The ARGUS & Wyvern Audit Document Checklist
What auditors ask for — and how to have every record ready

ARGUS does not publish a single fixed checklist, and the exact document request packet is set per audit — but based on ARG/US CHEQ program material, an on-site Platinum (or Gold Certified) audit reviews evidence across the same operational areas every time: your Safety Management System, training program, operational control, and maintenance practices. In practice that maps to document categories you should expect to produce: pilot qualification, currency, and training records; aircraft and maintenance records (status of inspections, airworthiness directives, the maintenance program); your operations and general maintenance manuals; SMS manual and safety records (hazard reports, risk assessments, audit/CAP history); insurance certificates; and the records that show management personnel are qualified. ARGUS sends the operator a request in advance, so the move is to have each of these current and instantly retrievable before the auditor arrives — not to scramble after the request lands. ARGUS is a private third-party rating program, not the FAA, so 'required' here means required to earn the rating, not required by regulation.

They are two separate, independent private programs that audit overlapping things in different frameworks. ARG/US runs the CHEQ ratings — Gold (a remote audit that validates SMS, training, operational control, and maintenance), Gold Certified (which adds an on-site component), Platinum (a rigorous on-site audit with corrections required for any findings), and Platinum Elite (for operators with consecutive clean Platinum audits). Wyvern runs the Wingman Standard, which is based on ICAO standards for commercial air transport and SMICG's SMS standards; Wingman Certified operators complete on-site audits where flight operations, fleet maintenance, company business practices, safety and quality management systems, and physical aircraft are evaluated, plus Wyvern's PASS Report that checks 150+ data points before a specific trip. From a document standpoint the categories overlap heavily — pilots, aircraft and maintenance, manuals, training, safety/SMS, insurance — which is exactly why a single well-organized records system prepares you for either. Neither is an FAA requirement; both are voluntary industry ratings often requested by charter brokers and corporate flight departments.

Work backward from the request packet. Both programs send the operator a document request ahead of the on-site visit, organized by area — so the preparation is to assemble each area into a current, complete, clearly-dated, instantly-retrievable set before the auditor opens it. The categories to stage are: pilot records (certificates, medicals, currency, training and checking events, background checks); aircraft and maintenance records (inspection status, AD/SB compliance, the maintenance program, return-to-service entries); your manuals (operations manual, general maintenance manual, training manual, and the SMS manual); safety records (hazard reports, risk assessments, the safety committee minutes, and your prior audit findings with the corrective-action plans that closed them); insurance certificates; and management-personnel qualification records. The single biggest cause of a rough audit is not a missing program — it is a record that exists but cannot be found, or is out of date, on the day. A compliance document system that classifies, dates, and version-controls these and alerts before anything expires turns audit-prep from a fire drill into a print job. FileFlo is built for exactly that retrieval problem; it does not perform the audit or grant the rating.

No. ARGUS (ARG/US CHEQ ratings) and Wyvern (the Wingman Standard) are private, voluntary, third-party audit and rating programs run by independent companies — they are not FAA regulations and the FAA does not require them. What the FAA does require is separate: your Part 119/135 certificate and operations specifications, the recordkeeping obligations of Part 135, and — under 14 CFR Part 5 — a Safety Management System, which existing Part 135 operators (and § 91.147 LOA holders) must implement no later than May 28, 2027. Operators pursue ARGUS or Wyvern ratings because charter brokers, fractional programs, and corporate flight departments increasingly use them as a vetting shortcut: a recognized rating signals an audited safety posture. So the honest framing is that these ratings are market requirements, not legal ones — but the documents they examine are largely the same records the FAA already expects you to keep, which is why getting audit-ready for one helps with the other.

Per Wyvern's published material, the Wingman Standard PASS Report checks 150+ data points and specifically confirms pilot and maintenance-personnel training, crew currency, background checks, accident records, and that the operator is in good standing as a certified Wingman Operator. For the on-site Wingman Certified audit, expect the auditor to examine the underlying pilot file behind those data points: airman and medical certificates, currency and recency items, training and checking records, and background/PRIA-type screening. The reason this matters for document prep is that a PASS Report is generated in seconds from Wyvern's database and compared against the standard — so if a pilot's currency or training record is stale or missing in your own files, it shows up as a gap. Keeping each pilot's qualification record complete, current, and dated is the work; the rating is downstream of it. (Specific data-point lists and thresholds are defined by Wyvern, not by us, and can change — confirm the current standard with Wyvern directly.)

Both programs evaluate maintenance, and the document categories are consistent: the status of required inspections, airworthiness directive and service-bulletin compliance, the maintenance program your aircraft are enrolled in, current logbook and return-to-service entries, and your general maintenance manual. Wyvern's on-site Wingman audit explicitly evaluates fleet maintenance and includes physical aircraft inspections; ARGUS's audits validate maintenance practices as one of the core review areas. The recurring failure point is timing and traceability — an inspection or AD that is actually compliant but where the proving record is buried, undated, or out of sequence reads as a finding until you can produce the entry. The discipline is to keep maintenance records classified by aircraft, dated, and tied to the recurring inspection and AD deadlines so the maintenance picture is continuous and producible, not reassembled the night before. That is a document-management capability; FileFlo provides it but does not sign off on airworthiness or perform the audit.

Not automatically — they are different things, and you should treat them as separate obligations. The Part 5 SMS rule is a federal regulation: existing Part 135 certificate holders must develop and implement a conforming SMS no later than May 28, 2027, and the FAA accepts that through its own oversight process, not through a private rating. ARGUS and Wyvern both audit your SMS as part of their programs, and a mature, well-documented SMS will absolutely help you do well in either audit — but earning a CHEQ Platinum or Wingman Certified rating is a private third-party recognition, not the FAA's acceptance of your SMS. The practical good news is that the same SMS documentation — your safety manual, hazard reports, risk assessments, safety-committee records, and corrective-action history — feeds both. Build the SMS once, document it well, and it serves the federal requirement and the private audits. For the federal side, see our Part 135 SMS guides; for whether a rating maps to the rule, treat the precise relationship as a question for your FAA principal inspector and counsel.

There is no single published price, and anyone quoting you a firm flat number should be treated with caution — fees vary by program, by rating tier (a remote ARGUS Gold validation versus an on-site Platinum audit are different efforts), by fleet size and number of bases, by whether it is an initial audit or a renewal, and by travel. As of 2026, the realistic way to budget is to request a current quote directly from ARG/US (argus.aero) and Wyvern (wyvernltd.com) for your specific operation, and to separate the audit fee from the internal cost — the staff time to assemble and produce the records, which is often the larger and more controllable line item. That internal cost is exactly where document readiness pays off: an operator whose records are already classified, current, and retrievable spends a fraction of the prep hours of one rebuilding binders under deadline. For a fuller cost breakdown across ARGUS, Wyvern, and IS-BAO, see the dedicated cost guide linked below.