Aircraft Airworthiness is Important

Aircraft Airworthiness 

How does this affect you ?

AIRWORTHY means an aircraft meets its type design and is in a condition for safe operation.

This definition is taken from PUBLIC LAW 103-272, previously the FEDERAL AVIATION ACT OF 1958, and is also found on the face of each aircraft's standart airworthiness certificate.

Two conditions must be met before an aircraft can be considered “airworthy”:

• The aircraft must conform to its type certificate (TC); that is, when the aircraft configuration and the components installed are consistent with the drawing, specifications, and other data that are part of the TC, and include any supplemental TC and field-approved alterations incorporated into the aircraft.
• The aircraft must be in condition for safe operation; this refers to the condition of the aircraft relative to wear and deterioration.

  

 Who is responsible for  Airworthiness?

• •            This is a shared responsibility.
• •            The pilot is ultimately responsible!
• •            As a pilot, you need to understand this.
• •            As a flight instructor, you need to make sure that your students understand this.
• •            Operating rules prohibit the operation of an aircraft that is not airworthy.

• 

Maintenance

No aircraft is so tolerant of neglect that it is safe in the absence of an effective inspection and maintenance programme. The processes that affect an aircraft are Deterioration with age (e.g. fatigue, wear and corrosion) as well as chance failures (e.g. tyre burst, excess structural loads).

Aircraft Maintenance can be defined in a number of ways and the following may help understand the different aspects:

“Those actions required for restoring or maintaining an item in a serviceable condition including servicing, repair, modification, overhaul, inspection and determination of condition”. [World Airlines Technical Operations Glossary]

“Maintenance is the action necessary to sustain or restore the integrity and performance of the airplane” [Hessburg, 2001]

“Maintenance is the process of ensuring that a system continually performs its intended function at its designed-in level of reliability and safety.” [Kinnison and Siddiqui, 2013]

The reasons for carrying out maintenance are neatly summarised by [Lam 2002]:

1. Aircraft safety – airworthiness at its heart
2. Keep aircraft in service – Availability, which is of key importance to an operator i.e. the aircraft can meet its schedule.
3. Maximise value of asset (airframe, engines and components) – of prime importance to the owner or lessor.

Maintenance will consist of a mixture of Preventive and Corrective work, including precautionary work to ensure that there have been no undetected chance failures.

There will be inspection to monitor the progress of wear out processes, in addition to:

• Scheduled or Preventive work to anticipate and prevent failures.
• Unscheduled work – Repair maintenance and On-condition maintenance

In general terms, for preventive work to be worthwhile, two conditions should be met:

1. The item must be restored to its original reliability after maintenance action, and 
2. The cost of maintenance action must be less than the failure it is intended to prevent

When are aircraft maintenance records required

•     Whenever any maintenance, preventive maintenance, rebuilding, or alteration isperformed.

•  Maintenance means inspection, overhaul, repair, preservation, and thereplacement of parts (excludes preventive maintenance).

•    In other words, you must make a record entry for everything, including tire changes.

Definisi-definisi penting dalam dunia penerbangan sesuai CASR part 1 bagian 1

Accident.  An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight until such time as all such persons have disembarked, in which:

a) a person is fatally or seriously injured as a result of:

•   being in the aircraft, or

•    direct contact with any part of the aircraft, including parts which have become detached from the aircraft, or

•     direct  exposure  to  jet  blast,except  when  the  injuries  are  from  natural causes, self-inflicted or inflicted by other persons, or when the injuries are to stowaways hiding outside the areas normally available to the passengers and crew; or

b) The aircraft sustains damage or structural failure which:

•     adversely   affects    the   structural    strength,    performance   or    flight characteristics of the aircraft, and

•     would  normally  require  major  repair  or  replacement  of  the  affected component, except for engine failure or damage,  when the damage is limited to the engine, its cowlings or accessories; or for damage limited to propellers, wing tips, antennas, tires, brakes, fairings, small dents or puncture holes in the aircraft skin; or

c) the aircraft is missing or is completely inaccessible. Accountable manager mean designed an organization employee.

Advisory Circular (AC) means DGCA guidance methods compliance with regulations.

Aerodrome/Airport. A defined area on land or water (including any buildings, installations and equipment) intended to be used either wholly or in part for the arrival, departure and surface movement of aircraft.

Aerodrome operating minima. The limits of usability of an aerodrome for:

a)  take-off, expressed in terms of runway visual range and/or visibility and, if necessary, cloud conditions;

b)  landing in precision approach and landing operations, expressed in terms of visibility and/or runway visual range and decision altitude/height (DA/H)

c)  landing in approach and landing operations with vertical guidance, expressed in terms of visibility and/or runway visual range and decision altitude/height (DA/H); and

d)  landing in non-precision approach and landing operations, expressed in terms of visibility and/or  runway visual  range,  minimum  descent  altitude/height (MDA/H) and, if necessary, cloud conditions.

Airbase means an area of land and/or water within the territory of the Republic of Indonesia which is used for the aviation activities of the Armed force of the Republic of Indonesia

Air carrier means a person who undertakes directly by lease, or other arrangement, to engage in air transportation.

Air Carrier/Air Operator Certificate Holder mean a person who undertakes directly by lease or other arrangements to engage in air transportation.

Aircraft. Any machine that can derive support in the atmosphere from the reactions of the air other than the reactions of the air against the earth’s surface.

Aircraft  operation  manual.  A  manual,  acceptable  to  the  State  of  the  Operator, containing normal, abnormal and emergency procedures, checklists, limitations, performance information, details of the aircraft systems and other material relevant to the operation of the aircraft.

Airframe means the fuselage, booms, nacelles, cowlings, fairings, airfoil surfaces (including rotors but excluding propellers and rotating airfoils of engines), and landing gear of an aircraft and their accessories and controls.

Air operator certificate (AOC). A certificate authorizing an operator to carry out specified commercial air transport operation.

Airplane / Aeroplane. A power-driven heavier-than-air aircraft, deriving its lift in flight chiefly  from  aerodynamic  reactions  on  surfaces  which  remain  fixed  under  given conditions of flight.