Views on CASA Schedule 5
 

Hi all,

New to the page and I am currently completing my University thesis on an evaluation of the maintenance schedules and regulations within Australia. I'm fairly new to the light aircraft scene so please excuse my somewhat lack of expertise on the topic, but I am here to learn!

Back to my question, I was wondering what everyone's opinions were on the current regulations and any current issues, especially regarding Schedule 5 and they way maintenance is managed and enforced.

Feel free to write as long as a response as you like, the more information the better as I am interested to hear your views and reasoning in detail.

Thanks you in advance for you help and i look forward to hearing from you all!

Steven.

The worst and most expensive debacle to ever occur in the history of subordinate legislation around the English-speaking world?

A mish-mash of old and some new built on a philosophical foundation of retribution for any perceived breach of the provisions where not just intention is ruled out as a defence, but possibly also that of an honest and reasonable mistake?

All wrapped up in the abrogation of basic legal rights ordinarily pertaining in a civilised society, not by Act of Parliament, but by Executive decisions.

Kaz

Sched 5 was workable when the Aust ADs where invoiced ie AD hose 5 and alike but as usual knobs in casa to keep there jobs changing rules etc all the time to keep them self's employed.
Feel free to pm me if you like I have to work with what we be given on a daily basis
Cheers

In principle, you have to acknowledge that the manufacturers maintenance schedule is best.

The problem is that (in the case of light aircraft) the manufacturers created maintenance schedules for the US environment where following them is not mandatory. So, they were produced as a guide, not a mandate.

With 20/20 hindsight we can see that manufacturers schedules over maintain some components, skip others which should be included (hence Cessna SIDS) and has never been updated to consolidate AD's. It also does not take into account better material and quality of parts available now compared with 40 years ago.

This works in the US system where departures from the manufacturers schedule is allowed, the FAA credits A&P mechanics with having some brains and there is a network of FAA offices which are approachable.

Australia's military based, centralist, bureaucratic system that has a culture of not trusting the competence of pilots and engineers can't live without a mandated list.

Hence schedule 5 was born. I reckon it was written around the maintenance requirements of a Tiger moth. Its loose and not very prescriptive and can be quite inappropriate - but strict adherence to manufacturers schedules is expensive and frequently inappropriate. Schedule 5 is the only mechanism we have to allow an element of common sense freedom.

Schedule 5 or manufactures inspections are just the minimum that you look at. When you do a service you look at a whole lot more than is in the work sheet. At the end of the day it's a minimum and that's all. Casa won't to remove shed 5 and remove any liabitly that goes with it. If you places on manufactures then you must comply with what they call up. Like engine control changes at engine o/h etc

Cheers

Manufactures maintenance will make it very hard for all of us operating in the bush to survive the extra costs. The powers that be push for manufactures maintenance schedules seem to forget that we all don't have the luxury of having a LAME based at all outback strips.

A lot of aircraft are satellite based 2 - 3 hours from the main base. On Sched 5 we have the option of pilot maintenance for the 50 hourly(change oil and filters). This works well, we switch over aircraft for 100 hrlys burning up 4 - 6 hours of the MR on ferries. That's acceptable and acknowledged as part of the price of offering a regional and remote service.

If we go to MM or Cessna progressive schedule from what I understand, then we automatically start burning up 8 to 12% of the MR just in ferries alone as on Cessna MM certain parts of the current 100 hrly will need to be done on the 50 hrly and are not pilot maintenance items.

So CASA in their wisdom to reduce the aging fleets and recommending MM schedule with the new part 135 etc, will actually age the fleet in the bush quicker, increase our cost, (someone has to pay for the extra ferries) and drive us out of business.

The cost of having a full time LAME in the air running around doing 50 hourly's is cost prohibitive and realistically unworkable.

Another example of the bush copping a double whammy. Will outback stations and communities and tourists pay the extra. Well history shows us no. Look at the amount of work left in the bush compared to 30 years ago when it was affordable for everyone that was remote to fly. With this on top of SIDS and rising fuel costs think Outback Aviation is doomed unless a bit of common sense from the regulators prevails.

What do you mean by "enforced?"

Are you referring to CASA checking compliance with schedule 5?

Kaz,

I like your posts......:}

One of my favorites:

"I remember who sold out GA in this country... minister Anderson who gave our airports away to big business for peanuts on leases that the monkeys could have written.

