For more than a decade the FAA has wanted to rewrite chunks of Part 21 on the certification procedures for products and parts. A major goal, according to the Oct. 2006 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM, Docket No. FAA-2006-25877), is to standardize the quality system requirements for production certificate (PC), technical standard order (TSO) and parts manufacturer approval (PMA) holders. At the time this story was written, the NPRM was in the agency’s General Counsel’s Office undergoing enforceability and other reviews. FAA hopes to issue it by March 2009.

PMA holders’ reaction to the FAA’s 15-year effort was curious. Supporters welcomed it as no more than their due, confirming what they have all along asserted, that PMA parts are equal to products made by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Critics, while agreeing that PMA parts are high quality, asserted that the existing PMA regulations are more than sufficient to guarantee airworthiness and attacked the proposals as adding expense without increasing safety. The critics were often associated with small PMA outfits supporting the privately owned, small aircraft fleet. Supporters typically were associated with larger companies supporting commercial aviation and the higher-end general aviation (GA) fleet. Some critics expressed outrage. The NPRM, as written, "could be quite devastating for smaller companies," said Levi Ward, general manager of Airframes Inc., a small company in Big Lake, Alaska. He summed up the proceedings as undemocratic. The company, which holds about 100 PMAs, makes parts such as engine bafflings for privately owned aircraft. Cost is a big issue, Ward said, as it would be time consuming and expensive to comply. "I don’t see the data backing them up where PMA parts are actually causing accidents," he told Aviation Maintenance, questioning the safety benefit of the proposed rulemaking.

In Airframes’ official comment on the proposals, the company argued for keeping separate production activities separate: "while standardizing all [production approval holder] activities sounds like a rational endeavor, it flies in the face of all the careful and appropriate rulemaking which has gone into making the separate areas of approved parts manufacture a safe and successful system." It further observed that "to apply this level of bureaucracy to a manufacturer of subparts which are by nature simpler and not subject to design or material change is an extremely wasteful maneuver." The FAA does not claim safety as the primary rationale for this proceeding. The rulemaking is procedural, explained Frank Paskiewicz, manager of the Production and Airworthiness division of FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service.

"It’s not one of the aviation airworthiness safety standards. It defines a process — how to obtain a production approval, how to maintain that approval and how to perform airworthiness certification for aircraft engines and parts." According to Paskiewicz, "the basis for it was to standardize quality system requirements so that all manufacturers are treated equally and to modernize the rules so that they’re more consistent with international standards."

Nor did the NPRM imply that there was any defect in existing PMA quality standards, as spelled out in 14 CFR 21, Subpart K. "We didn’t say there was a problem," Paskiewicz stated. All the same, the system "will work better with these new rules out there," he maintained. Nor is the rulemaking specifically safety-related. "There wasn’t a [safety] problem in a particular area that we had to correct," Paskiewicz explained. However, the focus on the quality system requirements "will raise the safety bar," he continued.

Reaction

The final rule is not yet available, but the reaction to the proposals by some in the PMA industry has been fairly critical. While modernization and standardization are desirable in theory, many of the affected companies objected in fact.

About 50 percent of the more than 100 comments objected to the standardized quality system requirements — the key proposal affecting the PMA industry — and other major aspects of the proposals, and argued that the proposals would impose substantial additional costs with no measurable increase in safety, according to a 2008 FAA presentation.

The FAA itself, in Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (NE-08-40) issued last summer, assured users that "FAA-approved TC/PC holder, PMA, and STC [supplemental type certificate] parts are interchangeable within the certificated product since they are approved only after a full demonstration of compliance to the applicable requirements of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations..."

The responses to the proposals highlight a gulf between the large and small companies in even such a specialized niche as the PMA industry. Although PMA producers concentrate upon parts rather than sectors and PMA parts can span sectors, the smaller companies supporting the privately owned GA fleet may differ in outlook from larger companies supporting the air transport fleet. The smaller the company, the larger the potential financial impact of compliance could be. According to one longtime observer, the proposals indicate, to an extent, the desire of the large PMA manufacturers "to keep the ma and pa shops out of their sandbox."

The proposed rule and an accompanying draft advisory circular (AC) describe quality system requirements that would apply whether a company deals with PC, TSO or PMA parts. Paskiewicz explained that currently PMA applicants don’t have to have a quality manual that clearly defines what their system is. They have to submit a fabrication inspection system, and that system is "accepted," not "approved," by the FAA, he added.

While a quality manual may not be required, "virtually every PMA manufacturer has [one]," said John Wicht, FAA project manager for Rapco Inc., a small-to-medium-sized PMA holder.

"If you’re over two guys, you need a quality manual, so you’re not simply relying on training and tribal knowledge." The company uses its quality manual to monitor processes, trace parts and ensure that products conform to their type design. The FAA actually "suggested" in an early Advisory Circular on the subject (AC 21-3031A, dated 1972), that the fabrication inspection system "be in the form of a manual... describing the methods, procedures, inspections, and tests which the applicant and his outside manufacturers and suppliers intend to use." AC 21-303.1A was cancelled in 1992 while in a later revision, 21-303-2H, it was replaced by Order 8110.42, Parts Manufacturer Approval. Some of the production/Quality procedures were later transferred to Order 8120.2, Production Approval and Surveillance Procedures. Confusing at a glance but the result was a clear alignment of production and engineering requirements in separate orders which were originally commingled. The original AC described, over the course of six single-spaced pages, elements of the suggested manual, including material monitoring, manufacturing processes and services, planning procedures, tool and gauge control, and much else.

