Originally Posted by
The Swinging Monkey
Safety_Helmut,
What an utterly stupid statement to make!
How on earth can the damage cat be possibly 'frigged' to let the aircrew off the hook? TSM
Presumably Safety_Helmut has deleted the post which had TSM so worked up????
I cannot comment on current aircraft damage assessment methods but I doubt if they are much different from when I had the pleasure of being an Aircraft Surveyor (431MU, Brueggen). On notification of damage that the parent Station felt was beyond their capabilities, one of us would hot foot it, armed with the appropriate Vol 6's etc and carry out an in-depth examination. This is not just of the immediate visible damage but also looking for secondary damage caused, for example, by transmission of shock loads. If the damage could be repaired in accordance with (iaw) the Vol 6, the aircraft would be deemed Cat 2 but the Station could ask for help from the MU (Cat 2 Assist). Cat 3 would result in the arrival of an MU working party armed with repair schemes (in some cases drawn by the Aircraft Surveyor) and detailed repair instructions. Depending on the findings, we may well have needed to contact the Design Repair Authority for authority and/or additional repair schemes.
Damage beyond the MU's capabilities is CAT 4 (repair by Contractors working party) and if beyond economical repair then CAT 5.
I cannot imagine that standard of the actual repair work has ever been influenced by what earlier posts imply but politics
can and did influence whether something was deemed as CAT 3 or CAT 4.