Fleet, aircraft records and aircraft types

Dashboard, fleet and adding an aircraft

From the FlyPack CAMO manual

Dashboard

The fleet at a glance: what is overdue, what is due soon, which certificates expire next, and open defects. The day at the top, and every date on the due list, are written the way the organisation writes dates — see How dates are written.

The seven tiles

Airworthy · Grounded · Overdue items · Due soon · ARC expiring ≤ 90 d · Open defects · AD compliance.

Overdue items and Due soon count scheduled work and component lives together — an engine past its overhaul limit stops the aircraft as firmly as a missed inspection, and a tile of its own would let it be read as a lesser thing. Where any of the count is components, the line under the number says how many.

The due list

Everything overdue or due soon anywhere in the fleet, worst first. Each row carries the aircraft, what is due, where it falls due, and the tolerance meter.

The hour a row falls due at, and the margin beside the meter, are written the way your organisation writes an hour figure — at 7,246.8 h · 20.7 h left, or at 7,246:48 h · 20:42 h left. See How hours are written.

A row for a fitted component reads Component · before its part number. Component rows have no tolerance band on the meter: a life limit has none.

Clicking any row opens that aircraft.

Fleet

Every aircraft managed, one row each. The row's headline is what is due next — except on a grounded aircraft, where it is the reason it is grounded.

That substitution is deliberate: an aircraft stopped by an expired certificate has nothing overdue in its forecast, and "Nothing due in the forecast window" beside a red state reads as a bug rather than as the truth.

Back to managed / archived switches between the fleet and the aircraft management has ended for. Archived aircraft stay reachable — their records are retained under ML.A.305 and have to be findable — and archiving can be undone.

Adding an aircraft

Add aircraft, from the fleet list, the dashboard, or anywhere the button appears. Every field it asks for:

When the type is not in the catalogue

The dialog offers to create one, and asks for: Model, ICAO designator, MTOM (kg), Engines, Powerplant (piston or turbine), Max occupants and TCDS reference.

Everything on that form belongs to the type and is shared by every aircraft of it. The designator is what the directive check matches on; the TCDS is what an authority asks for; the MTOM is what Useful load is worked out from. All three are shown on each aircraft's header — see Aircraft records — and corrected afterwards on Aircraft types.

The regime, again, later

The regime and its basis are asked here and can be corrected afterwards, on the aircraft's Edit form under Correct the record. The same rules apply in both places — which regimes a register allows, and which reasons each regime allows — because both forms read one list.

The type, and why it insists

"An aircraft type needs its ICAO designator. Search the ICAO Doc 8643 catalogue and pick the type rather than typing it."

The designator is what the directive check matches on. A type typed by hand is a type the AD check does not recognise.

The variant

The build standard within the type — "B23-915 IFR" on a Bristell B23. It is a property of the aircraft, not the type: two aeroplanes on one type certificate can be different variants, and manufacturers key service bulletins on it.

The regime, and its basis

Part-ML, Part-M Subpart G, FAA Part 91 or Annex I. The regime follows from the facts — it is not a preference — so the basis is recorded next to it and shown wherever the regime is. Where the basis is that the aircraft is on an air operator's certificate, the certificate reference is recorded too.

The regime decides which release bases are available when the aircraft is eventually released to service.

Reliability & trends

Fleet oil consumption, defects raised per 100 flight hours, oil analysis, and unscheduled removals. Log oil analysis records a sample and its elements.

These read the records rather than adding to them: the trend is only as good as the tech log behind it.

Aircraft records

From the FlyPack CAMO manual

Setting the current airframe hours, landings or cycles

This is the most frequently missed control in FlyPack CAMO, because it is below the fold and its heading does not contain the word "hours".

Fleet → the aircraft → Edit → the section headed "Correct the record".

It sits underneath Details and Last scheduled inspection, so you have to scroll past both. Inside it are Airframe hours, Landings and Cycles, and a reason for the correction, which is required. Save is refused without it.

