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Old Aug 7, 2015 | 5:51 pm
  #33  
cynicalmoose
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 219
Originally Posted by alextheengineer
No problem! And the captain is putting it very politely there to be fair. I've just searched around on the internet to see if I could find an example uploaded anywhere, but I can't, and if I shared one from my workplace with you I would be shot I'm afraid! Plus I no longer have an A320 family one to hand after a recent move.
I do have (part of) an A320 SRM to hand; but for the same reasons would be shot if I shared it.

Along with its cousin, the Aircraft Maintenance Manual ('AMM'), it is the most complex document I have come across in a career in banking and aviation law. By comparison the Flight Manual is a children's bedtime story (a mere 4,374 pages).

The chief difficulty (so far as I understand as a non-expert) is just that there are so many different sorts of A320 out there:
  • Four different lengths (A318, A319, A320, A321 [although the A321 often gets slightly separate paperwork as it is less closely related to the other three])
  • Two and sometimes three different engine types
  • Several different weight variants per length/engine combination
  • A number of major modifications with structural impact (in particular, sharklets, but there are various others)
  • Over twenty years' production history, during which time lots of materials, techniques, machining etc have changed
  • Countless Service Bulletins/modifications available to make minor modifications to the a/c

All of this is then pulled into one SRM and AMM, which attempts to cover the whole gamut (and it is a selling point that it does, so you can use the same manuals/engineers/parts etc to maintain the entire fleet). And then once you've found what you're looking for the answer is technical and complex. It is about as far from saying "dents shall not be greater than 2cm" as you could get.

I find the whole thing awe-inspiring, and thinking about the complexity and effort involved useful to gain a sense of perspective when air travel starts to raise some of its minor annoyances.
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