MAINTENANCE
MAINTENANCE CHECK FLIGHTS
BY MARIO PIEROBON
Maintenance check flights (MCF) are a standard but critical element of delivering an aircraft to a customer after work has been accomplished. MCFs are mandated by national aviation regulations in certain cases and are similarly included in manufacturer manuals and service bulletins following major inspections or where critical flight controls, such as leading edges, have undergone significant repair. MCFs are an integral part of aircraft maintenance and they are recommended even when they are not mandated. We have reached out to industry experts to reflect on the instances when they are required, the respective responsibilities of the operators and the maintenance organisations, the procedural requirements for MCFs and the necessary risk mitigation measures.
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DOMmagazine.com | june 2020 AN INTEGRAL PART OF
AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE The first thing that should be emphasised is that under United States aviation safety regulations, 14CFR 91.407 states that no person may operate any aircraft that has undergone maintenance, preventive maintenance, rebuilding, or alteration unless it has been approved for return to service by an authorised person on the required maintenance record entry. Moreover, no person may carry any person (other than crewmembers) in an aircraft that has undergone work that may have appreciably changed its flight characteristics or substantially affected its operation in flight without a MCF by an appropriately rated pilot that logs the flight in the aircraft records. However, under the US rules, an aircraft does not have to be check
flown if, ground tests, inspection, or both show conclusively that the work has not appreciably changed the flight characteristics or substantially affected the flight operation. According to CJ Miller, service manager at Western Aircraft, MCFs are an invaluable check on the operational integrity of an aircraft. “After a major alteration to the airframe or flight control system, the only way to determine if the aeroplane will fly straight and level with minimal trim is to take it out on a test flight. In some cases, there may be a need for adjustments to the rigging of the flight controls to get the aircraft to fly straight and level. These checks cannot be duplicated on the ground,” he says. “Beyond the times they are
required, MCFs are useful following avionics upgrades, when one can
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