Flight safety hazard.....EASA

[A and C]

I see that EASA is sticking it's head in the sand and making unrealistic demands for the certification of the new "glass" flight instruments that are coming on the market.

The EASA cost of getting an STC for the is about 6000 Euros plus of course the cost of producing the paperwork, the latest stunt from EASA is to limit the STC to one type certificate only and not have the STC valid for a number of typical aircraft (IE PA32 & PA34).

With this attitude to the more reliable and user friendly kit EASA is holding back progress to safer flying.......... this attitude NOT going to improve flight safety and I think is only resulted from EASA employees who simply dont understand small aircraft and are trying to impose large aircraft reguations.

The question has to be asked.......... Is EASA fit to be regulator?

[IO540]

When you meet any of the people in Brussels, you find most of them are former employees of the national CAAs, who were attracted by the fantastic Brussels expense account gravy train, and are now making the best of it.

Turkeys will never vote for xmas.

What has happened to the FAA-EASA mutual STC recognition treaty? Not to mention all the other treaties between the FAA and the individual countries in Europe; these are still valid and operating as far as the FAA is concerned.

If a manufacturer is not going for an FAA STC first, they better have a good reason because some 90% of the GA market is out there.

[Sir George Cayley]

EASA's HQ is in Cologne, so which surburb of BRU is that?

Actually, many of the early national CAA employees have finished and together with a lack of budget many posts are vacant.

Some ex EU employees have moved over to EASA as the political process requires some adeptness at steering things through that well known suburb of Koln, Brussels.

The EASA website contains lots of job vacancies, so why don't you apply, IO?

Like it or lump it we're stuck with 'em. But take a leaf at of the Campaigns book and engage with EASA to try and steer them back to a sensible course?

Sir George Cayley

[A and C]

I dont see why the GA industry that has the porblems of the economic situation should has to train EASA empoyees to do the job of reguation!

It is all very well for you to say we should "campaign" but all that is required is a realistic interpritation of the rules, after all it is pointless to insist that an EFIS display meets airliner lightning strike standards when a a strike of that magnitude would probably destroy the light aircraft that it is fitted to!

[BroomstickPilot]

I would suggest that perhaps a useful approach to this would be to inform the manufacturers of the kit and try and get them to take up the cudgels also.

Broomstick.

[IO540]

I was thinking of Eurocontrol, but the whole EU machine is an expense gravy train.

The big problem with the EASA certification process is that only the manufacturer can apply. It is not possible for the proposing installer or the aircraft owner to apply. And if the mfg is in America (which most are) they are unlikely to bother.

[wigglyamp]

It's not the equipment manufacturer that applies for the STC -it's an EASA Part 21J DOA.
When the major American manufacturers of certified glass cockpit kit applied to get their FAA AML STC's EASA validated (some have over 200 aircraft on a single FAA STC), EASA told them politely where to go. The big problem now is that if you take a product like the Aspen EFD1000, with a retail price of under $10K, but it's going to cost that much again to certify in each aircraft type, then clearly Part 21J DOA's are only going to pitch STC applications at those aircraft types with high potential for upgrades - Pipers/Cessnas etc, and the lower-number aircraft aren't going to get a look-in. I've heard it can easily take upwards of 120 hours of paperwork for the DOA to create a typical STC for the current generation glass systems. Can you see many DOA's investing in this without a pretty good certainty of getting a return on their investment?

One DOA in the UK got EASA agreement for 7 aircraft types on a single STC, but then EASA changed their mind because they weren't going to get all of their fees - €1000 per aircraft type with each on separate STC application. It seems cost over-rules the safety benefit!

[IO540]

It's not the equipment manufacturer that applies for the STC -it's an EASA Part 21J DOAAre you sure this is the whole answer, wigglyamp? It's very much not what I have been told by U.S. manufacturers I have been in touch with regarding them applying for EASA approvals. OK, the application may have to be routed through an EASA 21J outfit, but it appears that it has to originate at the manufacturer - who has to have the incentive to bother in the first place.

I would like to know what earth-shattering safety data has EASA discovered which the FAA has missed - given that the FAA "runs" some 90% of the world's GA.... ;)

The EASA type-specific approach is meaningless anyway. Getting an STC for say a C172 has no more meaning than getting an STC for a wide range of spamcans, because one C172 can be hugely differently equipped from another C172. So certifying a glass panel for a "C172" is just a meaningless constraint.

[Superpilot]

What has happened to the FAA-EASA mutual STC recognition treaty?

Excellent question IO, remember seeing this written clearly in a doc a few years back.

[astir 8]

Remember, this is the same mob that wanted airspeed indicators in balloons !!!:sad::sad:

[wigglyamp]

EASA STCs are finally appearing for the EFD1000. Lees Avionics at Wycombe Air Park have just been awarded approval for the Piper PA28 series and say they'll have PA32 and PA34 STCs in the next few weeks.

