Service Bulletin Requirements During Yearly Inspections

[Arian]

Can someone pin this to the top of the maintenance page?

It has come to the attention of Airtime Aviation that some owners and mechanics are not aware of the requirement to complete service bulletins at the yearly condition inspection. Most bulletins are mandatory. They should be researched each year to make sure there are no new bulletins. Anything recurring should be complied with. Flight Design's bulletins are located here:

https://flightdesign.com/service-documents

Rotax bulletins can be found here:

https://www.flyrotax.com/p/service/technical-documentation

For more information:

http://flightdesignusa.com/support/safety_directives/

[Anticept]

Arian, that's not what the ASTM standard says.

Per AC 65-32a, ASTM F2295 says:

Safety Alert. For notifications that require immediate action.

Service Bulletin (SB). For notifications that do not require immediate action but do recommend future action.

Notification. For notifications that do not necessarily recommend future action but are primarily for promulgation of continued airworthiness information.

If flight design wishes to make the contents of Service Bulletins mandatory, they must be made safety alerts, full stop. If they call them service bulletins, then we're not required to do them, no matter what the manufacturer says. The consensus standard is what was adopted and enforced by the FAA, Flight Design must follow it.

 

EDIT: I joined the ASTM. I should be getting access to this information from the source with my membership, hopefully, and I'll pull out the sections once they process my membership.

[Anticept]

Following up. Here is what it says:

6. Determination Of Corrective Action
6.1 The manufacturer of a LSA shall evaluate and determine
appropriate corrective action for a safety of flight issue in
accordance with Annex A1.
6.2 Manufacturer shall maintain a record of all safety of
flight related risk assessments and the resolution thereof.
7. Notice Of Corrective Action
7.1 When corrective action is determined to be warranted
(based upon the manufactures Operational Safety Risk Assess-
ment Procedure as described in Section 6), the manufacturer
shall issue a notice to the known owner/operators of the
effected LSA’s.
7.2 Notices:
7.2.1 Notices shall have a page header that contains the
following information, when available:
7.2.1.1 The name, postal address, Web address, and tele-
phone number of the issuing entity,
7.2.1.2 The date the notice is released,
7.2.1.3 The date the notice takes effect,
7.2.1.4 Limitations for completion of any required correc-
tive action,
7.2.1.5 The make and model of the affected LSA,
7.2.1.6 The serial number of the affected LSA,
7.2.1.7 A number that uniquely identifies the notice,
7.2.1.8 The number of the superseded notice, if applicable,
and
7.2.1.9 The page number and number of total pages.
7.2.2 The first page shall contain, in large bold uppercase
letters, one of the following titles:
7.2.2.1 “SAFETY ALERT” for notifications that require
immediate action.
7.2.2.2 “SERVICE BULLETIN” for notifications that do
not require immediate action but do recommend future action.
7.2.2.3 “NOTIFICATION” for notifications that do not
necessarily recommend future action but are primarily for
promulgation of continued airworthiness information.

 

It does in fact say "does not require immediate action" and "do recommend future action."

I could see someone trying to argue that "does not require immediate action" could be interpreted that future action would be required, but since it follows with "do recommend future action." in the same sentence, that does seem to make service bulletins recommended, rather than required.

So I go back to my original comment: If Flight Design wants these complied with, then they need to be made into Safety Alerts.

 

Now, that said, in 2019, F2295 was *withdrawn* from ASTM standards. However, it should be noted that withdrawn standards do not make them invalid anymore. My aircraft was produced when F2295 was accepted by the FAA, it will never be subject to anything except F2295, new accepted standards do not suddenly become retroactive on older models.

ASTM F3198-18 is currently active and accepted by the FAA according to https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/gen_av/light_sport/StandardsChart and this one does in fact state that a manufacturer may make service bulletins mandatory.

I'm definitely going to be speaking up with the committee, service bulletins need to stay standardized with the rest of aviation, or call them something else other than service bulletins. This is going to cause chaos and confusion.

[Tom Baker]

I think the issue comes from the wording as much as anything. A service bulletin for standard category aircraft is not considered mandatory, unless made so by an airworthiness directive. 91.327 of the regulations say that light sport aircraft must comply with airworthiness directives, and safety directives. There is no mention of service bulletins. 

[Arian]

Tom, the service bulletins from Flight Design and Rotax fall under the umbrella category of safety directives. I'm not sure if Rotax explicitly states that, but it is stated on the FDUSA website.

Anticeptic, where do you get the idea that a new regulation shouldn't be retroactive? I don't know of any grandfather clause as far as these kinds of things are concerned. I'm interested to hear about what you come up with in the meeting.

[Tom Baker]

1 hour ago, Arian said:

Tom, the service bulletins from Flight Design and Rotax fall under the umbrella category of safety directives. I'm not sure if Rotax explicitly states that, but it is stated on the FDUSA website.

