Originally Posted by
SITplus
Hi,
I am the Program Director for SITplus, a program releasing sterile Queensland fruit fly to manage wild pest Qfly in southeastern Australia. We are releasing flies currently using a dedicated Cessna Stationair with a permanently installed release machine. The machine has engineering approval for the plane it is fitted to ONLY. The machine augurs flies from a cooled box out two tubes that project below the plane.
I would like to develop a smaller release machine that would push flies out through the opening created by leaving a cargo door off....i.e. no projection from the plane. My hope is that if we could do this we could move from the need for a dedicated plane to a system where the box was latched into a plane, a release flight was made, plane lands and the system is removed. My question is, does what I propose sound feasible/legal? Where do I go to get professional advice??
it sounds sensible and legal for if you go about things the correct way. The best people probably to do this for you is the same Part 21 organisation that did the current system.
three aspects to this
1) maintenance procedures
2) aircraft operating procedures and limitations
3) aerial work AOC
Before going to the Part 21 organisation I would identify a pool of aircraft that you would like to use, in all likelihood this will require an individual flight manual supplement for each aircraft, the supplement would include the maintenance procedure to remove and store the door, and returning the aircraft to service (assuming non pressurised aircraft). However depending on the system of maintenance the aircraft is on (the system of maintenance could be schedule 5, the manufactures, or tail specific) it may not be pilot approved maintenance. The removal and installation of the door would need to be recorded on the maintenance release. There will need to a training procedure developed and delivered if you plan to use people other than LAMEs to configure the aircraft.
The flight manual supplement will also consider any specific limitations for this configuration, speeds, flaps, carriage of passengers. You may need a tube from a front window to create a pressure differential to deploy the flies. The rear door area maybe a higher pressure than the inside of the aircraft.
if you already have the operational approval for your aerial work, you will need the AOC updated with the types and registrations that are used.
I wouldn’t contact CASA directly at this stage (it’s three different CASA areas), whoever you employ to document this (eg a Part 21 organisation like Nova Systems) would be able to handle the engineering and maintenance side. The AOC side is a lot easier if you go with all the engineering approved, and all you want to do is vary the AOC to include new type and registrations.
it may even be cheaper if you are doing many airframes to have your Part 21 organisation to generate a simple FAA STC (supplemental type certificate) for this which could cover every aircraft on those types certificates, and any maintenance organisation could apply that STC to any type listed on the STC. CASA would just accept the STC without getting involved in the engineering. Then you could also licence that STC to other organisations to get some cost recovery.