Keywords: continuous airworthiness documents, airworthiness certification, maintenance
1 Introduction
Ensuring flight safety is the eternal theme of civil aviation. Once the aircraft is put into operation, the correct use and maintenance becomes the basis of maintaining the inherent safety level of its design. Due to the limited technical ability of aircraft operators (airlines), in order to ensure flight safety, aircraft manufacturers must provide ICA (Continuous Airworthiness Instruction) to airlines to guide maintenance activities.
2 definition of sustainable airworthiness document
According to the definition published by the National Committee for the Examination and Approval of Scientific and Technological Terminology, the sustainable airworthiness document refers to the document on aviation product maintenance manual (maintenance term), maintenance instructions and airworthiness restrictions provided by the holder of type certificate or type certificate.
International civil aviation authorities have different understandings of continuous airworthiness documents, and some international organizations put operational procedure documents (including AFM (Aircraft Flight Manual), W&; Manual B (Weight Balance Manual) and other technical materials also belong to the scope of continuous airworthiness documents, but most civil aviation administrations, led by FAA and EASA, understand continuous airworthiness documents as aircraft maintenance documents.
China civil aviation's understanding of sustainable airworthiness documents has also undergone a changing process. China's information circular AC-91-1"Requirements for Aircraft Continuous Airworthiness Documents" issued in 2008 stipulates that the continuous airworthiness documents should include six parts: operating procedures, maintenance requirements, aircraft maintenance procedures, airborne equipment and components maintenance procedures, configuration control documents and training specifications. At the present stage, CAAC believes that the sustainable airworthiness document should include maintenance, use and training specifications. With the deepening of research, the understanding of continuous airworthiness documents by CAAC has gradually deepened. In order to coordinate with the provisions of CCAR25 on continuous airworthiness documents, CAAC began to put forward the concept of operation and continuous airworthiness documents (OCAI) in 2009, separating the operation procedure documents from the concept of continuous airworthiness documents. At present, according to CCAR-25 (R4 draft edition) and CCAR-33, China Civil Aviation believes that the continuous airworthiness document consists of maintenance guidance document (usually including: maintenance outline (MRBR), maintenance plan document (MPD) and airworthiness restriction part (ALS)) and maintenance operation document (usually including: aircraft maintenance manual (AMM), wiring diagram manual (WDM) and engine).
3 characteristics of continuous airworthiness documents
Although there are many kinds of sustainable airworthiness documents with different uses and writing formats, there is a certain * * * relationship between them, that is, all sustainable airworthiness documents are legal, effective and standardized.
3. 1 legality
Continuous airworthiness documents are directly compiled by aircraft manufacturers, most of which are based on the requirements of civil aviation regulations (some of which are compiled to meet the requirements of airlines), approved or recognized by the Civil Aviation Administration, which is an extension of airworthiness regulations in technical operation and a technical standard specification for airlines to implement continuous airworthiness responsibilities. Without the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration, airlines shall not change or violate the requirements of the continuous airworthiness document for maintenance activities without authorization. In extreme cases, even if the maintenance personnel find mistakes in the maintenance manual provided by the manufacturer, they can only correct them by reporting them to the relevant departments. Before obtaining the approval of the bureau or the manufacturer changes the relevant documents, it shall not violate the operating procedures without authorization. This is what the civil aviation industry often says: "Always follow the manual. When there is an error in the manual, it must be changed and approved before it can be operated according to the manual. "
3.2 Effectiveness
Due to the long production cycle and frequent modification/modification in each stage, there are configuration differences in different production batches and different periods of the same aircraft. Therefore, the continuous airworthiness document must show its validity, that is, what kind of aircraft the document is suitable for. Aircraft manufacturers usually indicate the validity period of the continuous airworthiness document in the "Description and Introduction" section, and at the same time, in order to remind users, they will give the validity period information on each page of the document body.
Continuous airworthiness documents can be divided into customized documents and non-customized documents according to the scope of application. A customized document means that the document is only applicable to certain aircraft of a customer. Common customized documents include Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM), Fault Isolation Manual (FIM), Line Atlas (WDM) and so on. Manufacturers usually control the validity of documents by indicating the time version of aircraft configuration and manual. In the aspect of aircraft configuration control, the manufacturer will give the aircraft identification information (such as effectiveness code, batch number, serial number, production line number, aircraft registration number, etc.). ), the aircraft model to which the document applies and the existing technical status of each aircraft (including service notice (SB), modification (MOD) and customer initiated change (COC)). In the main body of the manual, the manufacturer usually explains the effectiveness in the form of effectiveness information column at the footer of the main body (as shown in figure 1, indicating that the page is only applicable to aircraft with gun10/-125 effectiveness configuration). Under special circumstances, the document will also show its effectiveness through "XXXX aircraft equipped with XXX equipment". The control of the revision time of the manual is realized by explaining the "revision record" in the preface and the "time column" in the text (for example, figure 1 indicates that the time version of the manual was revised on February 15, 2009).
Figure 1 Effectiveness control of customized manual text
Non-customized documents mean that all documents are applicable to a certain type of aircraft. Common non-customized documents include maintenance outline (MRBR), structural maintenance manual (SRM) and so on. Non-customized documents do not need to consider aircraft configuration differences, but only need to control the version information of the documents. The time version control of non-customized manuals is the same as that of customized manuals.
3.3 Normative
Because the continuous airworthiness document plays the role of technical specification in use, in order to ensure the integrity and ease of use of the document system, the Civil Aviation Administration put forward general requirements for the content, version control and distribution of various technical data documents, and recommended relevant technical data to standardize the content and writing format of various manuals. At present, various aircraft manufacturers mainly use the specification of ATA 2200 to write sustainable airworthiness documents. Taking Boeing and Airbus as examples, not only the technical manuals of different models of each company are basically the same, but also there is a good correspondence between the technical manuals compiled by the two companies. There is little difference in content and format between similar manuals of Boeing and Airbus except for their different names. Technicians who are familiar with Boeing series manuals can use the technical manuals of Airbus series aircraft without obstacles with a little training. The standardization of civil aviation sustainable airworthiness documents can greatly improve the maintenance ability of airlines for various types of aircraft.