By Adam Hunt
COPA recently asked Transport Canada to add 13 more types of Cessna aircraft to the list of those eligible for the owner maintenance category. TC has evaluated the data that COPA supplied and has agreed to add all the aircraft requested.
Effective Sept. 21, 2004 the following aircraft may now be transferred to the O-M category if the owner desires to do so: Cessna 150A, Cessna 150B, Cessna 150D, Cessna 150H, Cessna 150J, Cessna 150K, Cessna 172A, Cessna 172B, Cessna 172C, Cessna 172D, Cessna 172E, Cessna 172G and the Cessna 172H.
By adding these aircraft to the list Cessna owners can now register all 150s and 172s up to and including the Cessna 150K and the Cessna 172H in the O-M category.
Prior to this approval some earlier Cessna 150 models and 172 models were eligible while others had not been evaluated and were not on the list.
In most cases this was due to the fact that individual owners had requested TC evaluate one specific model year so that one specific individual aircraft could be put into the O-M category.
COPA decided to intervene to save TC the trouble of evaluating aircraft models one at a time and give more aircraft owners the option of the O-M category.
Later Cessna 150s and 172s are not currently eligible for the O-M category as there are more than 10% in commercial use. Having fewer than 10% in commercial use is a requirement for TC to add an aircraft type to be added to the category.
As the numbers of later model Cessna 150s and 172s in commercial service drop below the 10% mark COPA will request that these be added to the list.
Complete information on the O-M category, including a complete list of eligible aircraft, can be found in the COPA Guide to the Owner Maintenance Category, available for free to COPA members in HTML, MS Word and PDF formats on the COPA website.