This comedy gold popped up on the CASA website, recently:
It has been long-standing CASA policy that if a navigation instrument or item of equipment is required by regulation to be fitted to or carried in Australian aircraft then that instrument or equipment must be approved by CASA. …
Who cares what your policy is. Either it’s a legal requirement or it’s not.
This means that the instruments or equipment listed in CAO 20.18 must be approved by one of the processes specified in Civil Aviation Safety Regulation 1998 (CASR) 21.305.
Are you
sure about that CASA? What about the watch someone wears to comply with the accurate timepiece requirement in 20.18? Are you sure 20.18 doesn’t itself contain approvals under 207(2)? After all, that can be done by CAO: CAR 5.
Approval is normally gained by means of a PMA/APMA or a TSO/ATSO. Other forms of approval include STC or approval as part of an aircraft type approval process.
“Normally”? Other forms “include”? Are you
sure that’s all?
In each case, the manufacturer is required to demonstrate that the instrument or equipment meets the performance and accuracy standards that have been determined by a NAA, and will continue to do so under all expected operational conditions while being maintained in accordance with approved data.
Really? So all pilots who use their watch to satisfy the accurate timepiece requirement in 20.18 need to have his/her watch go through the PMA/APMA or TSO/ATSO process? Are you
sure about that?
The regulation under which this policy has been applied since 1988 is Subregulation 207(2) of CAR 1988.
There is no ‘policy’ to be ‘applied’ under CAR 207(2). You issue valid directions or grant valid approvals, and otherwise STFU.
The absence of a clear statement to the effect that subregulation 207(2) of CAR means that all mandatory flight and navigation instruments and equipment must be approved by CASA , has resulted in a number of amateur-built experimental aircraft being issued with approvals to fly under IFR using non-approved instruments.
No, CAR 207(2) means what it says. It doesn’t need anyone to make a ‘clear statement’ about it. And any ‘clear statement’ about what someone earnestly hopes it means is very interesting but largely irrelevant to the question as to what directions and approvals have validly been issued and given under the regulation.
…
In the interim, it is necessary to clarify and regularise the policy.
A masterpiece in weasel-words!
And while you’re ‘regularising’ your ‘policy’, you might want to look at the constraint in 207(4) and work out how you’re going to show that the present arrangements have produced any material risk to the safety of air navigation.