The AS9102 FAIR Form Explained

A first article inspection is a full verification that a production process produces a part matching the drawing. Not a sample of the features, all of them. The report is the evidence, and in aerospace the report format is AS9102.

The distinction that matters is that a FAI validates the process, not the part. A part that measures correctly because someone hand fitted it has failed the point of the exercise. The part being measured has to be one the process produced, made with production tooling by production methods.

Triggers are defined rather than negotiated. A new part number. A change to the design that affects fit, form or function. A change in manufacturing source, location, process, material or tooling. A lapse in production long enough that the process cannot be assumed stable, commonly taken as two years. And a customer or regulator requesting one, which they may do at any point.

Form 1 answers the question of what this report covers. Part number, part name, serial or lot number, drawing number and revision, and the manufacturing process reference.

It also positions the part in its assembly. If the FAIR covers a subassembly, Form 1 records the parts underneath it and whether each has its own FAIR. That indexing is why a Form 1 on a top level assembly can point to a stack of reports rather than repeating them.

The field people get wrong is the full versus partial declaration. A partial FAI covers only the characteristics affected by whatever triggered it, and the form has to say which those are and reference the baseline full FAI. A partial that does not name its baseline is not a partial, it is an incomplete full.

Form 2 accounts for everything that went into the part other than its geometry. Raw material, with its specification and its certification. Every special process, with the specification, the processor and the processor approval source. Functional or acceptance testing, with the specification and the result.

Approval source is the phrase to read carefully. It is not enough to say the anodizing was done to a spec. The form asks who approved that processor to perform that process for this customer, because in aerospace special process approval is customer controlled and a correctly performed process at an unapproved shop is a nonconformance.

This is where a machined part with heat treat, penetrant inspection and a chemical film picks up three separate approval questions, each of which has to resolve to a named source before the FAIR is complete.

Form 3 is the long one. Every characteristic on the drawing gets a unique number, a balloon on a marked up copy of the drawing, and a row on the form recording the requirement, the measured result, and the method or tooling used.

Every characteristic means every one. Dimensions and tolerances, obviously. Also geometric tolerances and their datums, surface finish callouts, notes that impose a requirement, material and process callouts referenced from the drawing, and requirements inherited from a specification the drawing invokes.

The ballooned drawing is the working artifact of the whole exercise and it deserves care. Numbering that follows the drawing in a readable order, balloons placed so no leader crosses another, and one balloon per characteristic rather than one per feature. A Form 3 with 180 rows against a drawing whose balloons are unreadable is a report nobody can check.

Rev C was published in June 2023 and replaced Rev B, which had stood since 2014. The changes are administrative rather than conceptual: field names were tightened, signature blocks were removed from Forms 2 and 3 so that approval sits on Form 1, and the standard is explicit that the person reviewing a FAIR cannot be the person approving it.

The last one has practical consequences for small suppliers. A shop where the quality manager both performs and approves the inspection now needs a second person in the loop, and that is a staffing question rather than a paperwork question.

Rev C also engages more directly with digital product definition, where the model rather than a drawing sheet is the authority. Ballooning a model is a different exercise from ballooning a print, and if your customer supplies a model based definition it is worth agreeing early how characteristics will be numbered and shown.

Check which revision your customer flows down. Contracts written before mid 2023 frequently still name Rev B, and supplying the wrong revision format is an easy rejection.

Rejections cluster into a short list, and almost none of them are about the parts being wrong.

Characteristics missed on Form 3, usually notes and specification derived requirements rather than dimensions. Balloons on the marked up drawing that do not match the numbers on the form. Special processes on Form 2 without an approval source, or with a source that has lapsed. Results recorded as pass rather than as a measured value, where the drawing calls for a variable measurement. Drawing revision on Form 1 not matching the revision that was manufactured. And a partial FAI that does not reference its baseline.

The pattern is that FAIRs fail on completeness and traceability, not on capability. Which means the fix is in how the report is built, and the cheapest place to catch it is a review against the drawing before the report leaves the shop.

Send the drawing at a stated revision, and say whether the model or the drawing is the authority. Where a model is the authority, say how you want characteristics numbered.

Flow down the special process approvals you require by name, with the approval source, rather than leaving the supplier to discover them. Say which AS9102 revision applies. State whether you want a full FAI or a partial, and if partial, against which baseline.

And say when the FAIR is due relative to the shipment. A report that arrives with the parts and a report that has to be approved before the parts ship are different jobs with different schedules, and that difference is worth agreeing in the purchase order rather than discovering in week six.