The FAA’s guidance is to make your practice a documented program rather than something you do from memory. Where the aircraft manufacturer provides a maintenance and inspection program, AC 107-2A’s advice is to follow it. Where the manufacturer provides none, the guidance is that the operator may develop one — an inspection program scalable to the specific aircraft and the operation, built to encompass the whole system so that no part of it is quietly skipped flight after flight.

Records are what turn a program from intention into something real. AC 107-2A treats recordkeeping as a benefit worth the effort: document every repair, modification, overhaul, or replacement, and record the component’s time-in-service when you do, kept in a hardcopy or electronic logbook that covers inspections and maintenance alike. Over time those entries become the aircraft’s history — and that history is exactly what turns the guesswork of the last section into a reliable maintenance schedule you can trust.

It is fair to ask why bother, since Part 107 does not require a maintenance logbook for most operations. The answer is that § 107.15 and § 107.49 make the remote pilot in command responsible for the aircraft’s condition before every single flight, and a documented program is simply how a working operator meets that responsibility the same way every time — across a fleet, across a season, and in a form that could show the aircraft was in a condition for safe operation if a flight is ever questioned. The rule sets the duty; the program is how you discharge it without relying on memory.