Working with FAA budget cutbacks
Working with FAA budget cutbacks
(OP)
There has been a number of comments re. the FAA budget cuts. I wanted to make a couple of comments about my experience with the FAA and may be start some useful conversations about getting the most from the FAA.
I am under the Seattle ACO. They are suffering like everyone else. I have found that there are some advantages to gained though. I resently got FAA PMA. The MIDO just breezed through everything as they have a budget per company to stick too. So if everything looks ok, they don't really go digging unless they have good reason. Also with the ACO, I am a heavy user of the Seattle ACO and I have found they are very open to streamlining programs. This means I am able to get alot more stuff through at the same same time. I had a meeting with my FAA project engineer, his boss and the ACO manager. We hashed out a program that will really make thigs move. This was done through a MOU.
Give your ACO a hug! It goes a long way.
I am under the Seattle ACO. They are suffering like everyone else. I have found that there are some advantages to gained though. I resently got FAA PMA. The MIDO just breezed through everything as they have a budget per company to stick too. So if everything looks ok, they don't really go digging unless they have good reason. Also with the ACO, I am a heavy user of the Seattle ACO and I have found they are very open to streamlining programs. This means I am able to get alot more stuff through at the same same time. I had a meeting with my FAA project engineer, his boss and the ACO manager. We hashed out a program that will really make thigs move. This was done through a MOU.
Give your ACO a hug! It goes a long way.
Nigel Waterhouse
Can-Am Aerospace
www.canamaero.com





RE: Working with FAA budget cutbacks
RE: Working with FAA budget cutbacks
Nigel Waterhouse B Eng (Hon's)
Can-Am Aerospace,LLC, Canadian Aircraft Certification Centre
www.canamaero.com
RE: Working with FAA budget cutbacks
Basically, it comes from building a level of trust with whomever you're dealing with at the ACO. We have a great relationship with everyone at the ACO as well as MIDO. Sure, it would be better if they worked faster, but once you become adversarial, you're asking for trouble. We basically just jump through every hoop they put in front of us.
What we're worried about is the uneven playing field between the ACO's as evidenced by hundreds of PMA's coming out of Atlanta vs. NYACO or LAACO.
I rue the day that a PMA fails and causes an incident. No matter who it happens to will cause the hammer to come down on everyone.
Chris Marinelli
Dynatech Aerospace
RE: Working with FAA budget cutbacks
Rant-averse persons, do not read this entry!
The budget is not the only thing reduced at the FAA. The FAA also has lost much of the experience that was located in the "old hands" at the technical and engineering level. Some (certainly not all, but a disturbing number) of FAA engineers and technical people are not folks who learned engineering from the ground up. Some are there simply to fill government quotas.
My point is that to "just jump through every hoop they put in front of us" ensures compliance with bureaucratic paperwork, but it is not always compliance with good engineering judgment and years of experience.
We do many, many PMA's, so we interface constantly with the FAA. The FAA, like many corporations in America, is slowly being crushed under the weight of "bean counters" taking the place of engineers and technical people.
<End of Rant>
cmarinelli, I admire your company's dedication to compliance with the FAA, but I hope that your company (like ours) is willing to sometimes look deeper than the FAA ACO asks, if you believe the situation warrants. I hope your DER is an "old hand" with lots of that judgment and experience.