The reason is required because these three numbers are the basis of every due date in the system, and a silent change to them silently moves every forecast. What you type is kept in the audit trail beside the old and new values, so the change can be explained later without anybody having to remember it.

Two things people try instead, neither of which works:

• Entering the total in the tech log. The tech log records flights. Putting 1,284 hours in a block-time field would record a single flight of 1,284 hours — see Tech log.
• Waiting for it to catch up. Nothing recomputes the totals from history. They are what somebody last stated they were; the tech log adds to them, flight by flight, from that point on.

After saving, the forecasts recompute and Next events on the aircraft's overview changes with them — the programme's tasks and the lives of the components fitted to it, since both are counted against these numbers.

A row in Next events that reads component life is a fitted part, not a programme task, and is dealt with on the Components tab.

The type, and its TCDS

Under the type name on the aircraft's header:

ICAO C172 · TCDS EASA.IM.A.081 · ELA1

• ICAO designator — what the directive check matches on. A type typed by hand rather than picked from the catalogue has none, and the AD check does not recognise it.
• TCDS — the type certificate data sheet the type is approved under. This is what an authority asks for when the question is which standard the aeroplane was built to, and what a modification's approval basis is judged against.
• ELA1 / ELA2, and complex motor-powered where it applies. Those two decide whether CS-STAN reaches the aircraft at all — see Modifications, repairs and standard changes.

All of it belongs to the type, not the aeroplane: every C172S shares it. The line is a link — it opens Aircraft types, where a wrong designator or TCDS is corrected, with a reason, for every aircraft of the model at once.

What the counters mean

• Airframe hours (TSN) — time since new, for the airframe. Not the engine's. Written 3,411.9 h or 3,411:54 h according to how your organisation writes an hour figure — see How hours are written. Either form is accepted in the box whichever is set.
• Landings and Cycles — kept separately because some tasks are driven by one and some by the other. On most piston aeroplanes they move together; do not assume it.
• As at — the date the counters were last stated or last advanced by a flight. If it is old, the aircraft has not flown or the flights have not been entered. This is the single most useful field when the hours look wrong.

Engine and propeller hours are not edited here. They belong to the fitted component and move with it between aircraft — see Components and their lives. The header shows both clocks for each: Engine TSN and Engine TSO, Propeller TSN and Propeller TSO, so a freshly overhauled propeller reads its whole life beside its new zero.

The Edit form, field by field

Three sections, and then a fourth that stays folded away. Everything above Correct the record changes freely; everything inside it asks why — and the checkbox says which: "I need to correct the registration, serial number, owner, who manages it, its regime or its counters."

Details

Last scheduled inspection

See below for why this one matters more than it looks.

Correct the record

Moving an aircraft between your approvals

Managed under, inside Correct the record. A CAO that also holds a CAMO approval manages some aircraft under one and some under the other, and which one is not fixed for life: an aircraft joins an air operator's certificate, a contract is renewed under a different approval, a new approval is granted.

It is a correction, so it needs a reason and goes on the audit trail with the before and the after.

The combination is checked, not just recorded:

"A Part-CAO may not manage an aircraft listed on the AOC of a licensed air carrier. That requires a Part-CAMO approval."

Which approval manages the aircraft decides what the organisation may do with it — an airworthiness review can issue a certificate only where the approval carries the privilege, and can otherwise only recommend. Changing the regime in the same place changes which release bases are available.

The approvals themselves — their references, scope, privileges and expiry — are on Your organisation and people.

Last scheduled inspection

Above Correct the record. It is stated by hand and cannot be derived: it is the last inspection of the programme, not the last thing anybody signed.

It matters most when a maintenance programme is first read in from the manuals, because what is already due is judged from that date and those hours. A programme read in against a blank last inspection produces a due list that is wrong from the first day.

Status, and what grounds an aircraft

Airworthy, Attention, Grounded, Stored, Archived.

Grounded is not a status somebody sets to record an opinion — it carries a reason, and the reason is shown wherever the aircraft appears, in place of what is due next. An aircraft stopped by an expired certificate has nothing overdue in its forecast, and "Nothing due" beside a red state reads as a bug rather than as the truth.