And his mates and the next mob all failed to sort it when it all started to fall apart.

They are all the b....y same!

Kaz"

Folks,
Schedule 5 would be the ideal maintenance schedule, if it was allowed to operate as intended.

If you have a knowledge of the design and certification standards of the FAA, including continuing airworthiness requirements, you would know how the US system works, and the Australian system was supposed to, but hasn't worked.

Schedule 5 IS FAR 43, Appendix D, (except for some added AU bullsh1t) an entirely comprehensive Inspection Schedule, it is NOT a system of maintenance, as the Schedule 5 is miss-described.

If you are maintaining virtually any FAR 23 aircraft, operating under Part 91, it is Part 91 that describes the maintenance to be done, Part 43 says how to do it, and (in some cases) Part 145 will tell you where to do it.

If the same aircraft is operating under Part 135 (roughly Charter) there will be additional maintenance requirements, which will be carried out per. Part 43, including the Appendix D.

[As an aside, this is how the Cessna SIDs are not mandatory for Part 91, but are for Part 135 and up, but I am not going to go into the explanation here]

The OEM MM is most certainly not "the best". except for some relatively recent examples, FAR 23 (and earlier CAR 3 equivalents) assume the use of the FAA Annual Inspection Schedule ( Appendix D) will be carried out using acceptable (or authorised) data, which includes but is certainly NOT limited to OEM MM. The OEM MM is required by part 43, Appendix D, but it is only part of the suite of acceptable data.

Indeed, with the Australian misapplication of continuing airworthiness standards for most US built aircraft, the CASA list of deficient OEM MMs is increasing. Mostly they are NOT deficient at all, when they just form part of, but not nearly all the acceptable data needed to complete routine maintenance tasks and all but major repairs.

For may of you, if you are half way smart, you will have at least FAA AC 43.13A/B as CASA approved data in you CAR 30 manuals.

Indeed, in general terms, the OEM MM will only include model specific information, and assumes that all the necessary additional acceptable data to be used will be found in the AC library. Many of your will be familiar with the wealth of detail in FAA AC43.13A and AC 43.13B, and many more FAA publications that cover specific continuing airworthiness issues, that are common to most aircraft.

During the period Bruce Byron was CASA CEO, a instrument was raised, which allowed the whole FAA AC library ( and the equivalent from other NAA ) as CASA approved data, without the need for CASA approval for each CAR 30 workshop.

Needless to say, there was much resistance from bowels of CASA, it eliminated the "data approval industry" at a stroke, the present shower, unsurprisingly, have completely reversed to Byron/Vaughan reform, prohibiting the use of such worldwide acceptable data in Australia, without (expensive and long time delay) CASA approval.

Right now, CASA has no idea where it is going with future GA maintenance rules, but the "iron ring" is pushing Part 42/145 as it stands, a disaster in the making.

Tootle pip!!

The work sheets for Sched 5 have been around forever even before it was called that. The intendant use was that is was for aircraft that didn't have a maintenance sched in the m/m. Its success has brought about its own undoing as everyone has adopted it as mainstream. That's why it has Ag floats aircon etc already listed. At the end of the day is just a guild to what has to be done its a minium amount of work that is required.
The addinion of what the manufacture calls up in chapter 5 for life components is what everyone is worried about
Now CASA don't wont that responsibility and will close the loop hole down for what of better words/
As for AC43 we always been able to use it if it was in the approved docs list in the M/M for the aircraft you where working on or if a repair was done via an EO by a car30 and he stated to use it.
When an aircraft is modified for its original state say a Raisebeck mods it come with its own M/M which is listed then on the LBS to carry out the maintenance IAW with it.
Now you can use the Manufactures sched and still do 50 hourlys all you have to do is change LBS.


cheers

yr right,
Why don't you stop trying to teach people to suck eggs, and just read what is written. By your last post, if that is what you really think, your knowledge of both the legal and practical requirements of maintaining continuing airworthiness is seriously deficient --- not uncommon in the GA fraternity.

I suggest you catch up on some of the CASA AWB of recent times on the subject.

Then go actually read FAR 43, Appendix D, and compare it to Schedule 5.

As for "Schedule 5 worksheets", that does not comprise acceptable data (or as CASA likes to say- approved). It seems to me you are very open minded, the trouble is, it is open at both ends.

