I had the pleasure of writing four lenghty articles for the “Pilot Club Magazine” – a publication aimed at private pilots, avaition enthusiasts and aircraft mechanics. My articles dealt mainly with regulatory aspects, such as EASA regulations for general aviation, maintenance organizations and certification as well as the the complexity of landing a job as an aircraft mechanic.

This article, titled “How not to drown in the new maze of regulations”, was written at the end of 2007, when EASA rules were to be adopted also to general aviation. In this text, I try to explain the novelties that will be brought forward by the new legislature. At the same time, I intended to get people (especially GA aircraft owners and licensed mechanics) ready for what will come to them in less than a year’s time. Looking back, I must say that my comments and weighed out criticism have proven to be correct by the coming years.

The EASA Part 145 regulation has inflicted some serious changes in the way aircraft maintenance was perceived, especially in the general aviation sector. This article, “A PARTy in the maintenance organization” attempted to explain the Part 145 requirements to the lay person. I put a strong emphasis on what maintenance a pilot-owner may (or, more importantly, may not) perform on his or her aircraft. Apart from that, I explained how Part 145 certified organizations are implicitly required by the JAR-OPS regulations, while pointing out that this particular piece of legislature will shortly be replaced by EU-OPS.

I am a strong believer that the role of an aircraft mechanic is vital to the overall aviation industry and that this particular profession presents a fantastic opportunity to young people, who are just entering the work force. “Job – mechanic” aimed to explain to people what steps they need to undertake in order to become a member of this elite group of professionals. Also, it was my intention to highlight the regulations which need to be observed by apsiring mechanics (EASA Part 66 in particular) and also point certain drawbacks and problems that people pursuing this particular career path may be facing.

The article “Safety Culture” was intended to shift the aircraft accident paradigm from the human and/or machine error approach to the organizational viewpoint. It was my intention to highlight the idea of an overall safety culture within airlines, maintenance organizations and even the smallest CAMOs. An important part of the overall safety culture is the “just culture” idea, which is at times terribly difficult to understand and even more so to implement within a company. The article focuses on the difficulties in this mind changing approach.