COMPLETED ACTIVITIES
Workshop on Part 66: Certifying Staff
28 November-2 December, 2011
Workshop on Part 66 was on Certifying Staff and it mainly had an informative character. José Luís Díaz Gordo, Head of Maintenance License and Training Department, who conducted the workshop presented the administrative requirements to be followed by the competent authorities in charge of the application and enforcement of this Part. The Armenian colleagues were guided to such details as establishment of an organizational structure and document procedures and a system of record-keeping that allows adequate traceability of the process to issue, revalidate, change, suspend or revoke each aircraft maintenance license. During the workshop the process of conversion of the current Armenian licenses into the European ones was deeply analysed. Seven people attended the event: they were from the Authority, Aviation Training Centre and private air companies.
Workshop was on Part 145: Maintenance Organization Approvals
21-25 November, 2011
The Workshop was on Maintenance Organization Approvals conducted by Ismael Pacheco who in details presented Regulations establishing common technical requirements and administrative procedures ensuring the continuing airworthiness of aircraft. A total of 18 Armenian aviation experts attended the workshop, including GDCA Staff and people from all the Maintenances centres operating in Armenia.
Workshop on Joint Aviation Requirements (JAR) FCL 4 – Flight Crew Licensing (Flight Engineers)
15 November, 2011
This workshop prescribed the requirements for obtaining and maintaining a flight engineer’s license and ratings, as well as requirements for Type Rating Training Organisations, Approved courses and examiner authorisations. It was also envisaged to demonstrate the differences between this course and the FCL 1 (Flight Crew Licensing (Pilots)) held previously. There are big similarities between the two rules and since both courses were attended by the same Armenian experts there aroused necessity to dwell on the issue. This course, as the previous one, was presented by Mr. Andres Asensi Garcia de Caceres.
Elaboration of a Methodology for a Quality Assurance Plan
There were 3 missions devoted to the Elaboration of a methodology for a Quality Assurance Plan ensuring the proper implementation of the procedures of the GDCA. The aim of those missions were to assist the Armenian authority in achieving harmonisation with the quality assurance concepts related to EU Safety issues in order to pass an EASA standardisation visit which will evaluate such certain factors as written procedures, keeping of records, planning of training and validation of competency of the staff.
The first mission of the quality team (24-28 October 2011) studied the situation in the Armenian GDCA regarding Quality Assurance Plan. This assessment was based on the evaluation of the documentation, processes and structure of Armenian GDCA and included preliminary evaluations on the current situation and some guidance for the upcoming quality experts.
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The second mission of the quality team (31 October-04 November 2011) developed the methodology of the Quality Structure necessary for a correct implementation of the Quality Assurance Plan and included the necessary methodology to develop and implement the Quality Structure related to the Quality Assurance Plan.
The third mission of the quality team (5-9 December 2011) developed the methodology of the
General Direction actions necessary for a correct implementation of the Quality Assurance Plan and included the necessary methodology to develop and implement the Quality Commitment, Policy, Objectives and Organizational Review procedure related to the Quality Assurance Plan.
Workshop on Flight Crew Licensing (FCL) Part 3
24 -28 October, 2011
The second workshop was on FCL Part 3: Flight Crew Licensing (Medical) conducted by Louis Conde Asorey who presented the basic requirements for the airman aeromedical examination, as well as factors important for examination, i.e. professional competence; thoroughness; openness; aviation knowledge; and good relationship. A total of 9 doctors from the Aviabutz Medical Centre attended the workshop which was held within the facilities of this centre.
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Workshop on Flight Crew Licensing (FCL) Part 1
10-14 October, 2011
After range of evaluations series of Workshops started. The first one was on FCL Part 1: Flight Crew Licensing (Aeroplane). It was conducted by the Spanish Short Term Expert Mr. Andres Asensi Garcia de Caceres who presented Regulation establishing common technical requirements for the licensing, training and testing of pilots involved in the operation of aircraft, and certification of personnel responsible for provision of flight training or flight simulation training and for assessing a pilot’s skill.
Definition of Terms of Reference for the Armenian GDCA Information System
Activities referring to Information Technologies are included in the component 4 of the project and they were performed by several experts. Loreto Serrano de Pablo, expert from the Spanish Aircraft Registry (RMA-E), made two presentations to the Director of the Department of Airworthiness of the GDCA of the Republic of Armenia, Mr. Serob Karapetyan. The presentation covered the functioning of the Spanish Aircraft Registry as well as the use of the IT application, currently installed at the Spanish Aircraft Registry (RMA-E), and its advantages. Since the volume and movement of aircrafts registered at the Armenian Aircraft Registry are low the expert offered possibility of passing on the parameters necessary for installation of a simplified version of the Spanish IT application for the purpose.
Mr. Santiago Holgado Díaz, Manager of the Electronic Administration area at Aviation Safety European Agency (AESA), was another expert involved in the component. He analyzed the existing information systems used by the Armenian General Department Civil Aviation and identified their potential needs for information systems and offered them general and technological information of the current information systems at AESA. He came up with certain recommendations regarding the registration and issuance of licenses according to the AESA system requirements: format and specifications for flight crew licensing by developing intranet software for the management of licensing. Additionally, he made presentations describing general aspects on certain key technologies that could provide benefits to GDCA, providing information on both EU and Spanish related legislation and initiatives.
Implementation Plan Development
In order to draft an implementation plan a designated short term expert reviewed the documents written by previously visited experts of each area. She was also guided by the RTA, Mr. Samuel Otto Sánchez Serrano. The developed implementation plan will be carried out through the second stage of the Twinning Programme.
