No problems with current registration in the registered state and has always had thorough inspections and renewals. Should this be a very simple straightforward excercise bearing in mind it is the British CAA we shall be dealing with? There are a number of modifications which have been approved by the other state registry, such as engine air filters, GPS, automatic beacon etc.

Your views apprecited

thanks

[IO540]

Why move it?

Registry transfers are liable to open cans of worms which would otherwise remain closed until the plane is scrapped.

Basically every jobsworth has a good old nose around. In the meantime, the plane has been de-registered so is in a legal limbo so the firm doing it has got you over a barrel.

Aviation ownership is full of barrels and this is one barrel you do not want to be bent over :)

[vee-tail-1]

My French registered Robin is based here in UK and I have a contract with a British CAMO. He can renew the ARC and issue CRS if required. Main difference is the ARC renewal notification is sent to GSAC France rather than CAA SRG in UK. One very big advantage is that most EU member states use the aircraft manufacturer's type specific maintenance program. This makes owner maintenance easy(see part M Appendix VIII pilot/owner maintenance) Unlike the British LAMP which is a generic program which has to be interpreted by engineers to do as much or as little work as they choose. Stay on your present register, but be prepared to shop around till you find a maintenance organisation that you can trust.

[Sir George Cayley]

Simples. Go to Koln, open your wallet and say "take everything in there" :{

Sir George Cayley

[A and C]

I can see no advantage in changing the EASA state of registration so as said above leave the aircraft were it is.

As far as LAMP/LAMS goes EASA are objecting to it on the grounds that it is deficent in a number of areas and that the UK CAA should mandate the manufactures maintenance program.

At lease one aircraft manufacturer in Europe won't let it's aircraft be maintaned under LAMP.

[IO540]

I know this is digressing but what is the difference between LAMP (where a lot of work is discretionary) and a mfg-specific scheme where the MO ticks all the boxes but doesn't do some of the work?

It's just different paperwork.

[WorkingHard]

I expected to get differing opinions but the consensus so far is to leave well alone. Is that because of our CAA or because in general whichever state is involved there would be difficulties?

[vee-tail-1]

<<I know this is digressing but what is the difference between LAMP (where a lot of work is discretionary) and a mfg-specific scheme where the MO ticks all the boxes but doesn't do some of the work?>>

Well I guess it boils down to liability in the event of an incident.
Using LAMP the engineer has lots of 'wriggle room' as he/she is required to use experience and knowledge to judge where and in what depth to conduct maintenance. So could not be expected to know about some peculiarity of an exotic foreign aircraft.

Manufacturers programs however remove all doubt, as they say what has to be done and when to do it, and cross refer to the manuals that say how to do it. So accident investigators or insurers can go through the program and see clearly if anything has been missed.

[IO540]

I would agree on lifed parts. Those must be changed (if mandatory), the change is in the maint records, and the traceability documents must be there also.

But most parts on a plane are not lifed. They are changed on condition. And one can never prove that it was "out of condition" at the time of the last inspection (even if it was completely obvious that it must have been so).

And the most important bits of maintenance which are a) inspection and b) lubrication are untraceable whether done or not. This is my biggest beef, based on 9 years of ownership, with maint companies.

Back to the registry move, I would not do it unless really necessary because it involves a lot of nosing around and if somebody is really diligent they could uncover stuff like avionics serial numbers not matching the records. Swapping avionics "off the books" is a widespread practice, which is obviously safe but the discovery would result in having to bin (or sell on US Ebay, for a pittance) the existing part and replace it with a part with paperwork. Obviously the avionics swap might have been done years ago, long before the current owner's ownership, but he will carry the can for it.

I did one transfer (G to N) which cost me about £5000 and on top of that were things like the ELT. I was grounded for about 8 weeks while various people were arguing about who should do what. It turned out that the plane had an extra GPS antenna installed; on a composite roof this is a massive can of worms but luckily it was in the factory-correct location. I had to drag the avionics blokedown to the plane (the now-defunct company was regularly doing stuff off the books or with dodgy paperwork despite being a CAA level 2 (?) design authorised company). He was well miffed to be involved in something he did 3 years previously, but I was lucky he was still around. In the vast majority of registry transfers the people responsible for any stuff that comes to light are long gone, or won't co-operate. It is thus a ripe area for ripping stuff out, or expensively recertifying it Loads of Garmin 430s have been installed by little avionics people, off the books or with a logbook entry when it was a major mod.

I heard of one case where the prop hub serial number did not match the records. The bill for that was the cost of a new prop. The old prop was almost worthless (well, an EASA 145 prop shop might be able to knock up a fresh EASA-1 form for it, after "overhauling" it, but that is rarely economical).

You get the idea, I am sure :)