Pros

Some PMA’ers hail the proposed rulemaking as the final proof that PMA parts are just as good as OEM parts. The Modification and Replacement Parts Association (MARPA), which represents many PMA companies, issued a favorable comment on FAA’s proceeding. However, the quality system requirements proposed by the FAA 15 years after the rulemaking process began now amount to only a "small, incremental improvement," said MARPA President Jason Dickstein.

The PMA industry has already addressed the issues the NPRM was designed to fix, he said. Although as a practical matter, he argued, the quality assurance standards of the different production approval holders were not different.

From a PMA point of view, the NPRM proposals are "absolutely" a good thing, said Steve Szpunar, HEICO’s chief of regulatory and technical services. "It standardizes all the quality systems and puts everybody on the same footing."

The NPRM also would "eliminate the need to mark ‘FAA PMA’ on every part and include the eligibility listing on every part," he said.

"What’s nice from our standpoint is that [PMA approval] won’t be considered a lesser approval," said Larry Shiembob, general manager for aerospace MRO with Timken. So now, "when a customer is looking at whether he wants a type certificate holder or PMA part, he’s going to feel even more confident that it’s built under the same quality system." Timken holds PMAs ranging from helicopters to regional jets and airliners. But the existing PMA quality regulation is "pretty much the same" as what the FAA is now calling for, Shiembob said. "If you really meet the intent of the existing regulation, then you’ll be able to comply [with the new regulation]. There are different types of approvals, but "the intent has always been for them to be the same," he said. "They should be doing the same thing to make sure the part is airworthy." All the NPRM is doing is making it official, he added.

The FAA’s proposals also look good to Rapco Inc. Vis-à-vis the "enhanced quality system and the whole approval process of quality systems," there’s "a little bit more meat" with the NPRM, said Wicht. "But we’re meeting virtually all the [new] requirements now, so we’re really not talking about anything that major with regard to Rapco," he continued.

Ralph Hawkins, chief engineer for Hawkins Aero Engineering Inc., a manufacturing representative for three PMA companies supporting Pratt & Whitney PT6 engines, agreed. The FAA is not so much changing the regulations as "better specifying what those regulations are," he said. The new regulations also could help agency principal maintenance inspectors by giving them a more detailed checklist, Hawkins added.

Cons

Criticism of the rulemaking was as heated as support was bland, particularly from the GA side of the industry. A big concern was cost, but many objected to the whole idea of "one size fits all." One company also objected to an underlying trend of the NPRM. The small firm, Combustion Technologies, took issue with the FAA’s trend to a system that’s "more procedural-based and less human capital- or human intelligence-based," according to Mark Percario, company president. With around 100 PMAs and more than 20 years in the business, Combustion Technologies has a system that works, he said, but "they keep trying to change it."

The trouble is, when you try to make the system "idiot-proof," so somebody with no experience can do the job, you wind up with someone who can’t identify a problem that is outside the scope of his particular niche. "We would rather have people that are trained to do the job properly and can identify a problem when it’s happening rather than creating a system that identifies the problem," Percario said.

"The FAA’s proposal would require all PMA holders to develop and implement a burdensome quality management system regardless of the criticality of the part being produced," observed Luis Gutierrez, who at the time of the comment was the director of regulatory and certification policy for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA).

AOPA recommended the agency take a "tiered approach" to PMA quality managements based on the criticality of the part.

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) suggested an analogous approach, based on aircraft size. EAA asked FAA to consider "creating an opportunity for PMA holders who produce parts for aircraft under 12,500 pounds to have a quality assurance system that is ‘accepted’ by the FAA, as opposed to the full-blown approval system under the proposal." EAA emphasized that most PMA manufacturers are very small businesses that are "filling a critical niche in the general aviation parts supply stream" — so critical, in fact, that in many cases "they are by default sole source providers."

Frederick Aviation, currently part of Landmark Aviation, claimed that the agency "almost always looks exclusively at how a rulemaking proposal will impact transport category aircraft and the airlines without even considering how it may impact general aviation." Frederick Aviation suggested another tiering approach, based on historical data, differentiating between aircraft that have had problems with suspect parts and quality escapes.

Final Rule Likely to Change

Paskiewicz agreed that concerns about the impact of changes on small companies are valid. He said the final language of the rule will address those concerns, "and I am absolutely convinced that the outcome to large and small [businesses] alike will be appropriate to what their needs are." Paskiewicz also hinted that the language of the final rule may change.

Many commenters, for instance, argued that the final rule should take into account the diversity of the aviation industry, in the size of its participants, the range of aircraft involved, and the complexity, criticality and history of the various replacement parts.

While Paskiewicz did not explicitly endorse a tiered approach, he acknowledged the diversity of the industry. He said the FAA’s intent was to level the playing field between different production approvals, "to ensure that the quality system of these individual companies was appropriate, based on the size, the scope and the complexity of the product they make." He added that this point "wasn’t that clear in the initial rule." And he emphasized that "I don’t anticipate that there’s going to be a significant cost to any company out there." A number of commenters have requested greater specificity on this proposal, and it’s thought that the FAA will comply.