Excellent service for permit renewal

[CaptChaos]

People are quick to complain but not so good to give credit. I had my permit renewal very rapidly turned around with any request from me to expedite, so many thanks to the team.

[steveneale]

Same here. 3 days from popping it in the post box to getting the renewal back this morning.

Well done engineering

[richwald]

And another +1 from me. What's more, being away from home I didn't know if all had gone OK - but when my isnpector posed the question just to be sure, all I had to do was check the website. Excellent service, time after time.

[C Rule]

I CAN'T FAULT THE SERVICE
Renewal posted 1600 Thursday
Received 1000 Saturday.
Many thanks to all in engineering

[P5151]

Permit renewal has always been good at the LAA. It's a pity that the standard of response for new designs and mods does not come anywhere near the same standard. Apart from the acknowledgement letter that engineering has received a letter you can then expect to hear nothing. People have projects sitting in their workshops for months waiting for an inspection or decision from our design team.

I wrote to Engineering over a year ago three letters later and emails has resulted in nothing apart from frustration.

This has been a long standing problem which the board need to address urgently!

[tnowak]

It is likely, unless the modification is simple and someone else has done all the analysis (STC mods for example), that a lot of engineering dept. time is needed to look at the mod. application detail to ensure safety, structural integrity etc. etc.
I don't think the Engineering dept. currently has the manning to be able to get mods approved in a short time scale of, say, a few weeks.
Tony Nowak

[Chris Martyr]

I think that Steve's post could make quite interesting reading and it is a pity that the subject title does rather shroud the core of his posting.
Most of us I'm sure are pretty happy with most LAA related matters and PtF renewal is a great example of how well we are served. But whenever I chat with other LAA'ers about things that need improving, you know that it is only going to be a short time before the word, 'mod'. rears its ugly head.

I know it's a bit personal, but it could be helpful if Steve were to describe the mod. he's trying to get implemented. Not so we can all take pot-shots at him, but there may actually be others who are attempting to do the same thing, or who have done the same thing, or have a similar aeroplane that may have a similar mod. or possibly an overseas reader who may be familiar with his plight.
I'm definitely not trying to instigate any forum bickering with this, but it is an LAA aircraft, an LAA member and this is LAA's forum . So I reckon that it's a pretty good place for exchanges of information, data and ideas. [regulars of a certain other forum take note]
I must say that I certainly don't envy the poor buggers whose job it is to evaluate modifications, especially in light of Brian Davies' recent comment that over 300 applications a year come flooding in. But a recent conversation with a guy at the strip where I fly revealed that there are tasks that are relatively simple and straightforward and could easily be certified by ones Inspector that are being perceived as mods and getting [unnecessarily] caught up in this tangled web of over-administration.

We know from recent back-biting elsewhere that the LAA isn't perfect, but maybe a bit of civilised debate could bring it a step closer to being just that.

[Steevo25]

I don't usually post on forums regarding complaints or unhappiness about something but this thread has hit a nerve with me and I just feel like venting. Maybe my forthcoming comments will get to the relevant people in the LAA.

For permit renewals and general information, I don't think the LAA could improve the process if they tried. It is pretty much floorless and immediate turnaround. I cannot fault it at all.

Unfortunately, that is where my good experience with the LAA ends.

I have put 3 mods through the LAA during the ownership of my current aircraft (2.5 years). The first mod was a category change from microlight to group A. A process done many times on my exact model of aircraft (a Jabiru UL-450 changing to a SPL-450). All this involves for the change is a placard change and a slight adjustment to the flaps. This was done in an hour and the worksheet signed by my inspector. So why did it then take 3 months with my aircraft grounded to process the change. What was worse was a complete lack of communication from the engineering department. I was told 4-6 weeks maximum so after 10 weeks of not hearing anything I started to chase. I sent email after email and phoned every couple of days and each time was told my request was being passed to engineering and someone would get back to me. Right up to the time of receiving the new documents, no one rung back at all.

Mod 2 was an upgrade to the Jabiru alternator. A repeat mod already done on my aircraft type and I sent a copy of the original mod with the application after speaking to other people who had done the mod. Once again, it was about 8 weeks before they approved the mod and after the mod was fitted, signed off by my inspector and testing schedule completed, the report and relevant documentation was sent back in to the LAA. Once again, my aircraft is grounded waiting for the permit which was nothing more than the LAA looking at the test report and issuing the permit. Also once again, not one person got back to me upon me asking how long it would be. Again, I just got the generic response that this would be passed to the relevant person in engineering and they would get back to me.

Mod 3, conversion of between the leg throttles to panel throttles. Once again, a many time repeat mod on my aircraft type and also the current standard for all new Jabirus. I lost track of time on this one but was many weeks before I received the approval. The throttles done and signed off by my inspector and a month of testing done. Report sent to LAA. It has been 2 weeks so far with my aircraft grounded. I have emailed the engineer directly, the engineering team and called. Standard response, that my request was being passed to engineering and so far not heard back.

