The FAA has added a new section to FAR 43.3, allowing all pilots to make updates to aeronautical databases under certain provisions. In Section K, the regs state that avionics updates are no longer considered a preventive maintenance item and can be performed by the pilot of the airplane.
For those of you who have been making updates to your GPS units for years, this may sound like old news. But with the previous rules, which were implemented in 1996, pilots operating under Part 121, 129 and 135 certificates were unable to make the updates since these pilots are not allowed to perform preventive maintenance. The new rules will help make these operations more efficient. Previously, if a database expired while an aircraft was in a location away from maintenance personnel, the operator would incur unnecessary costs to ensure that the update was completed.
