How to fill AS9102 Form 3: a real example with a Tata Advanced Systems drawing.

A complete walk-through of filling AS9102 Form 3 for an aerospace mounting bracket being submitted to Tata Advanced Systems for the Boeing 737 supplier program. Real characteristics, real measurements, and the five places auditors will reject your submission.

The part

For this walkthrough, we'll use a typical aerospace bracket: a machined 7075-T6 aluminium part, 50×25×6 mm, with four ⌀5 mm mounting holes in a rectangular pattern, a counterbore for the tooling reference, surface finish callouts, and standard GD&T (position to A|B|C). The drawing has 247 dimensioned characteristics — typical for a Tier-2 aerospace bracket.

The customer is Tata Advanced Systems (TASL) Hyderabad, supplying to Boeing's 737 fuselage program. The supplier is a Tier-2 precision machine shop in Bengaluru with AS9100D certification, but new to aerospace FAI submissions. The challenge: getting a 247-line Form 3 right on the first submission, knowing TASL's quality team will check every line.

Step 1: Ballooning the drawing

Before you can fill Form 3, you need to assign a unique characteristic number to every dimension on the drawing. This is called ballooning. AS9102 requires that every dimensioned feature, every note, every general tolerance default — everything — gets a balloon.

For a 247-characteristic drawing, manual ballooning takes 4–6 hours and is the #1 source of errors. The most common mistakes:

• Missed characteristics. Forgetting a tolerance applied via general note (e.g., "All untoleranced dimensions per ISO 2768-mK") or surface finish defaults.
• Duplicate balloon numbers. Hand-numbering 247 balloons reliably is harder than it sounds.
• Wrong feature counts. "4× ⌀5.0" should be one balloon (with quantity 4) — but inspectors sometimes want it as four separate balloons. Check the customer requirement.

Step 2: Form 3 header

The header on Form 3 is repeated from Form 1, but with one critical addition: the continuation page count. For a 247-characteristic part, you'll have 6+ continuation pages of Form 3, and each must be numbered "Page X of Y."

Required header fields on Form 3:

• Part Number (must match Form 1 exactly, including suffix)
• Part Revision
• FAI Report Number
• Page X of Y (across all Form 3 sheets)
• Drawing Number and Revision

Step 3: Listing each characteristic

Each row of Form 3 represents one characteristic. The columns are:

Step 4: Inspection methods

The inspection method column matters more than most QA teams realize. For an aerospace audit, listing "Caliper" for a feature that has a 0.005mm tolerance will get you rejected — caliper resolution is 0.01mm, so it can't measure that tolerance with adequate accuracy.

Industry-standard method-tolerance pairings:

• Caliper: ±0.05mm or looser tolerances only
• Micrometer: ±0.02mm to ±0.005mm
• Dial bore gauge: Bores ±0.01mm to ±0.005mm
• Pin gauges: Hole diameters with go/no-go criterion
• CMM: Position tolerance, profile, GD&T (any feature requiring datum reference)
• Surface profilometer: Surface finish (Ra, Rz)
• Hardness tester: Mechanical property verification
• Visual / certificate: Material grade, heat treat, surface treatment

Step 5: Results & pass/fail

For each characteristic, record the actual measured value. The pass/fail designation follows from comparing the measurement to the requirement plus tolerance band. Three nuances trip up new submitters:

1. Multiple-feature characteristics. If you have "4× ⌀5.0," you need four measurements. Either list them all in one row (5.012, 5.008, 5.015, 5.010) or split into four rows.
2. Out-of-tolerance handling. If a measurement fails, the row gets "F" — but you must also write a Non-Conformance Report (NCR) and reference it. Many submissions forget to attach the NCR.
3. Measurement uncertainty. A measurement of 5.05 against a tolerance of +0.05 might pass — but if your CMM has ±0.005mm uncertainty, you should mark it "Marginal" and request guard-banding from the customer.

Tata Advanced Systems specifics

TASL accepts standard AS9102 Rev C with three additions:

• FAI Index sheet. A cover page listing every drawing (parent + sub-assembly) referenced in the FAI, with revision and FAI report number for each.
• Sub-tier FAI declarations. If you sourced the casting, forging, or any special process from another supplier, their FAI must be referenced (and ideally attached) to your FAI submission.
• Boeing flowdown. For 737 program parts, TASL flows down Boeing D6-51991 verbatim. This means your FAI must explicitly state compliance to Boeing process specifications and include Boeing-specific characteristic typing (B-Critical, S-Significant) where applicable.

Beyond format, TASL's QA team has a reputation for thorough review. A typical TASL FAI review takes 3–5 business days. Common feedback patterns: requests for clarification on inspection method (especially CMM setup), questions about sub-tier traceability, and requests for additional process-control evidence.

Common rejection patterns

Across 200+ aerospace FAI submissions reviewed by aerospace lead auditors, these five mistakes account for over 70% of rejections:

1. Missing characteristics. Drawing has 247 features, Form 3 has 245. Auditors count.
2. Inspection method-tolerance mismatch. Caliper for a ±0.005 feature.
3. Missing sub-tier FAIs. No reference to forging supplier's FAI for a forged part.
4. Process certs expired. Heat treat NADCAP cert valid at PO date but not at FAI date.
5. Drawing rev mismatch. FAI to Rev A but parts shipped against Rev B.