As I arrive in Kansas City for this year’s NBAA Maintenance Management Conference, I thought it might be an appropriate time to address a notable trend: aircraft manufacturers making more of their maintenance and operations data available online, without restriction. It used to be, for example, that you would have to subscribe to receive Piper’s service bulletins or letters. Now anyone can download the latest bulletins directly on Piper’s website. Lycoming has done the same with its service bulletins, as has Pilatus. I’m sure there are other OEMs doing the same.
There have been plenty of legal disputes over manufacturers withholding maintenance data, either making it extraordinarily expensive to obtain or outright refusing to release it. When I have looked into this in the past, usually the OEM said the restrictions served to ensure that only qualified entities—that is, either their approved/authorized service centers or the OEM itself—were “allowed” to overhaul its products. In the FAA’s eyes, at least, a repair station is a repair station and is allowed to work on anything for which it is qualified, no matter what the OEM claims.
Matt Thurber, editor-in-chief at AIN Media Group, has been flying since 1975 and writing about aviation since 1978 and now has the best job in the world, running editorial operations for Aviation International News, Business Jet Traveler, and FutureFlight.aero. In addition to working as an A&P mechanic on everything from Piper Cubs to turboprops, Matt taught flying at his father’s flight school in Plymouth, Mass., in the early 1980s, flew for an aircraft owner/pilot, and for two summer seasons hunted swordfish near the George’s Banks off the East Coast from a Piper Super Cub. An ATP certificated fixed-wing pilot and CFII and commercial helicopter pilot, Matt is type-rated in the Citation 500 and Gulfstream V/550. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Matt and his team cover the entire aviation scene including business aircraft, helicopters, avionics, safety, manufacturing, charter, fractionals, technology, air transport, advanced air mobility, defense, and other subjects of interest to AIN, BJT, and FutureFlight readers.
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