[IO540]

EASA STCs are finally appearing for the EFD1000. Lees Avionics at Wycombe Air Park have just been awarded approval for the Piper PA28 series and say they'll have PA32 and PA34 STCs in the next few weeks.

which ensures that only that avionics shop an do the work (or alternatively they sell the rights to the "design" to other avionics shops who then have to charge their customer) which is hardly conducive to providing value for money to end users.

This is a crappy situation. One could blame EASA for it, for being stupid and not simply recognising FAA STCs, but in more general terms one could also blame the US manufacturers for not bothering to certify their stuff for the European market.

[wigglyamp]

The suggestion from another Aspen dealer is that use of the STCs produced by Lees and others (Tatenhill have the PA24 and FR182, Straubing in Germany will soon have C172) will be around €600. That's much lower than the cost of producing the STC in the first place, so clearly the avionic shops that have gone to the bother have made a significant investment and need to recover that cost.

Aspen and Garmin have both certified their prodicts in Europe - they have ETSOs, so it's not their fault that EASA doesn't accept FAA STCs. And you can't really blame EASA when not automatically accepting everything the FAA does. Look at the fiasco with the Eclipse 500, which EASA wouldn't accept initially. If it had a double generator failure (and this is a failure case in both FAA and EASA certification requirements), it would have run out of battery power and had NO engine control long before it could have completed an emergency descent in IMC. It has no manual engine controls, including firewall shut-off valve. EASA made them fit a different battery to meet the required 60 minutes. Seems rather sensible to me.

[cats_five]

<snip>
it is pointless to insist that an EFIS display meets airliner lightning strike standards when a a strike of that magnitude would probably destroy the light aircraft that it is fitted to!

AFAIK lightning strike standards for all new craft were revised following a direct hit on a glider:

Air Accidents Investigation: Schleicher 500699 (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/bulletins/december_1999/schleicher_500699.cfm)

If that is the case then is it unreasonable to ask for new instrumets to withstand the same strikes?

(I have seen photos on-line of the bits at the AAIB but they are not in the report and I can't find them via Google)

[IO540]

Look at the fiasco with the Eclipse 500

I am sure the Eclipse will be EASA's "favourite FAA fiasco" for good many years.

It will be GA's favourite example of how to successfully rip off a lot of deposit holders (IMHO, mostly people with money but who did not understand enough about GA tech stuff to weigh up the risks) for many years, or so I hope. I think anybody who has been in business for many years, honestly and carefully looking after his customers, will see it similarly.

But it would be stupid to use the Eclipse fiasco to declare FAA STCs as bogus - something that EASA is effectively doing as a default position. The vast majority of FAA STCs, or anybody else's approvals for that matter, concern totally mundane items which need an "approval" due to ICAO rules and little else.

[wigglyamp]

No doubt those who operate N reg aircraft will love the idea of an FAA AML STC covering perhaps 2-300 aircraft. EASA saw clearly that the STC owner could not have checked the applicability of all aspects of the STC on all of the aircraft types on the approval. These FAA STCs offer the installer lots of discretion in interpreting the data - something EASA won't allow, and there will be some areas where there is good justification. We see larger twin turbo-prop aircraft with dual GNS430W's imported to EU with installations done against a Garmin AML STC and there are no wiring diagrams and no configuration data to support whats been done. You can't expect to diagnose faults in a complex system with multiple pressure bulkead disconnects, junction boxes and complex cross-side nav and autopilot switching with no aircraft-specific data, yet this is what the FAA STC allows. Whilst I don't support all EASA impose on us, I certainly don't agree with all of the FAA methods.

However, this is digressing from the basis of this thread - EASA STCs for glass cockpits. IO-540's suggestion was that those avionic shops creating the STCs would be ripping off the end-user. Do you still feel this is the case when the aircraft owner may face a certification bill of $600 for an Aspen EFD100?
If yes, how should avionic shops address this and still try to stay in business?

[IO540]

Wigglyamp, you are obviously an avionics shop (perhaps the one mentioned) and no I don't see a problem with you charging £600 to other avionics shops for the use of the approval you obtained.

Well.... except that the other shop will mark it up to £1000-£2000 :) I have had quotes for £2000 from shops who would spend a few hours preparing stuff to send off to derassociates.com who would have charged the shop $300.

The problem lies in the wider issues and we will have to disagree there.

The FAA clearly allows FAA installers to use their experience. Of course a GNS530 install in a King Air 350 will be different to one in a PA28 :) It is implicitly assumed that an installer working on a KA will know how a KA works.

This assumption could of course be wrong. One could have a cowboy working on the KA. But the FAA, who looks after at least 90% of the world's GA, has wisely decided that it cannot regulate-out outright stupidity.

And anyway a "cowboy" will just do the work and not get the approvals, or not make a logbook entry at all. A huge amount of work is already done in Europe without logbook entries of any sort, and always has been.

For some reason EASA thinks it does need to regulate for stupidity/illegality, which is undoubtedly appropriate in some cases... but does EASA know something we don't know, e.g. European avionics shops are mostly incompetent and need to be protected from themselves? I know US avionics expertise is generally much better than here, but the difference can't be that great, surely?