Glossary
The parts desk, in plain English.
The certificates, codes and shorthand a parts broker lives in — defined clearly, with the nuances that actually matter.
- FAA Form 8130-3
- The FAA’s Authorized Release Certificate, also called the Airworthiness Approval Tag. It certifies that a part conforms to approved design data and is airworthy or serviceable at the time of release — issued by a production approval holder for new parts, or an approved Part 145 repair station after maintenance or overhaul. It documents airworthiness; it is not approval to install on a particular aircraft.
- EASA Form 1
- Europe’s equivalent Authorized Release Certificate, issued by EASA-approved production or Part-145 organisations. Under the FAA–EASA bilateral safety agreement, each authority accepts the other’s form. For used parts moving US→EU, a dual-release statement added to an 8130-3 makes a single document valid in both jurisdictions — for organisations specifically approved to issue it.
- AOG — Aircraft On Ground
- An aircraft grounded by a technical or parts issue and unable to fly until it’s resolved. It drives every priority on a parts desk: a grounded aircraft burns money by the hour, so AOG requests jump the queue ahead of routine sourcing.
- Part condition codes
Short codes that describe a part’s status. They’re industry conventions, not a single legal list — meanings vary slightly by supplier — and a code alone never equals airworthiness; the certificate and trace do. The common ones:
- FN
- Factory New — brand-new from the OEM, fully certified
- NE
- New — unused, zero time, conforms to approved data
- NS
- New Surplus — appears new, may have changed hands or limited docs
- OH
- Overhauled — stripped, inspected, restored to a defined standard
- SV
- Serviceable — inspected and certified airworthy to spec
- RP
- Repaired — restored to airworthy condition
- AR
- As Removed — taken off as-is, no testing or certification implied
- IN
- Inspected — given a general inspection, verified defect-free
- Airworthiness Directive (AD)
- A legally binding order issued by the FAA or EASA when an unsafe condition exists, or is likely to develop, in a product type — with mandatory corrective action. An aircraft with an outstanding (non-complied) AD is not airworthy, which is why brokers screen parts and aircraft against them.
- Traceability (“trace”)
- The documented history of a part. Back-to-birth trace is an unbroken record — times, cycles, installs, repairs — from original manufacture to now, and is mandatory for life-limited parts so they retire on time. For many other parts, trace to the last operator plus the certificate chain is the practical standard.
- PMA — Parts Manufacturer Approval
- An FAA design-and-production approval that lets a company legally produce replacement or modification parts for type-certificated aircraft without being the OEM — provided the parts meet or exceed the original’s airworthiness standards. A common alternative to OEM parts.
- RFQ — Request for Quotation
- A broker’s request to suppliers for price, availability, condition and certification on a specific part. Because aviation-part value depends on condition and paperwork rather than a catalog price, the RFQ — usually fanned out to many suppliers — is where every deal starts.
The software that knows all of this.
PartsDesk reads the certs, checks the directives and screens the trace on every deal — so you don’t have to chase them by hand.