You are clearly a product of the Australian system, where whatever you have been taught is all you seem to know ---- that what you have been taught might be wrong (like your objections to LOP running engines) never occurs to you. As long as CASA says it, you accept it.

Whether you like it or not, instructions for the continuing airworthiness of FAA certified airworthiness are part of the certification of the aircraft --- there is a very strong legal line of thought that (particularly since mid-1998) most Australian (US built) light aircraft have an invalid C.of A, because they have not been maintained to the requirements of the original FAA Certificate of Airworthiness standards.

As I have said before, the the OEM MM forms part of the acceptable (approved) data for Schedule 5, it is NOT either/or --- indeed, the OEM MM is one of the documents that is automatically CASA "approved" ----- although I have no doubt of the story posted by cleartoenter, that is not the fault of Schedule 5, that is the fault of the ignorance of the aircraft "Registered Operator" and his/her LAME.

There is far more than AC 43.13A/B that you should be cognoscente of in maintaining FAA certified aircraft.

Tootle pip!!

PS: "Mandatory Service Bulletins" ?? An OEM service bulletin becomes mandatory when an NAA turns it into an AD. Remember, the Cessna SIDs are not SBs, they are included in the MM.

As Yr Right has intimated, the intent of schedule 5 was to detail the annual/100 hour inspection requirements for those aircraft with less than ideal OEM requirements. Most notably for elec/inst/radio categories.
It is to be read in conjunction with the OEM MM and other approved data including mandatory replacement and overhaul criteria.

Question: For an experimental I'm building I need to produce a maintenance scheme.

I have a draft MM from hte kit manufacturers website. I have AC 43 and of course MM for the engine.

What should I avoid? Common sense tells me I should use the draft MM in conjunction with AC 43 for the airframe, and the engine and propeller MMs. Additoins might be needed for autopilot servos and electric trim.

What am I missing?

Sunfish just write Maintenance IAW aircraft MM and Schedule 5.

Your SAAA maintainers course would have clearly articulated this.

Making your own is also very simple. Perhaps download one like a Jabiru one from their website and modify it. They really just are a checklist and rather generic. The important part is actually properly using it come 100 hourly time.

We'll leadsled if you do shed 5 and unless you have that you will so sb etc o your lbs you don't have to do them. However if you doing it iaw manufactures you have to. The only time a sb is mandated is if it was an AD but clearly your nose bleed must have covered you eyes from being up so high in your seat. And as for tell you to suck eggs maybe you should take some note or what a a low life spanner swinger is someone you can take note of.

Cheers

So leady tell us all the last time you actually co ordinarneate and signed a shed 5 release off.
Cheers

Once again you only have to do what is in your LBS. However if you wish to have your aircraft in charter cat and you have your lbs in sched 5 you will have to change it to manufactures insp and all that go along with that.
Think I'm wrong about SB we'll I think not I had a big win in court as an expert whiteness against casa on that very thing. Plus several other points of law that they said was law but wasn't.
Cheers

yr right,
About the only thing that can be reasonably comprehended from your semi-illiterate posts are that you have a less than adequate understanding of what current Australian law says on the maintenance of airworthiness of Australian aircraft.
Sadly, you are not the only one with such knowledge shortcomings.
Tootle pip!!

Leady
Go hope in your seat and read the lbs. That is what the maintenance has to be done to. Casa have a push on to change all the lbs to an higher standard. Now you ask me if I was a pilot now some time back so I'll ask you again. Are you an engineer. When was the last time you signed for work done by yourself. When did you last issue a M/R.

Cheers

And btw I done over casa in a law court on this very question so have you !!!!

Schedule 5 is "accepted" or approved data for maintenance of an aircraft, if that aircraft's log book statement stipulates such for the maintenance release inspection.

The log book statement includes election of operational category as well as maintenance category. There is also a statement about Airworthiness Directives and modifications applicable to the aircraft.

Part 1 and Part 2 of Schedule 5, as well as maintenance called up in the approved OEM data, (POH, maintenance manual, structural repair manual, modifications etc)and State of Origin Airworthiness Directives form part of the continuing airworthiness instructions for an aircraft.

Part 2 of Schedule 5 can work, but not in isolation.

