Compliance reports around the world
A question for the certification and airworthiness engineers around the planet.
We all know about compliance reports, and what they are for. But, the more I deal with different companies and authorities around the world, the more I see totally different approaches being applied.
Here in the UK, a compliance report is a huge document, with numerous sub-reports, every piece of evidence cross-referenced, and all of it submitted for checking by the CAA (despite being signed by two company design signatories already). Hard work, but fair and rigorous.
Dealing with the FAA, I've found that they want to see a pretty rigorous compliance checklist, but are far more comfortable accepting that the supporting documentation, if signed-for by a DER, is right without their demanding sight of it. So, what they see is much less than UK-CAA would ask for, but (not unreasonably) puts a large burden for internal rigour and honesty upon the manufacturer.
I've recently been dealing a lot the the Czechs, who seem very used to a simple "declaration of compliance" supported by some very basic structural and flight test reports. They don't produce a single compliance checklist at-all (not even internally very often), and certainly don't routinely produce anything of the rigour that we are used to in the UK.
I believe that the French work similarly to the Czechs, but the Germans are quite close to the Brits in approach - although I've not worked closely enough to either to be sure.
So, would anybody like to comment on what is standard practice in their neck of the woods, because I'm starting to suspect strongly that this is a big player in the relative certification costs in different countries, and would like to get a feel for it.
G