A First Article Inspection is a one-time, documented proof that your manufacturing process produces a part that matches the drawing. Not a sample that happened to pass — evidence that every requirement on the drawing was checked, by a method you can name, with a result you can show.
AS9102 is the aerospace standard that says what that evidence looks like. Most of the confusion around it isn't conceptual; it's that the paperwork has three forms, the forms have numbered fields, and nobody explains which is which.
When you need one
A full FAI is generally triggered by a change that could plausibly affect the part:
- A new part, or first production run at a new supplier
- A design change affecting form, fit or function
- A change of manufacturing process, tooling, or location
- A change of sub-tier supplier for a part or a special process
- A lapse in production long enough that the process can't be assumed stable
A partial FAI covers only what the change touched, referencing the original where nothing moved. Getting the full-versus-partial call right early saves a lot of rework — and it's a conversation to have with your customer, not a decision to make alone.
The three forms
| Form | Name | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Part Number Accountability | What part is this, at what revision, made by whom, and what sub-assemblies does it contain? |
| 2 | Product Accountability | What is it made of, which special processes were used, and what functional testing was done — with the certifications to prove it? |
| 3 | Characteristic Accountability | Every design characteristic, its requirement, how it was measured, what was measured, and pass or fail. |
Form 3 is where the work is, and where the ballooning comes in.
What gets a balloon
The rule is simpler than people expect: every design characteristic on the drawing gets a unique number, and that number appears both on the marked-up drawing and on Form 3. If it's a requirement, it's accountable.
That includes the things people forget:
- Dimensions with tolerances — the obvious ones
- Reference and basic dimensions, which still need accounting for even though they aren't directly inspected the same way
- Geometric tolerances — every frame, with its datums
- Surface finish callouts
- Notes that impose a requirement: material condition, heat treat, marking, coating, torque, cleanliness
- Requirements on referenced documents where the drawing invokes them
- Requirements on the model, if the model is the authority rather than the sheet
Notes are characteristics. A general note that says "break all sharp edges" or "passivate per AMS-QQ-P-35" is a requirement the part must meet, and a reviewer will expect to see it accounted for. Drawings carry more requirements in their notes than in their dimensions, and notes are where incomplete FAIRs usually get caught.
Where first articles come back
In practice, rejections cluster around a small number of causes — and almost none of them are about the measuring:
- Missing characteristics. A dimension or note on the drawing that never made it onto Form 3. This is the single most common finding, and it's a bookkeeping failure rather than a manufacturing one.
- No traceability between balloon and form. The reviewer has to be able to point at bubble 27 on the drawing and find row 27 on the form without guessing.
- Wrong drawing revision. The FAI is against a revision that has been superseded, or the revision on Form 1 doesn't match the drawing that was ballooned.
- Unreported nonconformances. A characteristic that failed and was dispositioned, but with no reference to the nonconformance document. A documented failure is acceptable; a silent one is not.
- Missing certifications. Form 2 asserts a special process was performed, but the certificate isn't attached or the certificate's scope doesn't cover the process actually used.
- Results that aren't results. "OK", "Pass" or a tick where the
customer expects the actual measured value. If the requirement is
3.625 ±0.001, the reviewer wants to see what you measured.
A practical order of work
- Fix the drawing revision and confirm full or partial with your customer.
- Balloon the drawing completely before measuring anything — that's when you find the notes you'd have missed.
- Fill Form 1 and Form 2 while the certs and routing are in front of you.
- Measure against the ballooned list, recording actual values.
- Deal with any failures through your nonconformance process, and reference them.
- Review the package as if you were the customer's reviewer, against the six causes above.
The mechanical part of this — numbering every characteristic, keeping the balloons and the form in step, not losing a note — is exactly the part that's tedious by hand and reliable when it's automated. That's the job FAIRmark does.
And before the package leaves, read it back. FAIRmark Pro installs a separate offline checker that takes a finished AS9102 XML and reports what a reviewer would: characteristics with no measured result, failures with no nonconformance reference, tolerance limits that don't match their nominals, and pass or fail statuses that contradict their own numbers. Most of the six causes above are visible in the file itself, if something actually looks.
AS9102 is published by SAE International. This article is an orientation written from working practice, not a substitute for the standard — buy the current revision and read it, and follow whatever your customer's flow-down actually requires. FAIRmark is not affiliated with or endorsed by SAE International.
Balloon a drawing and see the forms fill in
FAIRmark generates Forms 1–3 as you balloon, offline, on your own machine.