Originally Posted by
Chugalug2
This isn't about the Chinook, T800, Comanche, Super Lynx, or any other a/c. It isn't even about FADECs as such. It is about writing and verifying utterly reliable and resilient FADEC code. We will never know if the lack of that caused the Mull tragedy because the BoI came to no certain conclusion and was anyway overruled by the RAF VSO Reviewing Officers who were in turn overruled by a later SoS. The aircraft was grossly unairworthy, was 'positively dangerous', and had been granted an illegal RTS by RAF VSOs. The only way that Flight Safety can advance is by learning from previous accidents and doing one's best to avoid repeating them in the future. BD could do nothing about RAF VSOs granting illegal RTS's, but it could do something about the 'positively dangerous' FADEC code by ensuring that it was never allowed to happen again on its watch. I imagine that is why they refused you Point Blank, OS. It had nothing to do with you personally, BD was just doing the job it is mandated to do. Such determination to stick to the Regulations is heart-warming. It might just herald a long and slow return of UK Military Airworthiness that was dealt such a near fatal blow by RAF VSOs prior to Mull and has yet to recover from it.
I know, which is why I keep pointing out that the FADEC code in question had been examined by the FAA and certified as being safe. It was absolutely no different to the process for certifying the FADEC code for the engines of all the thousands of aircraft flying around at this moment, carrying tens of thousands of passengers, as the FAA, EASA or whoever will have certified that software in the exact same way. It has nothing to do with the Chinook from more than a decade earlier, or any other aircraft come to that. The problem was that one person within one defence contractor, QQ, didn't like the idea of using certification from outside the UK. If it were the case that all US certification was unsafe then we would see dozens of aircraft falling out of the sky (and I accept that Boeing have continued to take short cuts with the 737 MAX). It was very much a "little Englander" view of the world, one I found pretty offensive, TBH.
QQ didn't even exist as a defence contractor at the time of the ZD576 accident, anyway. IIRC, QQ came into existence as a defence contractor around 2001. My understanding at the time (2004) was that there was no compulsion to use the services of QQ as a company, as long as airworthiness requirements could be certified by a recognised competent body. I left before that happened, but I believe the options being looked at were to either just use the FAA certification people, with an envelope extension over the civil use case, or get EASA to do it. Not sure which prevailed in the end.