SB and MSB do not have to be done under sched 5 if they are not listed in the LBS. An AWB is not LAW it is not an AD. If the AD states an SB etc it has to be done. If you run a Manufactures SOM then you MUST comply with the SB etc an ADs.
Its all in the LBS


cheers

CASA Schedule 5, Part 2, lists the requirements for release to service for annual/100 hour inspection of class B aircraft. It is not the complete list of requirements for continuing airworthiness.

We'll creamie the problem is casa dose not won't to hold reasonability of it for an aircraft that has a SOM in the M/M it's that simple. As I have said it a minimum of what is looked at. What ever they can wipe there hands off that's what they doing. Sched 5 was and is fine. It was better when the Aust ADs where there to back it up but they slowly been errorded and now we have country of orgin. Like AD hose 5 simple easy to understand and in your face can't argue about it as it was an AD. But no change for change sake. We ended up with a mess.

SB were looked at by CAsa and then made into an Ad if required.

Cheers

Well Clearedtoreenter
Your not on your own there I can assure you. But like I say the check list is the minimum that you look at. Times are changing slowly faster for some slower for others. Most of these aircraft mow are plus 30 years old would you drive a car that old now. The weird thing is that as a lame we looking after your life's we sign all day every day that.


Cheers

What I see is going to happen is outside forces will dictate what your maintenance is done too. This is already happening for Mine oil and gas type work. For smaller aircraft its going to your insurance company that will or wont insurer your aircraft. On the maintenance side of things a lot of work shops arnt insured for an engine to be ran as on- condition and as such they wont issue a M/R . Right or wrong this is the position that I see happening and is happening.
Cheers

YR, Sadly I think your right.
When a regulator gets so out of touch with reality, I mean even poor old Clint
Can't work it out, and if he can't , nobody can, Others with a vested interest, such as insurance providers, or big business auditors will step in and set the standard.
Whatever ragged remnant of GA remains after the parasites have finished faces that reality, by then CAsA will be irrelevant because our " Industry" will largely exist Offshore anyway.

What's sad if ever a country needs GA it's Australia but casa don't won't ga it's to hard for them. And that's the reality sadly
Cheers

I think most maintenance is done by looking at the aircraft, looking methodically at every functional component of the aircraft and fixing what is deficient.
once that is done the pens retire to the office, drag out the paperwork and then go through the items one by one.
done that, sign.
not relevant, cross out and initial.
done that, sign.
etc.

that to me is why flavour of the maintenance paperwork is almost irrelevant.
the aeroplane itself is the actual checklist used.

I have never seen a LAME, even the super diligent ones, ever use the paperwork as the work is being done. the aeroplane in front of them is the checklist, not the paperwork. how else do you keep the grease and oily fingerprints off the paperwork?

CAsA can crap on about this as much as they like because it is irrelevant really.

....although there is a chap here in the west that recently pissed off a CAsA audit enough that he has been declared a not fit and proper person over some paperwork indiscretion and has lost LAME licence, Pilot's Licence and employment. (no aeroplanes were damaged in bring you this message)

"although there is a chap here in the west that recently pissed off a CAsA audit enough that he has been declared a not fit and proper person over some paperwork indiscretion and has lost LAME licence, Pilot's Licence and employment."


Probably decided by some ex RAAF fitter or Baggage handler or maybe an industry reject who wouldn't know a spanner from a hammer.


Sad aint it, as CAsA slowly weed out the competent LAME's, they are turning maintenance into a box ticking exercise much like flying training has become.


I guess the current Philosophy is the more boxes to tick the safer the outcome.


I have been told Class B maintenance is actually better than class A because LAME's get more time to actually maintain the aircraft rather than sit in the office putting ticks in boxes.


Oh well, once the final nail is nailed, them that can afford it will probably turn to New Zealand to get their Kiwi registered aircraft maintained to a safer standard.

dubbleyew-eight
Yep no need to look a shed 5 paper work. I said before it's the minimum we look at. The aircraft are the sheets. You look you see you investigate. If you see some thing that's not right you look deeper. That's why we have additional work sheets.
It's called common sense even though the goody goodys are saying there no such thing we'll there is and more so gained with experience. Now of course if you looking at a aircraft you haven't worked on before and it a som paper work you look

The aircraft can't fly till the paper work excreeds the mtow of the aircraft.