Now I appreciate that the engineering department get 300 mods a year but I bet a large proportion of these mods could be signed and sealed almost immediately. There seems to be no sense of organisation within the engineering department and they will start one big mod and absolutely everything else gets left in the in-tray. Why not have an engineer assigned that just does simple mods so that things can continue while mods that require a lot of time and investigation are processed by someone else.

It also does not excuse the rudeness of not getting back to someone and providing some customer ( or member in this case ) service. A simple reply to the email saying that they anticipate it will be another week or something like that.

Rant over and sorry, but they do not seem to realise how frustrating this process is. I don't think they realise that while they are grounding the aircraft, insurance and site fees etc still have to be paid even though the aircraft cannot be used and the time left on the permit you pay for is still ticking away.

It is not surprising that there are so many people moaning about LAA engineering and I am sure those people feel as frustrated as I do.

[nuggets]

Just to echo the above posts , yes it is frustrating ,yes your email has been acknowledged ,we are working on it ,same response i got 12 calendar months ago !!

Being a relatively new member of just over three years i have more questions than answers but here goes !

Now firstly to find a solution we have to identify what is the cause of the bottleneck and time delays ??
I have read somewhere that there is in the region of 4-5000 ?? `projects` on the go with the LAA ,now add to that the number of `mods` they receive yearly 300 ?? has been mentioned , so if it is a case of ` shear` workload the engineering department has to deal with then , the solution would be to increase the membership fees , to up the staffing levels would it not ?? , i for one would not mind paying more in subscriptions if it was to reduce `waiting` times as it were

Now i know the engineering department will not offer any `design advice` so are the delays caused by the applicant not furnishing them with all the relative drawings/calculations they need to form a decision ??

Do the LAA undertake any legal responsibility when they sign off various mods /projects ,if so i can see why things have to be done `right` which would take time ??

Would anyone from the engineering department care to offer any insight as to why the delays ?

Getting back to the yearly subscription , yes i would be more than happy to pay more ,if you think about it this way , If you had to hire an engineer yourself would it cover an hour of his time ???

identify the problem - then we are half way to solving it .....simples innit !! or is it just me

[Steevo25]

I don't think the yearly subscription should change. For the majority of members they are probably just flying their aircraft and the only services they actually use are permit renewals. In this case, I think they will be very happy with the LAA. I don't think they should, in any way, subsidise the mod process. The mod process should pay for itself in it's own right as no one forces anyone to put through a mod.

I would have quite happily paid more for my mods as for me they were essential both in comfort and safety. I know the system has changed and that mods are now charged by the hour of engineer's time required which I think is fair. But that system has already come in and nothing seems to have changed.

As with any business or organisation, they have to make sure they are equipped and can afford to offer the products or services they are offering. To me, it seems that engineering have far too much to do and more resources are required and perhaps a re-think of the mod process to make it streamlined but not risk any of the safety aspects of it. If this means that the mod process is a bit more expensive for members to use, then so be it as no one is expecting the LAA to pay for the mods out of their own pocket.

For me the LAA system of owning an aircraft is a god send and without it I would have never been able to own an aircraft. But if you are offering a particular service then you have to ensure that the process works as otherwise it will over shadow everything else that is good about the LAA. I have heard the comments about engineering ever since I have been a member and nothing has ever changed. Every comment I have heard about the mod process on here and other forums I have experienced myself so I know it is not just people exaggerating their issues.

The mods I have put through were all tried and tested mods so I cannot see any reason why the process in every instance of my mods took so long with the only person suffering out of it being me. In-fact, I couldn't really see a reason why they had to go through the LAA at all as after all, it is the inspector taking the risk by signing his name to the quality of installation and the safety of the mod. The LAA have never seen my aircraft for any of my mods so I cannot see how any of my mods have been so time intensive. I did not expect my mods to be prioritised over anyone elses in any way but at the very least, I would have expected replies and information on how long my aircraft was going to be grounded for.

There is absolutely no excuses for not keeping members up-to-date with the progress of their requests. What has come out of this is that this will be the final mod I will ever put through. In the future if I was to sell my aircraft then any aircraft I purchased I am now a little bit wiser and more experienced so would never buy anything that didn't have the things on it I wanted. I would have no wish to go through the mod process again.

[Guest]

Hello all,

I have been watching with interest the debate regarding mods and it was always clear from the start of my tenure that this was an area we needed to improve. On the other hand, I have looked at many cases where mods have taken far too long and in many of those cases we have waited months for the applicant to respond to a request, even to the point of having to chase them up at their next permit renewal.

We implemented the new system on the 1st May and so far it seems to be making a difference. We are now charging proportionality so that mods are not so heavily cross subsidised and the change in process has reduced waiting times. There is still much to do but the matter is being taken seriously and progress is being made.

Phil

[Steevo25]

Hi Phil,

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

I can fully appreciate that there are mods submitted where they are not completed correctly or further information is required or indeed, as you say, the original applicant is not responding to queries.

I can only take my experiences of my 3 mods where I did not receive any queries and as far as I know, there were no problems but still there was an extremely long wait for any fruitful outcome. And surely things like providing information should be an easy fix and is just a matter of polite customer service.