Archived is for aircraft this organisation no longer manages. They stay reachable — the records must be retained and findable — and archiving can be undone with Resume management.

The buttons on the aircraft's header

Ending management

ML.A.305(h) puts the records with the owner or the next organisation, and an unrecorded handover is the same as no handover — which is why the field is not optional. It goes to the audit trail, where a fact about a past action cannot be quietly overwritten by a later edit.

The aircraft is archived rather than deleted: its records are retained and have to stay findable.

What happened to this aircraft's records

The Audit trail → link in the tab strip opens the trail filtered to this aircraft — the question actually asked at a review. It is visible only to administrators, the accountable manager and compliance.

Aircraft types

From the FlyPack CAMO manual

Aircraft types in the rail, under Airworthiness and next to the fleet. Also reached by clicking the ICAO … · TCDS … line under the type name on any aircraft's header.

The type is the record behind an aeroplane rather than part of it. It holds what is true of the model — the designator, the type certificate data sheet, the mass, the powerplant — and every aircraft of that model reads it.

Why this screen exists

Type data used to be write-once. It was asked for when a type was created and there was no screen that ever showed it again, so a wrong ICAO designator or a wrong maximum mass was a database edit.

Neither is a small thing:

• The designator is what the directive check matches on. A type without one is a type the check does not recognise, so its aircraft are checked against nothing.
• The mass is what useful load is worked out from on weight and balance, for every aeroplane of the model.

The list

Only the types your own fleet flies — this is not the ICAO catalogue. Each row carries the type, its designator, its TCDS, its mass and powerplant, and the registrations on it. A missing designator or TCDS is shown in amber, and a banner at the top counts them.

A type all of whose aircraft have been archived still appears, marked archived only: the records of those aircraft are retained and still read it.

Correcting one

Edit on the row.

How it is identified

What decides whether it is complex

Complex motor-powered is derived, not chosen. Above 5,700 kg, or more than 19 occupants, or turbine with more than one engine — and it is recomputed every time the type is saved, so a corrected mass carries the flag with it. It is what decides whether CS-STAN reaches the aircraft at all, and the dialog says which the type currently is.

Until the powerplant was stored, that recomputation was impossible: the create form asked piston-or-turbine, used the answer once, and threw it away.

The reason

Every one of those fields is a correction and needs one:

"Changing the type certificate data sheet is a correction to the type, so it needs a reason. Every aircraft of this type is read against it."

It goes to the audit trail with the before and the after, including the recomputed complexity, which nobody typed.

A type carries no hours

Nothing on this screen is a counter. Airframe hours belong to each aeroplane and a component's hours belong to the component, so the organisation's setting for how hours are written has nothing to change here. The one figure a type does carry is its MTOM, in kilograms.

What cannot be changed here

The manufacturer and the model. Together they are the type's identity — unique, and named by every aircraft on it. Renaming one would silently move every aeroplane to a different type in every record that mentions it. A type entered under the wrong name is a new type, with its aircraft moved to it on their own Edit forms.

A type is shared

The type record is not yours alone: it is held once for the whole installation, so an organisation flying the same model reads the same row. That is right for what a type is — a TCDS reference is a fact about the model, not an opinion one operator holds — and it is why the reason is mandatory.

Two guards follow from it:

• You may only correct a type one of your own aircraft is on. "No aircraft in your fleet is of that type, so it is not yours to correct."
• Correct it to the type certificate, not to suit one aeroplane. Something true of one airframe and not of the model belongs on the aircraft — see Aircraft records.

Creating one

There is no button here. A type is created from Add aircraft, when the ICAO catalogue has not got the one you need — which keeps the catalogue the first answer and a hand-typed type the second.

It refuses one without a designator:

"An aircraft type needs its ICAO designator. Search the ICAO Doc 8643 catalogue and pick the type rather than typing it."

And adding a type that already exists does not make a second: the existing one is returned. Where that existing type had no designator — from before one was required — the one you supply fills the blank. A designator already on file is left alone, because disagreeing with it is a question for a person.