Special Open Meeting to Elect Members to the NANDTB
Press release - March 2006

On Thursday 23rd March 2006, 28 representatives of the aerospace industry came together to elect a National Aerospace NDT Board. Tony Collier outlined the agenda and aims of the meeting, noting the pending release of the new AS 3669. Albert Fleming was introduced and welcomed everyone He stated that this was the only pro-active group in aviation support to show such initiative, and that it would be of great assistance to CASA. He quoted directly from the letter of recognition by Graham Edkins, the CASA Group General Manager for personnel licensing and education, noting specifically the following points:

• CASA formally recognises the Board.
• The workings of the Board must be transparent, it is to be representative of all the aerospace sectors utilising NDT and be independent of CASA.
• The Board is to perform the functions as per the AS3669 standard, including the assessment of all levels of personnel and providing guidance with respect to employers’ written practice.
• The Board is to be involved with CASA’s legislation and process changes, working on behalf of the NDT aerospace industry.
• The Board is to work with CASA to achieve mutual recognition with other NANDTBs.

Albert went on to outline the assistance CASA is providing in the construction of, and ongoing maintenance of a NANDTB web site. It is planned to be accessed either directly or through the CASA site. He stated that the soon to be released new Regulations would be based on EASA Regulations and a review of those Regulations would give a very good indication of the style to be expected from CASA. He also stated that the EASA approach to regulation was considered more relevant than the FARs because they were newer and not formulated from dated material or ideas. He is currently writing the AMC (Acceptable Means of Compliance) for the NDT Regulation and it will prescribe adherence to AS3669, the need for a company written practice and that a Level 3 person should review and approve it. CASA legal advice is pending regarding the need to authorise persons to release to service after NDT is performed.

CASA was previously involved in each step of authorising persons to certify for NDT. This will continue to be reduced to only issuing an authorisation (if necessary). It will not include any element of training or assessment. Authorisations will only be issued to those persons who can show that they have appropriate training and have passed an assessment by a suitable Level 3. The validity of the authorisation would be restricted to the organisation which employs the person. This approach may be implemented even before the new Regulations are released. He explained that a joint industry / CASA working group is currently writing the new Regulations and this should reduce the repetitive consultation cycle which typified earlier attempts.

Tony Collier noted that many current CASA NDT authorisations do not relate to AS3669 because over the period of time during which they were issued, CASA did not always use AS 3669. This applied mostly to NDT authorisations issued within GA. It follows that this would be the area to be affected the most, by the changes and would be the most challenging for CASA and the NANDTB. Albert urged the Board to include national competency standards as well as the specific training outlined in the standard when developing policy. His discussions with EASA indicated that this is an approach it favours.

Garry Bowden gave a brief history of the AANDTC as a subcommittee of the AINDT. The AINDT Executive Officer, David Barnett agreed that there was no longer a need for the Committee. The winding up of the AANDTC would be communicated in the AINDT journal and web site. Colin Hockings presented a report on the formation of NANDTBs in various European countries. The underlying similarity was that each was formed to best suit its local aerospace interests. Accordingly, no one model predominated. From that review it could be argued that the Australian Board could also be formed to best suit local conditions so long as CASA continued to recognise it.

A Procedures Manual was also presented to the meeting. It had been prepared to provide guidelines for the conduct of the business of the Board, and will be expanded to cover future requirements and be posted in total on the web site. A Q & A session followed which explored in more detail some of the aspects of change, at the end of which the election of the Board was conducted in accordance with the Board’s procedure. Albert Fleming agreed to be the returning officer, and conducted a secret ballot.

The following persons were elected to the Board
Garry Bowden Hawker de Havilland
Malcolm Oakey Rosebank Engineering
Brian Tydeman Timken
Ron Quirk Helitech
D.Gary Martin ATTAR
Colin Hockings Qantas Airways
Neville Morgan BAE Systems
Shayne Flynn Boeing Australia
Trevor Jones Qantas Defence Services
Tony Collier Hawker Pacific
Neil Joiner Gippsland Aeronautics
Peter Virtue DSTO

On behalf of the AINDT, David Barnett congratulated those elected and assured the meeting that the Board would receive the assistance and co-operation of the Institute. The Board’s formation has been achieved in a relatively short period of time. Its composition shows wide representation of interests and its members bring to it an extensive range of skills and experience.

The National Aerospace NDT Board of Australia is not the Australian Aerospace NDT Committee by another name. Despite the small size of this country’s aviation NDT community, more than half of the Board’s members were not previously involved with the AANDTC. The role of this group is quite different. It has formal recognition by the Regulator and is based on a de facto international standard, EN4179/NAS 410.

In preparation for the release of the new standard, and Regulations, work has already commenced in developing a priority of projects to enable the Board to fulfil its obligations to CASA and industry. Once the web site is available it will be regularly updated with information on progress and developments. There will be provision to contact and comment on any of the Board’s work. These are the first steps in harmonising with the rest of the world, qualification and approval of NDT specialists working in aerospace.