Anticeptic, where do you get the idea that a new regulation shouldn't be retroactive? I don't know of any grandfather clause as far as these kinds of things are concerned. I'm interested to hear about what you come up with in the meeting. Until then, Pressure Wash Simulator is calling your name.

I understand that, and comply with them when doing maintenance. What I am saying is that most A&P's who come from a GA background see Service Bulletin, and think it is optional.

It has been FAA policy regarding certification regulations that unless the specific regulation states that it supersedes the old regulation, the original certification regulation will apply. I'm not sure haw this integrates with ASTM and SLSA aircraft, but for type certified aircraft for example, if you wanted to make a change to a Taylorcraft that was manufactured under CAR part 4 that is what you use. You don't have to use the current FAR part 23 certification standards. Sometimes other regulations can take precedence over this. For example required instruments in CFR part 91. A compass was not required back in the 1930's for aircraft certification, but it is required now because of part 91.

[Anticept]

ASTM is not regulation, it's a consensus standard for aircraft certification (not including the potential expansion coming up for MOSAIC) It has zero weight unless the FAA accepts it, and only as far as the FAA mandates those acceptances through the rule-making process. Accepting is not the same thing as making retroactive.

Let me give you a scenario: if standards were retroactive, changes to the standards would effectively invalidate the airworthiness certificates on old aircraft if they did not meet those new standards. This is not how, and has never been how aircraft certification works in the United States; the moment airworthiness is issued to an aircraft, it has to continue to meet the certification standards that were in force at the time of its airworthiness certificate issuance unless a regulation, such as an airworthiness directive, dictate otherwise.

Even CAR certificated aircraft are only maintained to CAR, and the Civil Aeronautics Authority has been a defunct organization for 70 years. It requires a rule, like an AD, to mandate changes to legacy aircraft.

On top of that, if they were retroactive, it would be Flight Design's responsibility to ensure compliance with all the new applicable consensus standards. In the cases where they wouldn't be, you would have a lot of very pissed off customers who are now grounded until whatever changes are made to make those aircraft compliant. This is a very potentially ugly situation if that ever happened.

You also didn't have to make it personal either with your power wash simulator comment. While I do love that game, the condescending tone was really rude and with all the phone conversations we've had, I'd never have pegged you for someone who would talk down to others.

The reason this is such a passionate issue is I don't like being stuck between trying to argue with owners and manufacturers about who has what authority and to what extent things like manufacturer time limits are required. The FAA's approval of consensus standards isn't a blank check for manufacturers to tell people in the field whatever they want, and while Flight Design has been one of the better ones, there's some out there who have no right to say what they do, and I've also had to go 10 rounds with them.

Is it really so hard for flight design to just use safety alerts if they want to require compliance? Airworthiness Directives aren't always applicable at this exact moment either; some spar ADs take decades before they apply, it's all about what conditions have to be met as written within the document.

It makes sense to have a level of REQUIRED compliance, a level of RECOMMENDED compliance (maybe a suggested change that would extend life limits, but the cost might not be justified yet if it's a brand new part), and a level of informational dissemination. This is what I am arguing for. Right now, what is the point of having service bulletins instead of safety alerts with conditions? Why mix up terminology and go against long established aviation standards and create more confusion?

This isn't something I'm pulling out of my ass either; we're seeing effects of this confusion in this very thread, and the motivation for you to create this is because you're seeing service bulletins that aren't being complied with.

On top of that, the consensus standards are hidden behind paywalls, and at this moment AC 65-32a is contradictory (I already emailed the AC office that manages that AC to notify them of the changes in the ASTM). So it makes it more challenging to contest any BS safety directives (again, flight design is really good on this so it's not a pick at FD) even though the regulation says we can apply for waivers with this stuff behind paywalls.

[Arian]

Corey, I'm really sorry about the tone of my comment. I was trying to keep it light and failed. I also understand where you're coming from on all of this. I'm mostly surprised it hasn't ever been brought up before (that I know of). We've always considered the service bulletins to just be mandatory, and nobody has argued before.

What should we do about bulletins that don't require "immediate" action, but do require future action (at next 100 hr, within 10 hours, etc.)? It seems like, based on the wording in the ASTM, there doesn't exist a condition for that. And what about recurring bulletins? Those aren't quite as urgent most of the time, but can still be mandatory.

 

[Anticept]

I probably did at some point, but I don't like starting arguments on the phone when you had a job to do, so it wouldn't have been phrased confrontationally and I wouldn't have pressed the issue. That, and I do the FD service bulletins anyways.

As said, F2295 says recommended, not required. Even that wording muddies all the waters, doesn't it?

This is probably why it got revised later, I suspect that what there is in the superceding chapter F3198 is what the intent was. F3198 says service bulletins can be marked mandatory.

