DoctorA300 and Brakeson,
Yes I agree with your sentiments.
You see back in the late 50’s when I started we only knew the British system and did not have any knowledge or interest in other countries systems.
Of course many countries overseas recognised the UK licence so jobs were always available overseas. There were no schools or courses. Everything was practical and the exams were all written essay type with no multi guess questions
The only exception was the FAA A&P. which was always considered “easy” because it did not have a type rating. This was also a worldwide licence so with these 2 you could go anywhere.
In those days there were no “Approved Organisations” everything from line defects to major checks had to be cleared by an LAE, so the LAE was God !
This meant he did not have to respond to Company pressure as he could get a job anywhere.
The Authority in those days was called the ARB (Air Registration Board), a government body ( so no high fees and “self Supporting requirements !)
To be an ARB surveyor you had to have a licence and several years of in service experience. Our local surveyor came round at least once week and you could talk to him about almost anything.
Then came the CAA ( a self financing body) and of course everything became related to cost aircraft and licence fees increased.
Then came Approved Organisations.
Then came Licence without type rating
Then came JAR
The point of all this was that the responsibility of the LAE has constantly been eroded.
Originally he was the only person who was held responsible, he was directly responsible to the Authority, and most of us took the very seriously.
As you know under JAR the responsible person is a board member which is then handed down through various Office holders. The Sign off is someone designated by the company and if they need another signatory they “make” another signatory. If you read some of the other threads on prune you will see many reports of the phantom stampers in action and I could tell you some equally hair raising stories !
It is only with the advent of JAR that LAE’s in all countries are becoming aware of the requirements of other countries. People are, of course trying to analyse how we are all going from different levels to a common level, which so often is coming down to the lowest level so that everyone can qualify.
The other problem I have understanding is that if a JAR Ops company does not have its own maintenance it has to contract it out to a JAR 145 company and that arrangement including the contract has to be approved. Yet the Maintenance responsibility rests with the JAR operator and he has to have another set of
high paid maintenance chiefs. Why?
If there is a contract then TOTAL responsibility should be with the JAR 145.
As you know if you want to contract a JAR 145 organisation in Stockholm you don’t have much of a choice !
Anyway the point of all this is that the changes I have seen over the last 30 years have degraded the LAE and has done very little to improve the maintenance operations.
As I have said before this is not a personal issue because I do not need to have a JAR licence !!(I am too old to learn new tricks!!)