Don't get me wrong, although I am whinging at the moment about a particular area of the LAA, I still think that the LAA is my ticket to being able to own an aircraft and enjoy my hobby. I also fully appreciate that there are probably things happening behind the scene that I am unaware of that are preventing the engineers processing mods quickly. But the most frsutrating bit is the fact that we, the members, are just being left in the dark as to their status and do not understand why they are taking so long.

As far as I see at the moment, I sent a test report back that due to the nature of the mod did not even need to cover an A4 sheet. The enginner simply has to look at this and either approve the testing or tell me that I have not done enough or not done it correctly. The same mod has been done countless times before and the inspector I used was the person who actually signed off the original modification to which mine was a repeat one of.

That was almost 2 weeks ago that the paperwork was with the LAA engineering department and despite me emailing the engineer involved and also emailing the engineering email address and despite calling, so far I have had no reply as to how much longer it is anticipated that my plane will have to stay on the ground.

This is all happening during some of the best flying weather so far this year. You can appreciate how frustrating this is.

[Chris Martyr]

As an LAE myself, I do often find myself taking the Engineering Dept's side in these matters as I believe that many people fail to realise the long windedness of modifying aeroplanes away from the designers original spec. and as Phil Hall points out in his contribution , it isn't just LAA's Engineering Team who are chucking the spanners into the works as there are probably quite a few cases of applicants not supplying enough data, or inaccurate drawings, or just being sporadic with their correspondence and were I in Francis Donaldson's position I think I would just re-orientate such applications towards the shredder.

Having seen examples of the CAA's way of dealing with these matters, I can assure readers that what takes place at Turweston is probably a lot less monolithic and sloth-like than anything the Fed's do and don't even mention their pricing tariff.

Steevo25's contribution though I found very , very interesting, and I think falls into the category of ,
"none of the above are true". It's quite obvious from the layout of information he has supplied here that he probably has provided a very pragmatic and accurate collection of required data in his mod. application and two of the modifications he proposes , if not all three were really not much more than the proverbial rubber stamping exercise.
Also much appreciated is Phil Hall's post, and it is good to know that LAA do recognise that a problem has existed with the system and hopefully the membership will benefit from recent changes made.

I think that forum exchanges like this are actually quite beneficial and it demonstrates that gripes can be aired and talked about without nastiness or ego-massaging and thoroughly encourages modification applicants to discuss what's feasible and what isn't......... [ YOU WANNA DO WHAT ]

Thanks again Steevo25, I'm sure that you will be slipping them surly bonds very, very soon.

[dlicheri]

Here is my input ...

My experience with the mod process is similar to steeve's. I have suffered similar delays and in one case gave up following many months of to'ing and fro'ing.

I fully agree, the permit renewal process is efficient and fast. However, I cant really find any reason why it should not be as the only part that the LAA is involved with, is issuing the permit. In my eyes, the renewal process is very straight forward (apologies if I am oversimplifying):

Ensure aircraft is inspected by an LAA inspector
Check the form is completed correctly
Check the fee is paid
Issue permit

I presume any delays are due to one or more of the above and in most cases can be addressed by member or administrative department.

Should it not be the same for a repeat mod ?

A repeat mod is applying what has already been approved on another aircraft of the same type. I understand that there may be subtle differences in the configuration of aircraft, however if the same mod document is used, there should be no variations. Your LAA inspector assesses the mod has been applied according to document, ensures that it is safe and approves it. Again, there is little LAA engineer involvement apart from checking and rubber stamping document and re-issue of permit. So why does it take so long ?

It seems to me that in order to improve processing of members mods, work streams would be better split into two separate streams ...

1. Run of the mill stuff that requires a rubber stamp such as :

-permit re-issue
-repeat mods

should not require a lengthy and time consuming assessment by valuable engineering resource

2. The more intricate first time complex mod applications that require a careful assessment and take more time.

That way, run of the mill activities such as repeat mods, permit re-issue, test flight release could be handled by an administrative department with support and guidance of engineer rather than a precious engineering resource (of which there are only three) so freeing up, our engineers to do what' s considered the more specialist tasks (project management and real challenging engineering activities).

Additionally, It may be more productive to assess a request when it comes in (simple or complex) as the FIFO (first in first out) approach does not work very well when processing mods in that a very simple 10 minute rubber stamp job may have to wait till the engineer has dealt with the complex two month mod !

038044

[Chris Martyr]

Dino old chap. You say that you gave up with one after much to-ing and fro-ing. Am I correct in assuming that you were applying for more than one modification ?

If indeed that is the case, are you happy to describe the modifications that you were applying for and the type of aeroplane to which you refer ?

Please don't think I'm trying to be some kind of modifications police officer here but I am a great believer in the sharing of information when it comes to these matters. If the LAA have been dragging their heels with peoples projects, then they perhaps do need a bit of a kicking, but on the other side of the coin, if members are trying to re-design their aeroplanes [never a good idea] then perhaps the opposite theory applies.
I find this to be a massively interesting subject and hope that a bit of information can be gathered here in order that a full and balanced picture can be obtained.
A pity that the thread's subject title hides real core matter, but hopefully a few more members will give us their stories.
It's been a bit of a bone of contention for some time now , so it would be interesting to see if a bit of clarity could be reached through contributions on here !