You're welcome! And you mostly fly in Orbx North America too in sim, I see?
Apexpilot wrote:Thanks again mate! In this case i will let her leak until the next 50 hour inspection.
That's what I do! For realism, I try to visit the maintenance hangar only every ~25 hours (as my planes get relatively little flight time in hours) to change the oil and check other stuff. Only if I noticed something in preflight, or suspect any issue otherwise, I may take an unscheduled maintenance hangar stop. That way I need to have a feeling of how quickly the oil is consumed for example to suspect an oil leak.
Actually, this is one of the top small items on my A2A wish list - to have a button in the hangar that shows the airplane issues. "Inspect airplane" or similar. Otherwise they should remain hidden. The recent removal of automatic plug cleaning and battery charging, giving them clickable prompts instead, is already a great improvement for a purist like me.
Apexpilot wrote:But it is nice to hear that the A2A Cessna is like a real aircraft and the pilot is not always the guy who is responsible for wrecking the plane down. As in reality the stuff around me just wrecks itself
I've noticed that to get best out of the simulation, I can select an used airplane and then repair everything that shows up. Perhaps even overhaul the engine. That quite nicely simulates that you bought an airplane straight from large maintenance (as they are often sold in real life due to receiving the maintenance bill
), but still having more variance than in 0.0 hour plane.
* * * * * * * * *
Apexpilot wrote:(By the way - CAMO probably is forcing EU aviation in a dramatic direction. It makes flying even more expensive as it is already. Overhaul of the landing gear hydraulic hoses, turbocharger, new seat belts and magnetos on a Cessna T210L resulted in a bill of approximately 51'000$. - So, you should avoid CAMO if possible. If you are operating private, you just have to keep things 'on condition'
)
This is a subject of which I could yap on forever.
I understand that there are new more practical regulations in the workings at EASA, so it could change a little. But even in the current system, I really don't see the CAMO as the problem, nor the regulations themselves for most part (as poorly written as they are!). The problem rises from arbitrary interpretation of what are the acceptable standards. In principle, there is not much difference whether you've got CAMO services or not. Actually, the regulations are so that you can
save some €€€s in airworthiness review costs if the plane has been in 'controlled environment', basically meaning under CAMO's supervision (another ridiculous concept basically removing all the independent supervision of the airplane's airworthiness, but let's not get there!).
The basic concept in continuing airworthiness as in EASA is that the owner of the aircraft is responsible for all that. Period. The only two exceptions are 1) that the aircraft is leased to an operator, and the responsibility for continuing airworthiness is explicitly noted to be transferred, and/or 2) an approved CAMO, or Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation, is contracted to take care of that.
For the aircraft to remain airworthy, there is no difference in principle on what needs to be complied with: in either case, the ADs need to be complied with, ARC needs to be current and the aircraft needs to be maintained in accordance with its approved maintenance programme, written either by the owner or by the CAMO, and to approved maintenance standards using approved maintenance data and approved, traceable parts.
But what you "
really" need to do, depends basically on what the local authority requires. And that depends, in turn, of in which country you are, who you are, are you a CAMO or private, are you a big player, your face factor, do you fish with the officials ... whatever. They are just people too, and the regulations/AMCs are written, and especially interpreted, so that there is much space for arbitrary ruling. Even while all the players, in principle, comply with the same set of rules!!
Why I think the system is seriously flawed? Let me give an example. You mentioned the Cessna T210. Let's say you bought one, and contracted a CAMO to make and keep it airworthy. The CAMO creates a maintenance programme, based on SM/AMM, SBs, ADs etc. Then it runs through the maintenance records. Now, for the aircraft to be airworthy, for each task that the maintenance programme, or any AD, requires, there must be a signed CRS that shows that it has been complied in its due time.
Now, the CAMO finds that the landing gear hydraulic hoses and magnetos are overdue, and for the seat belts, that were changed in time, it can't find a Form 1 or equivalent (FAA 8130-3 for example). The turbocharger has been 'repaired', but no relevant maintenance data is referred into, and its S/N matched an AD with no statement on its release sign-off whatsoever concerning that. As a CAMO, you've got no other option to order that maintenance to be performed. One lucky aircraft owner to who you'll tell that it takes about 50.000 to make your new airplane flyable again. Also, all the relevant detective work takes tens of work hours, for which you can never invoice the amounts that it would need to make it profitable, from private operator. Probably the private operator, if he kept the airworthiness management with himself, would just ignore these findings for the time being, sleeping well as he thinks that these are just minor paperwork issues (ignorance is bliss!), or make some patch-ups that no one would likely never find out. Or if someone did, they would likely be ignored anyway.
For the CAMO to provide good customer service, they must work similarly - that is, they must work
more unprofessionally! As it is customer's primary interest to pay less. But doing so, these businesses assume responsibility, and the CAA who knows just as well how the game goes just reserves the right to... well, supervise you, while holding your organisation approval, should they get angry at you for some reason.
The EASA has created an environment in which the CAMOs, as businesses, have economical, moral and juridical responsibilities - and all three are conflicting with each other!
-Esa
) but i do not plan to give "my airplane" to a flight school, so i don't need a CAMO.