FAR Part 39: Airworthiness Directives (ADs)
Every AD has its own number. The AD's are categorized between three 'books'. Book one
covers from the Wright Brothers' mechanic and engine inventor/maker Charles E. Taylor up until 1979. Book two is from 1960 to 89. Book three is from 1990 to the present. Each book has five sections, large aircraft, small aircraft, appliances, power plants, and propellers. The ADs of each section can be of three kinds; emergency letter, immediate adopted rule, and notice of proposed rule making.

The emergency letter requires action prior to flight and grounds the aircraft until repaired. The immediate adopted rule allows the owner to make the repair within the next (named) period of time. The AD that follows the normal rule making procedure gives months or hundreds of hours to perform the repair.

The AD numbering system is logical. The first two numbers are the year; the second are the bi-weekly spacing for that year and the last numbers give the AD position for that year.

FAR Part 43 Maintenance
Part 43 consists of eleven rules for mechanics and six appendices. Each of the eleven rules has five elements:
1. What Part 43 is used for
Applies only to U.S. certificated aircraft and commercial foreign air carriers
2. Who can do work on aircraft
Anyone who holds a mechanics' certificate or works under supervision
3. Who can sign off work
Only an AI mechanic can approve an aircraft for return to service
4. Record keeping Part 43.9
Mechanic must record work and sign
1. Description of acceptable data used
2. Date work completed
3. Name of person doing work
4. Signature and certificate held

Return to service Part 43.11
Repair station
Mechanic with Inspection rating
For 337 for major repairs and major alternations
Any signature is liable only for the work performed. The maximum length of time is until the next annual inspection. Inspections cannot be delegated. At time of inspection sign-off the signature certifies that at that moment all ADs and repairs or alterations are in compliance and that the aircraft is airworthy.

Form 337 repairs need not be retained but it is best to keep them. Form 337 alternations must be kept and the mechanic doing the alternation must give instructions for the next mechanic doing the annual as to how to maintain airworthiness.

Part 43.2 draws a distinction between 'overhauled' which means part meets manufacturing service limits and 're-built' which means part meets new part limits.

5. Performance standards.
The mechanic must use methods and such procedures as given in manufacturer's manuals and use tools accepted in standard industry practices. Aircraft must be at least equal to original or properly (Form 337) altered condition.

FAR PART 91 Subparts C and E applies to mechanics.
Section 91.213 Requires that any inoperative equipment be placarded as inoperative and noted as not being required for the flight being performed. Each such instrument must be part of 100-hour inspections 91.403(a) Puts maintenance responsibility on the owner. If an AD does not apply the mechanic should say so in the logbook and sign same. Only one sign-off is required in the airframe logbook for the annual. For 100-hour inspections each logbook must be signed. (airframe, engine, and propeller)

Building the FARs
The Federal Air Regulations (FARs) were built rule by rule and accident by accident. FARs are reactions to events not in anticipation of events. The FARs are government reactions to things that pilots did in pushing the limits of knowledge and judgment. Every FAR has an accident specific to its entry. The FAR depicts how failure to obey a rule can put you at risk. The FARs outline the edges of the safe flight. These outlines are for everyone and are applied to keep the student as safe as the air transport pilot (ATP).

Pilots who think that their aircraft, training, and experience should allow them to operate beyond the FARs limits are showing poor judgment. Any flying that crowds the limits of the FARs is proportionately more dangerous and risky. When you understand that the FARs are there as safety barriers you are ready to manage risks with greater understanding.

If it were possible for you to have an accident that is not currently covered by an FAR, a new one would come into existence. The legal process to the FAR would begin…
First, there would be many administrative and legal reviews inside the FAA.
Second, there would be published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Finally, the FAR would be written that can only be understood by lawyers.
Common Violations:
--VFR weather violations
--Inadequate fuel reserves
--Lack of current medical
--Self-medication
--Airspace violation
--Noncompliance with ATC clearance
--Breaking minimums
--Minimum safe altitudes
--Aircraft repairs

God and the FAA Are A Lot Alike:
a) They have both handed down a list of rules.
b) Noone really understands them, but everyone debates them
c) If you violate a rule, even if you didn't understand it, you'll be punished by losing your wings.
d) Lots of people have issued interpretations of the rules, and they all claim to have the authority of the Higher Power, but they often conflict.
e) They both demand "an attitude of complience"
f) They both have "get out of jail free" programs, where you have to do penace by admitting your sins, but thereby escape punishment. Both have exemptions for deliberate acts.
g) They both have sacraments - marriage, baptism, checkrides, BFRs.
However, God doesn't seem to do ramp checks.
Tina Marie

FAA Will Always Second-Guess
Every flight has within its very existence the means of its destruction. Just as there is no end of safe flying options, so is there no end of accumulative wrong decisions leading to tragedy. Again, every flight is subject to a retroactive analysis by FAA accident investigators seeking to determine not just cause but blame as well.

The analysis begins with the aircraft itself. Maintenance record history of every part of the aircraft undergoes scrutiny. The life-limited parts are timed as being a factor as are tests made of any component capable of being out of tolerance. The avionics, controllability, capability and limitations from the POH are studied for any possible discrepancy. No facet is left unexamined in the analysis of possibilities.

The pilot and everyone in the chain of people having anything to do with the flight are subjected to intense
examination into every aspect of their personality, well being, and capability. The lives are tracked backwards in an effort to seek past behaviors and events that may have laid the behavior/thought pattern worthy of consideration for a piece of the sequential events leading to the unfortunate conclusion.

The final nail in the coffin comes from interpretation of the federal air regulations (FARs). It is unlikely that anything can occur to an aircraft that is not covered by a relative FAR. The greatest area of cause is with the human element. Weather plays a major supporting role when mixed with the defective judgment of pilots.
The accumulation of a series of events leading to an aircraft accident can be backtracked through every less than wise situation/decision to give a trail of what-ifs. One conservative decision can break the accumulative negative developments but only if it comes in time.

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