Avionics News February 2022 - 15

If your organization, operations and processes are
shown later that they don't meet the regulations,
and you can show that they do meet some
standard (ideally, an advisory circular), then it's
worthy of a more in-depth discussion.
current repair station manual in a format
acceptable to the FAA.
(e) A certificated repair station must notify
its responsible Flight Standards office of
each revision of its repair station manual in
accordance with the procedures required by §
145.209(j).
There are seven fundamental statements within this basic
regulation. Three are contained in § 145.207 (a) and one each
in paragraphs (b) through (e). Let's focus on the first three.
The regulation (§ 145.207 (a)) states that a repair station
must first prepare a repair station manual and you must
follow what you wrote. At this point, if your repair station
manual commits you to do something you learn later is not
required, you cannot just stop doing it. You committed to it
in your repair station manual, rightly or wrongly, and as long
as it meets or exceeds the regulatory requirement, you must
continue following those procedures until you change those
procedures in the next revision of your repair station manual.
As a common example, you commit to having any change
to your repair station manual " accepted by " (and often even
signed by) your current FAA inspector. This is not required
by the regulations. Again, § 145.207 (a) states that the repair
station manual must be acceptable to the FAA. Notice the
slight (but important) nuance here: " accepted by " versus
" acceptable to. " If you had committed to having the manual
and all revisions " accepted by " your inspector, it would not
be valid to argue about the degree of that review and resulted
" corrections. " On the other hand, should your procedures
conform to the regulations, that is, the repair station manual
must be acceptable to the FAA, then the non-regulatory
comments you receive from your inspector are open for debate.
FAA Advisory Circular 145-9A states that " Data is
acceptable when it meets the requirements of the applicable
regulations. "
Additionally, FAA Order 8900.1, Volume 3, Chapter
1, Section 1 further discusses the terms " acceptable to, "
" accepted by, " " approved, " and " authorized. " For the
complete description, see this month's Frequently Asked
Questions on page 19.
The FAA states: " Acceptable to " the FAA or
the administrator. This term means that the
item at issue must be submitted to the FAA
with reference to some standard or publication
as the basis for the intended application,
procedure, method, etc. Assessment of the item
at issue by the FAA prior to use is normally
not required. In exercising its oversight
responsibilities, the FAA may make casespecific
determinations as to a particular
item's acceptability. "
The order further defines " accepted by " the
FAA or the administrator. According to the
FAA, " This term appears infrequently in the
FAA's regulations. Where the term is used, it
means that the item at issue must be submitted
to the FAA for review and acceptance prior to
use. By whatever means the FAA's acceptance
of an item is communicated to the submitter,
the acceptance means that the item meets the
FAA's applicable criteria, and that the FAA has
no objection to the submitted item. "
Continued on following page
avionics news * february 2022 15
Avionics News February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News February 2022
