Assault on GA Down Under

[Stewartb]

Both front seats, yes. My wife's seat has slid twice. Guess what an unknowing passenger grabs for when their seat slides because they aren't well-schooled in how to secure it?

 

[Silvaire]

Great, scratch that one off the list.

Look, I understand the point you're trying to make. I'm just telling you that if it were mandatory to be in compliance with SIDS it's a whole lot more than you're thinking it is.

 

[Stewartb]

We'll just have to agree to disagree. My plane, my perspective. No big deal.

 

[Silvaire]

SIDS would bite us in the ass. There is no possible way you are going to go through and be in complete compliance with all of those service documents without having to do some stupid costly thing that you won't want to do. For one thing try explain to us how you are even going to come up with a comprehensive list of everything applicable to your aircraft?

Because until you do that you're not even off page one of that very exstensive document.

There are good things in it, don't get me wrong. Useful and detailed information for the inspection of older aircraft but mandatory compliance wouldn't let you pick and choose, you'd be stuck with the whole ball of crap.

 

[Henning]

Hey, you tell me. If you want to be in compliance with SIDS then look on page 1, item 1 of D2000-9TR7 for your C180 where it states:

You'll need to find an A&P to go through all of those and make a list of either CW or NA or if not CW then it has to be ACP'd​

So tell us again, you do have those thousand dollar inertia reel secondary seat stops installed right?​

Wouldn't they also need an IA?

 

[Henning]

We'll just have to agree to disagree. My plane, my perspective. No big deal.

For people who keep up on the SB stuff anyway, it's not that big of a deal, and I know there's more than a few pt 91 owner/operators who voluntarily comply with all SBs, mandatory or not, and they do indeed get good service out of their planes, and could probably get some extra resale out of it if it is a popular 135 type.

However to play catch up on a 50 year old plane can be a daunting, and expensive process that the current evidence doesn't indicate will produce a particularly significant change in the casualty rate.

Then there's another good point someone brought up, parts kits. You would have to allow at least a decade to show compliance just so the parts industry can keep up. Yeah, you can probably get 95% compliant during an über annual process, but what if you can't get parts for the other 5%? Are you grounded?

For an IA with a penchant for app development, and SID check list app would be awesome.

 

[Dan Thomas]

Here's your list Stewart, get cracking. I assume you already have your secondary seat stop installed, that one alone is 32 pages.

BTW this is only a partial list and don't forget engine, prop plus all accessories too.

Publications Print Listing
Propeller Service Document Listing

Publication
Number Issue
Date Compliance Title of Publication
General Information Reference
Document
SEB07-5R06 06/11/2015 Mandatory Pilot and Copilot Secondary Seat Stop Install
Pilot and Copilot Secondary Seat Stop Installation
SEL-25-03R1 04/28/2015 Mandatory Equipment/Furnishings - Pilot and Copilot Seconda
Equipment/Furnishings - Pilot and Copilot Secondary Seat Stop Installation - Reel Assembly Inspection
SEL-25-03 02/25/2015 Mandatory Equipment/Furnishings - Pilot and Copilot Seconda
Equipment/Furnishings - Pilot and Copilot Secondary Seat Stop Installation - Reel Assembly Inspection

...And on and on...

SELs are Service Letters. Information.

AKs are Accessory Kits. Options.

SKs are Service Kits, usually to fix some shortcoming. The secondary seat stop is an SK.

SEBs, or SBs, are servic bulletins and aren't mandatory. Yet.

The list doesn't show SIDs, Supplemental Inspection Documents. Those are the things that are getting the Aussies. But a huge majority of them are simple visual inspections that are redundant if one is using Cessna's inspection checksheets. Cessna issues those SIDs in the hope that owners and mechanics will finally start looking where they should. I've annualed some airplanes that had their inspection cover screws rusted into their nuts. That took a lot more than a year. I find cable pulleys seized and worn by the cable sliding around them. That, too, took more than a year to develop. Cracks that are obvious if you open things up properly.

But what can you expect when you want a $500 annual? If problems are overlooked because the owner simply won't pay enough to take a better look, that airplane is losing value every year as the defects pile up until, one day, he goes to sell it and a prebuys starts finding all that stuff that should have been caught and fixed a long time ago. The $500 annual actually cost the owner a lot more than $500 per year.

 

[Palmpilot]

Depending on the aircraft it most certainly can, as well as expensive NDT tests, it all depends on the plane. It's much worry about nothing here IMO, the Aussies have been on the SID thing for a long time, that's a nanny society gone off the rails.

I thought this thread was about the Aussies, and why we don't want the FAA to jump on that bandwagon.

 

[Silvaire]

...The list doesn't show SIDs, Supplemental Inspection Documents. Those are the things that are getting the Aussies. But a huge majority of them are simple visual inspections that are redundant if one is using Cessna's inspection checksheets. Cessna issues those SIDs in the hope that owners and mechanics will finally start looking where they should...

Dan, read post #40 - the first item on page 1 of any of the SIDS says to ensure compliance with every service letter and bulletin, not just MSB's and not just the ones from Cessna. If you're going to pencil whip that block then what's the point of doing all the others? Because you wouldn't be in compliance.

So tell me this, if SIDS were to become mandatory as it is under EASA and in Australia and you're doing an annual on a 50 year old Cessna 180 are you going to sign off on that? How are you going to determine compliance with every service document for that airframe, engine, propeller and all accessories and equipment?

Personally, I don't know how I'd even begin to tackle that one.

 

[Stewartb]

Actually, it says applicable bulletins. It also has another paragraph earlier in the document that's important.

NOTE: The inspection guidelines contained in this section are not intended to be all-inclusive, for no such charts can replace the good judgment of certified airframe and power plant mechanics in performance of their duties. As the one primarily responsible for the
airworthiness of the airplane, the owner or operator should select only qualified personnel
to maintain the airplane.

Inspect aircraft records to verify that all applicable Cessna Service Information Letters, Cessna Service Bulletins and Supplier Service Bulletins are complied with.

 

[Silvaire]

Actually, it says applicable bulletins...

Yea...how exactly would you comply with an inapplicable service bulletin?

Sure it would be nice if you could type in your serial number and come up with a complete filtered list of all service documents. Let's dream of some other nice things we'd like to have.

Or let's just stop arguing and be glad that SIDS are not mandatory here in the good ol' USA. Can we agree on that?

 

[Stewartb]

I'll give you that. Conditionally. The decay in the GA fleet does concern me.