AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2023 - 94

RUDDER & WRENCH
A particularly egregious case occurred
in February 2014, when Cessna Aircraft
published a revision to the Cessna 210 service
manual that added a new airworthiness
limitations section (ALS) to the manual
that mandated eddy-current inspection
of the wing main spar lower caps. These
costly inspections were required starting at
8,000 hours for most 210s, and then every
2,000 hours thereafter. For 210s operated
in a " severe environment, " the new ALS
required the inspections at 3,500 hours and
every 500 hours thereafter. Cessna somehow
convinced the FAA's Wichita Aircraft
Certification Office to sign off on this, seemingly
giving it the force of law.
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94
AOPA PILOT / August 2023
tance, my colleague Paul New, owner of
Tennessee Aircraft Services (a Cessna
Service Center specializing in 210s),
challenged this by requesting a legal interpretation
asking whether compliance
with this burdensome ALS was actually
required, given that Cessna ceased production
of the Cessna 210 in 1986. It seemed
to New and me that this ALS was a blatant
attempt by Cessna to change the rules in
the middle of the game.
In a five-page legal interpretation
issued in May 2015, the FAA lawyers
agreed. They opined that such an " afteradded "
ALS would not be retroactively
effective against aircraft manufactured
prior to its publication date. This effectively
rendered the new ALS null and void
for Part 91 operators. The legal interpretation
stated that in February 2015 the FAA's
Small Airplane Directorate asked Cessna
to revise the service manual to clarify that
the wing spar eddy-current inspections are
encouraged but optional unless mandated
by an airworthiness directive. (Such an AD
was ultimately issued five years later in
2020 and revised in 2023.)
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either. They're factory-built aircraft that
conform to consensus standards created
by Committee F37 of ASTM International,
a nonprofit standards organization headquartered
in West Conshohocken,
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2023
