New French National Licence for Aircraft Maintenance. (LNMA)
I own a French registered EASA certified Robin ATL. For the last ten years under French regulations I have carried out all the maintenance, including annuals, ADs, SBs, etc, using my manufacturers type-specific approved maintenance programme. The main expense was to fly the GSAC surveyor over from Lille to renew the airworthiness certificate. Apart from that, this system of maintenance was even less costly than the LAA system.
Now under part M this will stop and the only maintenance that I can do is the very simple tasks of annex VIII. Needless to say numerous French owners are incensed by this part M restriction of their long held privileges. The GSAC decided to do something about this situation, since much of the French GA fleet is maintained by owners working in the controlled & non-controlled environments. At first the GSAC proposed to issue restricted part 66 licences to owners under 'grandfather rights', then they had a moment of inspiration and invented the LNMA (Licence Nationale de Maintenance Aeronefs) The idea is that owners can continue to do all the maintenance & ADs etc, as before, but have a nationally recognised licence to make it all legal. Owners who are used to getting their hands dirty, send off details of their qualifications and experience and lists of the tasks they have carried out on their aircraft. They are then issued with a national licence restricted to the aircraft type with which they are familiar.
Thus owners can maintain their simple light aircraft themselves, and can be their own CAMOs & manage airworthiness as well. As yet there are not many sub part G & I organisations in France, but I bet their charges for renewing an ARC are a fraction of those over here in UK.
I have e-mailed some details of this new licence to our CAA for comment, but so far nothing is forthcoming, and I suspect they would rather not know about it!
With an NPPL and a LNMA, flying a certified aircraft might just become affordable again.
Ref: BULLETIN D'INFORMATION GSAC BI 2009/34 et BI 2009/27
et TRANSITION de l'aviation generale VERS LA PARTIE M