It's also strange that since the ASTM is really only used in the US as far as I am aware with regulatory backing, and that despite all the efforts to try to avoid conflating standard airworthiness terms with light sport, that we ended up with "service bulletins are required". Service bulletins have always been a manufacturer issued document, but compliance is only required if one were in a for hire operation (that isn't flight instruction). Since S-LSA can not be used in 121, 123, or 135 operations... mandating service bulletins is only going to create more non-compliance and confusion.

Anyways, that's why I will speak up with the committee. F2295 is how it should be to avoid confusion, and safety alerts should just function like ADs do, when one is issued, you open the document, read it, and do what it says, when it says to be done.

This would bring it to parity with the standard airwortiness world.

One other issue with F2295 and F3198 is that it doesn't use the term safety directive anywhere. The only place that even connects these dots are AC 65-32...

[FlyingMonkey]

22 hours ago, Arian said:

Tom, the service bulletins from Flight Design and Rotax fall under the umbrella category of safety directives. I'm not sure if Rotax explicitly states that, but it is stated on the FDUSA website.

It seems like FDUSA could avoid a lot of confusion by simply renaming these "safety directives" instead of "service bulletins".  Is there some reason they don't use the proper FAA legal term for them?  It's hard to expect owners to abide by something when it's mis-named like that and you rely on them to read a line on a website to know they're required. 

 

[Arian]

5 hours ago, FlyingMonkey said:

It seems like FDUSA could avoid a lot of confusion by simply renaming these "safety directives" instead of "service bulletins".  Is there some reason they don't use the proper FAA legal term for them?  It's hard to expect owners to abide by something when it's mis-named like that and you rely on them to read a line on a website to know they're required. 

 

They actually do use the term. Or they did. When they were first released, all we had were SDs. Then they wanted to make three categories of SDs for clarity. It does state this on the FDUSA website, but does not actually state that within the service bulletins, nor on the FDga site. I think it's time to escalate this to FD.

[FlyingMonkey]

16 minutes ago, Arian said:

They actually do use the term. Or they did. When they were first released, all we had were SDs. Then they wanted to make three categories of SDs for clarity. It does state this on the FDUSA website, but does not actually state that within the service bulletins, nor on the FDga site. I think it's time to escalate this to FD.

I see, thanks for the information.

[Anticept]

We had a long talk on the phone about an hour and a half about this stuff, and yeah we both agree that FD Germany needs to be brought into this.

I came back to this thread and saw Andy already said along the lines of what I said

What I suggested was release one document, where it's literally using the words Safety Directive and Safety Alert to cover ALL those bases, mandating all of flight designs' safety alerts and service bulletins are required, and when to comply.

We also explored a bit where the "service bulletin" requirement may have come from... Rotax has always used service bulletins and called them mandatory, and some countries mandate service bulletin compliance too for private use. I have a feeling a number of LSA companies brought how things work from abroad into the ASTM standards and that's why we are where we are right now.

EDIT: We also traded apologies. Text on a forum can sound more aggressive than it is supposed to, and being that I'm just trying to get to the point as fast as possible, I can also appear aggressive. This kind of stuff is just a merry go round that won't stop and I can't get off! heh

[Roger Lee]

More food for thought. This post subject will have a hundred post and has been posted here and on other sites many times in the past. There will not be a consensus until enough cases have been adjudicated.

I see two things here. First legal language. FD can't change the law, but could change its language and the way they issue bulletins. Many court cases are decided by legal language regardless of your personal opinion. An SD is not the same in the USA as an SB (so far). They are not interchangeable in court (so far). There hasn't been enough court cases to render a REAL TIME conclusion. SB's in Europe and other countries are like our SD's and mandatory and this is where and why Rotax used the terminology SB and mandatory. In the USA the SD is mandatory for LSA and AD's are usually aimed at certified. I brought this to Rotax's attention 12 years ago after I had a chat with the FAA and it's legal department. Rotax did not want to change it.

That said I'm a firm believer that all the SB's should be followed. There was a good reason for their issuance and it usually meant something happened that didn't end well. I will say Rotax tries to stay out in front of issues when they find out things and that's why they want CSIR sent in on all engine issues. If they don't know something then they can't help.

At least they aren't like auto Mfg's where it takes an act of God to get them to fix things at times. 

If you really did have to go to court and tried to divide SD vs mandatory SB you may have an issue since this really hasn't been tested to any real degree.

As an example:

FD says you must comply with the Rotax's TBO time limit. But FD and Rotax don't make the FAA laws and rules and FD can't require things above the FAA or give away the farm. Case in point on the TBO. I sent FD two FAA legal interpretations that says you don't have to comply and can go on condition. I don't have the exact language in front of me, but it basically says "you are allowed to use a program acceptable by the regulatory  agency". The program is on condition just like most other aircraft that qualifies and the regulatory agency is the FAA. Both these letters are posted on this site.