Cheers

YR, never a truer word was spoken, and I speak from experience.
Our incompetent regulator is culling experienced, competent engineers and replacing them with Box tickers.
I could very well be dead today, or one of my pilots, or worse one of our customers, but for the eagle eye of experience who spotted something that could have resulted in the ass falling off the airplane, no way I would have seen it, I'm just a pilot, he did, he's an engineer, I do my thing, fly them and try not to break them, he does his thing and covers my ass.
God bless all engineers, our guardian angels!! God's curse on CAsA who's corruption will eventually kill a lot of people.

clinton I don't stuff around with paperwork.

ask yourself this though.
if an aeroplane has , say, 172 components to it. how can a paperwork system by any flavour do anything other than trace that the 172 components were checked for fitness for flight?

just bye the bye I replaced my oil hoses in the last annual.
they were on the aircraft for about 20 years.
hoses were made from aeroquip 303-6.
there was not one identifiable deterioration in them. the inner liners were sound and undamaged. the hoses were still supple and flexible.
now replaced with the stratoflex equivalent hose and good for another 20 years.

yr right,
Not so, many OEM SBs are not airworthiness items.

To incorporate them or not is a matter for the registered operator. Of course, and SB that an NAA makes an AD is a different matter. If a LBS says that all OEM SBs have to be carried out, that LBS is NOT enforceable, in that respect.

What many of you "just don't get" is that the OEM MM forms part of the acceptable ( CASA Approved) data that must be used to complete Schedule 5, but is not the only data required.

The other thing that many of you "don't get" is that FAA certified light aircraft assume that they will be maintained to FAR 43 Appendix D (which is the same as Schedule 5, almost) and the OEM MM does not include in the MM a lot of information contained in various FAA ACs related to continuing airworthiness.

Tootle pip!!

Well said Sled ...:ok:

yes the LBS dictates what you have to do ive been saying that. If you run the Manufactures SOM it says that you must do the SBs. The SB will then give you the option of doing it or not unless its a MSB.
The wording has also change in the sched 5 as well and maybe you need to read that as well.
Also when you change your LBS it has to be sent to CASA and if its not good enough it wont be approved .Also this is Aust it don't mean a dame what the USA do or don't do
Cheers

clinton be careful not to mix private owner category B aircraft maintenance with commercial category A maintenance.

I never comment on cat A maintenance.

Let me make this perfectly clear


The Log Book Statement on an Australian Register Aircraft is WHAT the aircraft must be maintained and controlled too period. There is NO room to move on this period.


At the end of a service check it then written on the M/R {every serviceable aircraft has an M/R] what it is maintained to.


This is the same for class A or B


The main difference between A and B is a class A MUST have maintenance carried out IAW with a SOM. A SOM dose NOT mean it has to be manufactures BUT it cant be any less than manufactures.


Sched 5 now states this








6.1 The replacement or overhaul of time-lifed components required in an Airworthiness Limitations Section of the aeroplane’s maintenance manual and any special techniques required by the manufacturer or an Airworthiness Directive are required to be complied with. If it is clear from the terms of the manufacturer’s requirement that the manufacturer considers compliance is optional, then that requirement is optional








I live and breath this every day as do all LAME this is our bread and butter so to speak BTW you stil not answered my question of when did you last certified for work you carried out or issue an M/R or even talk to an AWI me two days ago.


Now Clinton please tell me im incorrect in the above statements. I and everyone would be please if you can put as all at ease or the fact im right. Or has it some what silenced your tongue because im a dill and you cant bear to say im correct. Your inability to answer will show us all.


Cheers

In that case, would you buy a 20 year old 'private' aircraft with no airframe, engine or prop logbooks?


I can answer that. Only a fool would how ever you can but you have to have every thing O/H and as say it was a rare aircraft then a full restro
.


I rejected a mitly million $ aircraft sale because the prop S# weren't the same as the log books. If we had of brought it back to Aust we would have had to install new props.


Cheers

Reading all this highlights to me just how something that was considered difficult and onerous, (like four year major inspections with intervals of minor inspections), evolved into something that appeared simple, safe and straightforward, (like 100 hour/annual inspections), could be corrupted into something lacking understanding of function, desire, result and design that results in prohibitive costs that further drives the plethora of nails in the GA coffin.


Obviously this country needs more Lawyers.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uirC4Yfb8A

Yep 100 100 major simple easy and ADs to back up. Now every service is a major inspection.
Cross the T and dot the I or your in trouble lol
Cheers