GDCA has transposed most of the EASA and JAR FCL regulations. Though JAR FCL 3 and part 21 are missing, however, they still have to pass internal procedures to ease the enforcement of those rules and guarantee that they are understood and applied in a harmonised way. AESA has provided them with some of the Administrative and Guidance Material approved by JAA and EASA and one workshop, JAR FCL 1 Section 2, has already taken place to help them learn. Others will follow. GDCA Staff demonstrated great interest in grasping the new concepts and rules.
Evaluation of Airworthiness Regulation Situation
Airworthiness regulation in Armenia was evaluated by four experts .One of them was the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) auditor to foreign aircraft maintenance organizations, who evaluated not only the regulation situationin Armenia, but also procedures in force for the issuance of the Approvals for the Aircraft Maintenance Organisations and the implementation of Part 145.
The other experts were involved in evaluation of issuance of Certificates of Airworthiness and the approval of the Aircraft operator maintenance control. Among the team members there was a senior inspector on initial airworthiness, who had been the head of program of several certification processes in Spain, to evaluate the initial airworthiness situationin Armenia.
Besides conducting assessments and evaluations of the existing regulations one of the experts consulted the Armenian authorities on the manufacturing of aircrafts since he was a member of the Airbus production organisation evaluation team.
Finally an expert in Continuing Airworthiness Maintenance Organisations (CAMO) Approvals, Mrs Angeles de Marcos, evaluated jointly with the Armenian responsible officials the current situation and they set up the necessary steps to be taken for the implementation of the related European regulation.
Evaluation of the Operations Regulations Situation and Engineering Issues
This team of experts working in Spanish Administration and having years of experience as European Standardization Auditors evaluated the regulatory system of the Aircraft Operations in Armenia and the situation concerning the level of implementation of the regulation and internal and external procedures in order to make comparison with the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) / EASA system. Alongside with this task Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircrafts (SAFA ) system was revised.
The team identified the necessary actions for the implementation of the EASA regulatory system. It was recommended to develop procedures and other guidance material for the European regulation for commercial aircraft operation (the so called EU OPS 1) already adopted by the GDCA in order to support an adequate implementation of the regulation.
Evaluation of Licensing Regulation Situation
The team of experts comprising a pilot, doctor and engineer, being heads or senior personnel of respective training departments, visited the GDCA to assess and evaluate the existing Armenian aviation regulation related to pilot licenses, aeronautical medicine and maintenance licenses and comparing them with the JAR/EASA system. As an outcome of the evaluation it was planned to arrange some training on the JAA regulation and section 2 as well as on Administrative & Guidance Material at the workshop planned to take place in October 2011.
Visit of Legal Team
Right after the project launching legal team with several years of experience in the aviation sector and implementation of the European regulations arrived to evaluate the current regulation system situation and implementation program of Joint Aviation Rules (JARs) or replacing EASA rules in Armenia. After holding a range of meetings with heads of departments it was concluded that the majority of the relevant regulations have been transposed into Armenian regulations and were in effect starting from 1 March, 2011.
This revision of the system identified the actions to be taken in future, over the project life, to improve the existence of writtenprocedures, keeping of records, planning of training of staff and validation of the competency of the staff to be filled during the following missions by the relevant experts.
Launching of the EU Twinning Project on Aviation Safety
The launching event on the EU Civil Aviation Safety Twinning project held on 11 March, 2011 was the official starting point of the project. It aimed at integrating Armenia into the European aviation safety system. This project was the start to establish a partnership between the Spanish Ministry of Transport and the General Department of Civil Aviation of Armenia (GDCA).
The attendees of the event were the main and direct beneficiaries of the project. i.e. the staff of the General Department of Civil Aviation (GDCA), representatives of the private aviation companies, medical staff of the “Aviabuz” medical centre, as well as, guests from the Government of Armenia in the name of the Secretary of the RA National Security Council Arthur Baghdasaryan, Head of EU Delegation, Ambassador Mr. Raul de Luzenberger, and other EU Delegation officials and Resident Twinning Advisers.
In his welcoming speech Mr Artyom Movsesyan, Director General of the Armenian GDCA and the Armenian Project Leader, particularly dwelled on the reason of giving preferences to the Spanish proposal among the other bidders. Spain, as he noted, had involved a great number of specialists of different spheres of aviation such as pilots, aviation engineers, lawyers, specialists on economic and strategic issues, Medical Aviation examiners, as well as, telecommunication engineers. He mentioned that the Twinning partners committed themselves to achieve a concrete operational result. The joint efforts of Spain and Armenia should lead to the full implementation and EASA acceptance of the Working Arrangement between EASA and GDCA signed on 7 July 2009.
The Spanish Team Leader Mrs. Isabel Maestre in her speech stressed that she and her colleagues, team of 40 experts specialized in all the spheres related to the air safety would enjoy sharing their experience, exchange knowledge with their Armenian counterparts and, perhaps, their contacts would give rise to mutually beneficial new ideas.
The Resident Twinning Adviser Otto Samuel Sanchez Serrano representing the Spanish Aviation Safety Agency presented the Aviation safety Twinning project in general, the expected inputs and outcomes, as well as, he stressed the experience and achievements of the Spanish Government in the aviation safety issue. As mentioned Mr. Sanchez in his presentation in order to enable Armenia to progressively adopt EU legislation with respect to aviation safety issues study visits, workshops and trainings involving Armenian and Spanish experts would be organised throughout the duration of the project.
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