One's Too Many wrote:
On Aug 3, 6:27 pm, " wrote:
It's up to the A&P to decide if the modification is a major or minor
modification.

I thought that was the way it is supposed to work too, as reading the
regs seems to overtly state this. But in actual practice the A&P is
now being basically required to seek permission from above whether he
can declare something to be minor or not... that he is expected to
assume everything is major unless the FSDO grants him permission to
declare it minor after they review the details themselves.


It is the way it works. There is no requirement for an A&P to seek
approval/permission for any modification if in his/her estimation it is
minor in nature. As an A&P I'll sign off anything I believe is a minor
alteration without anybodies approval.
If it's a major alteration, then a FSDO approval is necessary and an IA
needs to validate the alteration was done in accordance with the data
approved.

If they bounced back 337's that were minor alterations, it would help
everyone out.

I thought they were supposed to do exactly just that too -- to
"decline" the 337 with a note stating that the job is minor and to log
it as such. But that's not what's been happening in real life.
Good luck

Thanks, I'll probably need it, but my IA did say that the 337 for the
PSE intercom should slide right thru the bureaucracy like greased
butter since a TSO'd part is already an approved part and its
installation manual also constitutes "approved data" for the 337


Just because something is TSO'd doesn't mean that it can be installed
every aircraft. TSO's is nothing more than paperwork way to try to
generate quality in a product.
It's a label like the "UL" label on kitchen appliances.
I could probably get a window AC unit TSO'd but it doesn't mean that you
can install it in your airplane. It means that it passes what ever TSO
standard that it was manufactured to.


Take a look at part 43 appendix A, it's pretty interesting.


Cheers!