Bulletins and directives
Manufacturer bulletins and airworthiness directives, checked daily
A technical document catalogue that fills itself. Search terms are derived from the aircraft types in your fleet, so a new type widens the ingest automatically. Applicability assessment stays with CAMO — and the system does not pretend otherwise.
- One ingest run per day
- Robinson · Extra · Bell · EASA airworthiness directives
- De-duplication by SHA-256 and by issuer
- Guimbal: manual route, no scraping behind a login
Sources
Where the documents come from
We fetch only from public sources and only politely: sequentially, with a client that identifies itself, once a day. We do not scrape portals behind a login.
| Issuer | What we fetch | Mode |
|---|---|---|
| Robinson | Service bulletins, service letters and safety notices for the models in the fleet | Automatic |
| Extra | Service bulletins and letters for the piston series and NG | Automatic |
| Bell | Alert and technical bulletins for UH-1 types | Automatic |
| EASA | Airworthiness directives for the types present in the fleet | Automatic |
| Guimbal | Cabri G2 bulletins and service letters | Manual — no public source |
A new manufacturer means a new fetch adapter, not a rebuild of the system. Until the adapter exists, that manufacturer’s documents are uploaded by hand into the same catalogue — and the coverage table says so.
Scope
What we look for follows your fleet
Directive queries are built from the type designations of the aircraft in the system, through an alias table: a bare type code usually returns hundreds of irrelevant hits, so the search uses the name the issuer actually applies. Adding an aircraft of a new type widens the ingest by itself, with no configuration.
Every run leaves a trace: how many items were found, how many were new, how many were skipped and why. That record is the evidence that the catalogue was checked — including on days when nothing new arrived.
Filter
What we filter out before anything is stored
A catalogue is worth exactly as much as its cleanliness. Three things are always rejected.
- 01
Publications of other authorities
The directive search also returns publications from outside the European system. Storing them under the issuer “EASA” would be a lie about the source — they are skipped and counted in the run log.
- 02
Non-binding classes
Information bulletins and proposed directives are not directives. Letting a proposal sit in the catalogue next to a binding document is the simplest route to an expensive mistake.
- 03
The same file twice
De-duplication runs on the SHA-256 checksum of the content. One PDF published for two models yields two catalogue entries but a single stored file.
Revisions
Revision, correction, supersedure
The document number and its revision are stored separately, because manufacturers write them together (a letter or a suffix inside the number). Splitting them lets you answer “do I have the latest version of this bulletin”, not merely “do I have a document with that number”.
A new revision creates a new entry and marks the previous one as superseded, with a pointer to its successor. The earlier version does not disappear: it was the basis of an earlier CAMO decision and has to stay in the history.
An issuer correction is treated as a separate version of the file, so a corrected document does not get stuck in de-duplication. An emergency directive keeps its marking inside the number — that is its identity, not a revision.
Catalogue
Review and sign-off
The catalogue holds hundreds of items, so it has to be a working tool rather than a scroll.
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Four statuses
New → reviewed → applicable or not applicable. Every status change records who made it and when; a pilot sees neither the action column nor the buttons.
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Bulk actions
Select the items and take one decision for all of them, executed in a single transaction with a separate audit record per document. The message states how many items changed and what was skipped.
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Filters and sorting in the URL
Manufacturer, model, type, status, search phrase, sorting and page all live in the address — a link with results can simply be sent to somebody else.
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Search by number
Numbers are compared after normalisation, so the spaced, hyphenated and bare forms all hit the same document. Numbers sort naturally rather than alphabetically.
The line
What is binding and what is not
An airworthiness directive is mandatory by law and is complied with by the date it sets itself. A task arising from a directive enters the maintenance programme with zero tolerance, so the tracking engine knows no exceedance window for it.
A manufacturer bulletin is not mandatory in itself. It becomes mandatory only when a directive, the aircraft maintenance programme, the airworthiness limitations section, a condition of the airworthiness review or a deliberate CAMO decision makes it so. The line is thin and runs differently for each individual aircraft.
That is why the system does not make the applicability call for you. It delivers the complete set of documents, a review queue and a decision trail — who classified which document, when and how. Responsibility stays where the regulation puts it: with CAMO.
We take the AD / SB / SL distinction apart in the knowledge base. ADs, SBs and SLs: what is mandatory and what is advisory
Manual route
A manufacturer with no public source
Not every manufacturer publishes bulletins openly. Guimbal makes them available in a customer portal behind a login — and we do not scrape a portal behind a login: that is a matter of terms of use and of the operator’s credentials, not of technical difficulty.
The answer is explicit: a document delivered to the operator by e-mail or from the portal is uploaded by hand, together with its metadata (type, number, revision, issue date, models). It lands in the same catalogue, goes through the same duplicate filter and carries the same statuses. The source row stays visible even when the mode is manual — so that a coverage gap is visible instead of hidden.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Will the system decide whether a bulletin applies to my aircraft?
No, and we are not going to pretend it does. The system fetches the document, attaches it to the models the issuer names and puts it in a review queue; the applicable / not applicable call and its justification belong to CAMO and are stored with the person and the timestamp. Automatic applicability assessment would require reading serial numbers and configurations out of the PDF text — that is next-phase scope, described as a plan and not as a feature.
What if a manufacturer changes the layout of their site?
The run fails and the failure is visible in that source’s run history: when it was last checked and when it last succeeded. There is no silent silence — a source that stopped responding looks different from a source that simply published nothing. The adapter is fixed on our side, with no change for the operator.
Are documents stored, or only linked?
Stored. The file goes into the database together with its SHA-256 checksum, so it stays available even if it disappears from the issuer’s site, and it is included in the daily backup. The original source address is kept as well — during an audit both matter.
What does the AD and SB status look like during an audit?
It is a separate file in the authority pack: a list of documents with status, issuer, number, revision and the CAMO decision. Because the formats are open (CSV), an inspector reads it without our application.
Next
The nearest topics — on the site and in the knowledge base.
On the site
- Maintenance tracking
Hour, calendar and cycle limits, tolerances without drift, due-date forecasting.
- Electronic techlog
One entry per flight, an electronic signature, immutability and work with no signal.
- Security
Backups, the audit chain, roles, retention and what happens in an outage.
In the knowledge base
- ADs, SBs and SLs: what is mandatory and what is advisory
Airworthiness directives always bind you; manufacturer bulletins only once something makes them binding. Where the line runs, where to source documents across the EU, and how not to confuse an SIB with an AD.
- Tolerances without drift: how to compute inspection due points
Why inspections creep forward, how anchoring to the planned due point fixes it, and what to do with a task that has an hour limit and a calendar limit at once.
- The ARC and the airworthiness review: an operator's calendar
How an airworthiness review differs from maintenance, what the records review covers, how the operator's year is laid out and what most often derails an ARC date.
See CamoBook on your own fleet
Thirty minutes, live: a signed techlog entry, the due list for your aircraft type and the audit pack. No sales deck — we talk about your maintenance programme.
or write to [email protected]