Features MRO
Aircraft Parts – Rules Updated

The aircraft parts labyrinth should be increasingly navigable now
that Canadian Air Regulations (CARs) Part V and the relevant standards,
notably 571 and 573, have been upgraded by Transport Canada Civil
Aviation (TCAA). Published in draft form in the Canada Gazette Part I
last September, that provisional version of the new rules really
required little if any further comment, given the fact that the package
had been painstakingly refined and upgraded over several years by the
Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Council (CARAC).

The final version of the new regime, which came into effect March
1,was published in in the Canada Gazette II dated March 13 and is
retrievable as a text file from the Privy Council Web site at
http://canada.gc.ca/gazette/part2/ascII/g2- 13606_e.txt. It might have
been completed earlier but, as with just about everything else in the
aviation file at Transport Canada, it was sidelined by the fallout from
last September's terrorist attacks in the US.

There are some new parts definitions to consider under Standard
101.01,notably ‘standard'and ‘commercial', the former referring to
parts which conform to specification and the latter to those which were
not originally meant for aircraft but which don't compromise
safety.There also is a formal definition of ‘undocumented' parts –
those that cannot be installed due to inadequate certification or
history – which forms a new Appendix H in Standard 571 (Maintenance).