Parts Manufacturer Approval - Approval

Approval

It is generally illegal in the United States to install replacement or modification parts on a certificated aircraft without a PMA (although there are a number of exceptions to this general rule, including parts manufactured to government or industry standards, parts manufactured under technical standard order authorization, experimental aircraft, etc.).

Thus, PMA-holding manufacturers are permitted to make replacement parts for aircraft, even though they may not have been the original manufacturer of the aircraft.

Application for a PMA is usually a two step process. First, the manufacturer-applicant must demonstrate to the FAA that it has a safe design for a part. The design must meet the requirements of the FAA's safety regulations and standards. This can be demonstrated in a number of ways. The applicant may rely on a licensing agreement with another approved manufacturer who has already obtained approval of the design in question. The applicant may use comparative analysis to show that the parts it makes are the same (in all relevant airworthiness characteristics) as other parts that are already approved. The manufacturer may rely on qualitative analysis to show through test and computation that the part directly meets the FAA's safety standards. The modern trend is to use a variety of techniques in combination in order to obtain approval of complicated parts - relying on the techniques that are most accurate and best able to provide the proof of airworthiness desired.

The second step in the application process is to seek FAA approval of the manufacturing quality assurance system (known as production approval). Production approval will be granted when the FAA is satisfied that the system will not permit parts to leave the system until the parts have been verified to meet the requirements of the approved design, and the system otherwise meets the requirements of the FAA quality system regulations.