View Full Version : BASA Reasons to be cheerful ?
America and the European Union have officially concluded a
long-awaited bilateral aviation safety agreement (BASA) designed to
make government oversight of aviation more efficient and to pave the
way for future regulatory cooperation. The BASA, signed on March 15th,
allows reciprocal acceptance FAA and EASA certification and oversight
of civil aviation products and repair stations. The US and the EU
specifically agree to recognise each other’s ‘findings of compliance
and approvals.’ This means, for example, that the FAA can determine a
US repair station is eligible for an EASA approval to work on European
registered products without a separate inspection by European
regulators.
The BASA is good news for the industry. Duplication of oversight was a
real fear, and the BASA takes a lot of expense and bureaucracy out of
the equation. Importantly, the BASA makes provision for annexes to be
developed and added by a Bilateral Oversight Board, leaving the door
open for agreements in other areas, including flight crew licensing.
EASA’s proposals to hammer the N-register operator in Europe have been
put back to 2014, and may now be subject to bilateral negotiations.
mm_flynn
1st Apr 2011, 14:04
I had seen this two weeks ago so am prettynsure it is not an April Fool, but am surprised at the total lack of comment.
I haven't read the underlying documents so am not sure if EASA, FAA or both climbed down from the various postures. However, the draft under discussion had a lot of the 'tough issues' in it, so I would have thought an FCL addition along the Canada/US lines that Bookwarm has previously linked to is a reasonable probability?
Discuss....
That treaty, on my quick read, merely lubricates the mutual acceptance of STCs (and similar) as Approved Data for Major Alterations, plus type certificates.
It thus possibly does no more than the individual treaties (http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/international/bilateral_agreements/baa_basa_listing/) which have existed for many years.
JAA claimed those treaties were dead 10 years ago (a JAA director told me so personally in 2005) but the JAA member states stuck a finger up to JAA and carried on working the treaties. The FAA honoured them, in most cases.
Now, EASA is having a second go at killing them off. Using their EU powers they probably can.
It has never been possible to "just install" a US STCd part in say a G-reg plane. Only the sensible Australia allows such use (though it has often happened in the UK, anyway ;) ;) ).
One big factor, currently unknown, is whether EASA will accept AML FAA STCs. This would be wonderful but would undermine a lot of EASA jobs, and undermine the business of the big and powerful (within EASA) Part 21 design firms, because nowadays Garmin basically own the GA avionics world and Garmin are going for AML STCs for everything (it seems).
An AML STC applies to a long list of aircraft types all in one go.
It also crucially comes with an AFMS which does not need an individual certification agency approval; you just knock it out in Word, print it off, punch the holes in it, and insert it in your POH. Nobody ever reads it anyway; it is just a legal formality as for any nontrivial avionics item the real detailed operating instructions are in the Pilot's Guide. But an AFMS remains a legal artefact which has been a thorn for a lot of people. Any AFMS is automatically a Major Alteration (well in general, anyway) and in the USA you file it with a 337 to an ACO, but that is FOC. In EASA-land you submit it as a Major Mod, which costs 4 figures.
The loss of these 4-digit-priced but trivial approvals is why EASA hates AML STCs.
Time will tell...
There is no FCL element in this so not at all relevant to the EASA pilot licensing crap. That would be a totally fresh BASA which few people think will ever come.
dont overfil
1st Apr 2011, 19:43
I was at a AOPA talk this week presented by Martin Robinson but little was said about this. I thought this was the big deal about the difficulties in EASA and the FAA accepting each others standards.
Where was the champagne?
D.O.
BillieBob
1st Apr 2011, 21:03
America and the European Union have officially concluded a
long-awaited bilateral aviation safety agreement (BASA)Does this mean that it has been ratified by both the US Congress and the EU Parliament? If not, it's just worthless media hype. If so, then three cheers for the aviation maintenance industry, but it is totally irrelevant to pilot licensing.
I must admit when I first saw this I thought "April fool". Then I too heard that it had been in circulation for a few weeks.
Surely it must be fairly easy to determine whether some sort of agreement was signed a few weeks back even if it is very watery!
At least that would signify that the claimed delay from 2012 to 2014 to get such an agreement had some merit rather than being a whitewash for the real agenda.
My guess is its a hoax as EASA could never surely do anything which would encourage aviation and be positive?
but it is totally irrelevant to pilot licensing.
