Originally Posted by
Lead Balloon
For pilot-performed maintenance CASA’s logic goes something like this:
If you do maintenance on an aircraft and you’re not authorised to do it, you’re a dangerous criminal.
There’s a reg that sets out what maintenance various classes of people are authorised to do.
Pilots of class B aircraft (essentially aircraft that aren’t certified in the Transport category or used in RPT) are authorised to do the maintenance set out in a schedule to the regulations (Schedule 8).
If the maintenance isn’t in Schedule 8, a pilot is not authorised to do it (unless separately authorised as e.g licensed maintenance engineer).
Complete jacking of an aircraft isn’t in Schedule 8.
Therefore, any pilot who carries out a complete jacking of an aircraft is a dangerous criminal. That includes private pilots jacking their own aircraft on their own private premises. (However, I should note: There may be different (more ‘relaxed’) rules for Experimental aircraft.)
The equivalent to Schedule 8 in the FARs is paragraph (c) of Appendix A to FAR 43. I don’t see any prohibition on complete jacking of aircraft. The overarching restriction on the list of maintenance tasks is that the task must not “involve complex assembly operations”.
This is a manifestation of why GA in Australia is so much healthier and safer than in the USA.
Thanks. That's more or less what I understood the situation to be, that we were discussing what Mx a pilot who is not a certificated aircraft mechanic could or could not do to an aircraft which is not operated commercially.
The part I'm having a tough time with is WTF CASA think's it's important that I don't put my plane up on two jacks at the same time. If it falls off, well, that's my own airplane I just damaged, isn't it?
So, if I were changing tires on my 180, and I lifted the entire airplane using an overhead hoist and the airplane's lifting rings, (actually the best way to lift a 180/185, they're kind of squirrly to jack with their long spring steel landing gear legs) would I be a dangerous criminal?