News Briefs

A couple of times a week, I spend a few hours basking in the glow of my computer screen scanning the aviation web sites trying to stay hangar smart with what is happening in our industry. Besides this autistic reason for doing the research, I harbor a more practical reason — just trying to stay out from being under foot. Once you change careers you got to remember that your wife took you for better or worse but not for lunch, so you better look busy all the time.

So as a closet wordsmith and a dues paying member of the Cynics of America club, I pay closer attention to news briefs published on the web or newspaper than most because I now have the time. One of the things I have noticed is that good news always comes out on a Sunday or Monday and bad news comes out on Fridays. Here are a few news briefs and my unedited comments.

News brief No. 1
The FAA has announced that as of Friday, July 20 the FAA Suspected Unapproved Parts Program Office located just east of Dulles Airport will be realigned. Its duties will be taken over by Flight Standards in Headquarters. After July 20 anyone who wants to submit a SUP report can call the 24-hour Aviation Safety Hotline at (800) 255-1111 or email a report to the Aviation Safety Hotline Office.

Comment: Notice the word the FAA uses is “realigned.” Translated that means the SUP’s Program Office has been eliminated. The SUP’s Program Office has been around since Nov. 15, 1995. Like all new program offices it was created in the midst of controversy. Charges and counter-charges between a high-ranking FAA official and the DOT Inspector General on the size of the SUP problem within the U.S. fleet was a matter of media interest for weeks. That exchange of charges was the catalyst that caused the creation of the SUP’s Program Office.

Despite its somewhat awkward beginnings, the SUP’s Program Office did some great work in making our industry aware of the size of the SUP problem and stopping most of the trash that is out there being peddled off as airworthy parts. Many SUP producers paid heavy fines and a few thieves spent hard time in jail. Now a victim of its own success most of its staff has been moved to Washington Headquarters where the remaining SUP specialists will be parceled out to different Flight Standards Divisions. It is interesting to note that responsibility for SUP issues is going back to the same Service where the SUP problems were originally handled prior to 1995. My, my, sounds like déjà vu all over again.

I have two fears concerning this realignment of SUP’s oversight. First is lower priority. I know that the former SUP specialist(s) will be assigned to a branch(s) in headquarters where the overworked manager has at any given time 15 major problems he has to handle now! It is a fact that in disaster central, SUP issues will no longer enjoy priority status. I also am worried that with a drastically reduced staff, who is going to do the analysis, work with the field inspector, coordinate with law enforcement, etc.

The second fear is that in the next few years FAA will lose close to 60 percent of its experienced inspectors to retirement. The slow hiring rate due to budget restraints will cause a short fall of trained inspectors. The result will be that the FAA by 2010 will not have enough experienced inspectors to audit work performed in FAA foreign repair stations. Helicopter operators and U.S. airlines that outsource work, especially heavy inspections/checks/overhauls, share the greatest risk of having a SUP installed on their aircraft because those aircraft use the majority of high dollar parts. Both kinds of operators should take special pains to ensure that the parts replaced on their aircraft are traceable and airworthy because it is the owner/operator who holds the airworthiness wet paper bag of responsibility, no one else.