An amendment to Part-M is going through the rule making process at the moment. The EASA Part-M GA Task Force issued an NPA (2012-17) last year and the Comment Response period closed at the end of January 2013. The NPA describes a number of Phase I alleviations and clarifications, mostly in the area of maintenance programmes and airworthiness reviews for ELA1 aircraft. Dave Roberts from Europe Air Sports was on the Task Force so he may be along to provide his insight. IAOPA and GAMA were also represented.
The NPA includes 7 proposals, but the two I find most interesting apply to ELA1 aircraft used for 'non-commercial operations':
- the option for an owner, rather than having to get his maintenance program approved, to simply declare the validity of the maintenance programme himself. His maintenance programme can deviate from the design approval holder's recommendations. The owner is supposed to evaluate these recommendations, but he can decide to deviate from them, and accept full responsibility for doing so. So, for example, my interpretation of this is that an owner could evaluate a manufacturer SB, SI, or any other recommendation, decide that he's not going to implement it, and then document this in his maintenance program.
- the option for an owner to create his maintenance programme based on a new 'Minimum Inspection Programme' (MIP). I thought they might have based these on the LAMP/LAMS, but in fact the MIPs have been proposed by IAOPA based on US FAR Part 43 Appendix D. The proposed minimum inspection schedule is annual/100 hours.
How much of this will make it through to the Regulation remains to be seen, but for me, so far it's a step in the right direction.