CAMO
CONTINUING AIRWORTHINESS MANAGEMENT

You need to sign a CAMO contract if you want your Aircraft to be in a controlled environment. It must be in a controlled environment if over 2730Kg. There is no additional cost, the wording is exactly as recommended by the CAA/EASA, and it can be cancelled without penalty at any time. Its purpose is simply to establish whether you as the Aircraft owner or ourselves are responsible for the Continuing Airworthiness of the Aircraft if it is below 2730Kg. A summary is below:

CAMO obligations ( as per Part M M.A.708)

For every aircraft managed, the approved Continuing Airworthiness Management
Organisation shall:

1. Develop and control a maintenance programme for the aircraft managed including any applicable reliability programme.

2. Present the aircraft maintenance programme and its amendments to the competent authority for approval, unless covered by an indirect approval procedure in accordance with point M.A.302(c), and provide a copy of the programme to the owner of aircraft not involved in commercial air transport.

3. Manage the approval of modification and repairs.

4. Ensure that all maintenance is carried out in accordance with the approved maintenance programme and released in accordance with M.A. Subpart H.

5. Ensure that all applicable airworthiness directives and operational directives with a continuing airworthiness impact, are applied.

6. Ensure that all defects discovered during scheduled maintenance or reported are corrected by an appropriately approved maintenance organisation.

7. Ensure that the aircraft is taken to an appropriately approved maintenance organisation whenever necessary.

8. Coordinate scheduled maintenance, the application of airworthiness directives the replacement of service life limited parts, and component inspection to ensure the work is carried out properly.

9. Manage and archive all continuing airworthiness records and/or operator's technical log.

10. Ensure that the mass and balance statement reflects the current status of the aircraft.

Aircraft Owner obligations

1. Comply with M.A.202, particularly (A), (D), (E), & (J)

2. Have a general understanding of Part M, and the approved Maintenance Programme

3. Present the aircraft to the approved maintenance organisation agreed with the approved organisation at the due time designated by the approved organisation’s request;

4. Not modify the aircraft without first consulting the approved organisation;

5. Inform the approved organisation of all maintenance exceptionally carried out without the knowledge and control of the approved organisation.

6. Report to the approved organisation through the logbook all defects found during operations.

7. Inform the competent authority of the Member State of registry whenever the present arrangement is denounced by either party, and the competent authority of the Member State of registry and the approved organisation whenever the aircraft is sold.

8. Carry out all occurrences reporting mandated by applicable regulations, within 72 hrs, in accordance with M.A.202

9. Inform on a regular basis the approved organisation about the aircraft flying hours and any other utilization data, as agreed with the approved organisation.

10. Enter the certificate of release to service in the logbooks as specified in M.A.803 (d), together with the source of the Maintenance Data used when performing Pilot owner maintenance without exceeding the limits of the maintenance tasks list as declared in the approved maintenance programme (M.A.803 (c)), and provide a copy of the CRS to E-Plane Ltd with 10 w days.

11. Inform the M.A. Subpart G approved continuing airworthiness management organisation not later than 30 days after completion of the Pilot owner maintenance task in accordance with M.A 305 (a).

The ARC issue/extension fee, which includes acting as your CAMO for the previous 12 months is £350 + vat for Aircraft below 2730Kg., and a CAA fee of £28 per 500kg MTOM

We will also undertake Airworthiness Reviews and issue/Extend ARCs for Aircraft which have not been in our controlled environment, and for which we are not the CAMO. Typical cost £500 + vat + travel if required.

We have also undertaken Airworthiness Reviews for Aircraft on foreign Registries, such as Ireland.

Maintenance Program

Maintenance Programs are based on CAA LAMP ( Annex 1) or CAA LAMS ( Annex 2), or are type specific. The former are included in our CAMO fee, type specific programs are at additional cost.

Cessna have recently issued a wide ranging and relatively onerous Supplemental Inspection Program “ for ageing Aircraft”. Other manufacturers may follow suit. For a Cessna 150 there around 28 additional items to be inspected, some require NDT surface current eddy inspections. We are planning to build a NDT capability to reduce these costs.

The SID manual extends to over 300 pages. To put this in perspective full compliance would require a 4 week rather than 1 week annual. Once completed further in depth inspections will be required at typically 5 year intervals.

As we maintain a fleet of Cessna aircraft we are considering moving to a bespoke maintenance program for Cessna Aircraft which will allow us to undertake 2 or 3 different inspections per aircraft. Only if a problem is found with one Aircraft within the fleet will we have to undertake that particular check on all Cessna that we maintain.

It is also worth noting that we recently put our high time Cessna 152, which we use as our main training Aircraft through this 4 week detailed Inspection Program, and found no new issues other than those which would have been picked up normally. Unless an Aircraft owner requires full compliance we will with the owners agreement treat the aircrfat as if it were part of our fleet and only undertake a sample of SIDs per aircraft