Form 2 Documentation Process
The GAus Form 2 Annual Inspection is our default system of maintenance for gliders in Australia and is the annual inspection checklist for the the vast majority of Australian gliders. The annual inspection process and Form 2 serve the primary purpose of ensuring that our gliders are well maintained, airworthy and safe.
However, Form 2 and its associated paperwork have other purposes which are intended to reduce member’s overall administrative burden and improve safety outcomes for GAus members.
The first of these is data collection. Like all other aviation sectors in Australia, GAus is required to report annually to the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) the number of flights and flying hours undertaken by gliders. At one point we were all required to report these figures individually, but many years ago an agreement was reached that GAus would provide that data based on aircraft launches and flying hours rather than pilot launches and flying hours (after all, the totals should be the same!) The mechanism used by GAus to collect this information is the Form 2 Inspection Report.
The second purpose for which the Form 2 Inspection Report is used is to confirm that the Certificate of Registration (CoR), Certificate of Airworthiness (CoA), and details of the Registered Operator (RO) for each aircraft are present and correct. There is a legislative requirement that these details are correct, and every three years CASA is required to confirm this. However, for many years now CASA has not required glider Registration Holders (RH) and ROs to provide this information on the basis that GAus manages this aspect of glider registration.
Even more importantly, for safety and airworthiness reasons, GAus needs to have the correct details of ROs so that important airworthiness information can be sent to them when required. This includes Airworthiness Directives.
Nevertheless, there are a few aircraft for which GAus does not have correct RO contact details, and few for which a CoR and/or CoA are not available. That is why Form 2 requires the Annual Inspector to sight the CoR and CoA and to confirm the details are correct in the inspection report.
For these reasons it is essential that the Inspection Report be sent to GAus after each annual inspection. There are two ways to do this:
- By emailing a copy of the report to returns@glidingaustralia.org, or
- By completing the on-line Form 2 process.
Because a few ROs or annual inspectors fail to return the Inspection Report each year, GAus administrative staff must chase down these missing reports. A long standing policy has been in place that, when new Form 2 paperwork is ordered, GAus office staff check to see if the inspection report from the previous annual inspection has been returned, and if not, send the Form 2 paperwork but do not issue a new Maintenance Release (MR) until the inspection report from the previous annual inspection has been returned. Under this system, members have received their Form 2 paperwork, have been able to proceed with their annual inspection but are then unable to perform their evaluation flight without a new MR. Unfortunately, this has resulted in extra work for the office staff and an unnecessary level of conflict with members who have not received their new MR.
As a result, to further encourage the return of the Form 2 inspection report, from 15 September 2025, no Form 2 paperwork will be issued for any glider for which the inspection report has not been received for the previous annual inspection. When an application is made for a Form 2 kit, office staff will check that the previous inspection report has been received before issuing the new Form 2 kit. If the previous inspection report has not been received, the applicant will be informed of this and that no new Form 2 kit will be issued until it is.
Finally, ROs and annual inspectors are reminded that they must be current GAus members, and that annual inspectors must not sign off an annual inspection unless they are within their 6 year revalidation period. There have been a few occasions recently where an annual inspector has signed out an inspection after their rating has been automatically suspended because they have not attended a revalidation session in the last 6 years (see MOSP3 10.22.1). All annual inspectors are reminded that if more than six years have passed since their last revalidation or the initial grant of their rating, then their rating is suspended and may not be exercised until revalidated. Your RMA should be consulted in this case. Airworthiness rating validity may be checked by opening Just Go and checking airworthiness credentials.
