Authorizations Of An ODA Engineering Company

By Edward Perry


The Federal Aviation Administration is the agency responsible for making sure that the safety of passengers is paramount in all aviation activity designs. Because the department cannot possibly oversee all the aspects of aviation, the Organization Designation Authorization or ODA was created in 2005 to address that concern. The ODA helps extend the supervision of the FAA to other facets of aviation in other organizations. For example, an ODA engineering company is a delegate of the agency that may be tasked with certain functions such as overseeing new aviation designs.

Private organizations with an ODA often do a substantial amount of important work for the FAA. In November 2009, ODA was fully implemented after the department required all its delegates to transition to the new policy. The Risk Based Resource Targeting or the RBST is another system created in 2007 to help engineers assess which projects held the highest risks and needed more supervision and oversight.

The agency can appoint which companies perform which tasks. This is why organizations are allowed to apply for different authorizations depending on their area of expertise. The Type Certificate authorization allows companies to hand airworthiness certificates and confirm engineering and manufacturing designs.

The Supplemental Type Certification enables holders to handle repair stations, manufacturers, and operators. Production Certification qualifiers can perform evaluations regarding production records, approve modifications to the quality control manual, and determine conformity. Qualifiers of a Parts Manufacturer Approval may assess computation and test approvals, STCs, and licensing agreements to identify whether a manufacturer is worthy of a PMA certification or not.

Technical Standard Order Authorization or TSOA holders may regulate conformity of articles, test articles, and test setups of aviation projects. Organizations with an MRA or Major Repair, Alteration, and Airworthiness ODA approve major repairs and alterations. They also perform aging aircraft inspections and record reviews.

An Airman Knowledge Testing certification gives the power to command the distribution of knowledge tests, supervise management testing centers, and give out test results to the applicants. Some portions in the process leading to the release of a Rotorcraft External Load Operator Certificate may be conducted by holders of an Air Operator ODA. All qualified applicants of ODAs are basically enabled by the FAA to assess flight safety with new designs.

There are concerns, however, that the ODA enables companies to choose other individuals to perform work on behalf of the FAA with little to no oversight from the agency itself. Even the RBRT system inhibits engineers from reviewing projects deemed to have low or medium risk because higher risk projects are prioritized. There is also a risk that an ODA company may allow units with poor qualifications to conduct approvals of certification projects.

With less involvement from the main agency, compliance reviews from authorized delegates may be neglected. Consequently, agency engineers may not be able to detect all instances of regulatory noncompliance. Because the RBRT also presented some risks due to its heavy reliance on subjective inputs from engineers, the FAA pulled it out from active use in 2009 in order to make revisions to address the technical difficulties encountered.

Currently, the present systems have undergone lots of revisions. Nonetheless, all are working toward the same goal of keeping each working airline company accountable for the consequences of their actions. The main objective is ultimately to turn flying into a more economical and safer means of transportation.




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