If it was true than it would indicate that pilot licence regognition to a degree would follow and that was the claimed agenda by EASA in extending the deadline to 2014. But again that was probably an EASA con to buy time and get their agenda through with as little anger against them as possible.
Pace
bookworm
2nd Apr 2011, 09:57
Of course it's not a hoax. Here's the press release (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/trans/119884.pdf) for the treaty (http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st08/st08312.en09.pdf).
The BASA is a framework for agreement in a variety of areas, currently (Art 2B):
a) airworthiness approvals and monitoring of civil aeronautical products;
b) environmental testing and approvals of civil aeronautical products; and
c) approvals and monitoring of maintenance facilities.
The details are in Annexes 1 (airworthiness and environmental) and 2 (maintenance).
Arts 2B and 5B open the door for further areas to be added as Annexes. Most importantly, Art 3 establishes a Bilateral Oversight Board (the FAA and EASA) responsible for, inter alia, "as appropriate, adopting additional Annexes" and Art 19C allows these to come into force by an executive/administrative act of the Board, not a legislative act.
This is critical, because it means that the introduction of implementation procedures for licensing are in the hands of the FAA and EASA, not the governments.
Like Mike, I'm somewhat surprised by the lack of comment on this from the N-reg fraternity, because now (or possibly, when the agreement comes into force on 1 May) is the time to make sure that (a) EASA gets on with this and (b) its standards for reciprocal acceptance are reasonable.
The reason for the lack of comment is prob99 because most of those involved don't believe mutual FCL recognition will happen, because it would undermine the heavy job creation schemes in Europe.
If it does, great.
If it does, however, it will make EASA officials look like a load of crooks (which they are anyway) to be pushing through the present FCL proposal which basically screws almost everybody on N while working on a treaty which makes the proposal meaningless. How many millions of euros will they have wasted on the FCL proposals, only to throw them away? It would be a very perverted (even by EU standards) way to do regulation, which is another reason why I think it won't happen.
As I said, the new certification BASA does not appear to provide for automatic acceptance of FAA STCs and such. For example the CAA has had a similar treaty with the FAA for years, and it never accepted FAA STCs, never mind 337s. If you moved an N-reg to G, the first thing the CAA inspector did was to print off the 337s for that airframe and chuck them all out, so you had to either rip out the equipment or pay a CAA Level 2 (or similar) company to generate fresh paperwork for each mod (3-4 £ digits per mod).
I hope I am wrong, of course. But turkeys rarely vote for xmas, and the turkeys in the EU have had since 1955 to practice the art of avoiding xmas.
The reason for the lack of comment is prob99 because most of those involved don't believe mutual FCL recognition will happen, because it would undermine the heavy job creation schemes in Europe.
10540
The big saviour here and why these agreements must happen is the massive shortage that is appearing and forecast to become critical in qualified and suitably licenced pilots worldwide.
There is a trickle of new pilots coming into the industry from the bottom.
With the expansion on demand for experienced pilots worldwide especially in the far East and China and developing third world countries there is going to be a massive shortage.
Not so much protecting your existing workforce but finding enough to cover the demand!
It has to happen on the pure rules of supply and demand
Pace
wigglyamp
2nd Apr 2011, 19:39
For example the CAA has had a similar treaty with the FAA for years, and it never accepted FAA STCs, never mind 337s. If you moved an N-reg to G, the first thing the CAA inspector did was to print off the 337s for that airframe and chuck them all out, so you had to either rip out the equipment or pay a CAA Level 2 (or similar) company to generate fresh paperwork for each mod (3-4 £ digits per mod).
This isn't correct. Under BCAR B2-2, the UK would accept FAA STCs without further technical investigation, as they accepted that the State of Design (USA) had comparable design and safety standards. We cleared loads of S-Tec autopilot STCs in this way (a very simple validation - no technical investigation and a fee of about £200). It is only since EASA took over in 2003 that this approach has been stopped.
Even now, a validation of an STC is possible and does happen, it's just the process is different. Instead of an applicant in the UK/EU seeking validation of an FAA STC, the STC holder in the US has to make the application via their FAA ACO, and then the FAA tells EASA about the classification (significant/non-significant) and does the document checking. In the case of a non-significant STC, EASA will accept the FAA's word and issue the validation. Unfortunately the problem arises with AML STCs, because EASA working practises don't allow multiple TCs on an STC, although they are moving slowly towards a better system.
Interesting... presumably my info was right re 337s which probably form the majority of typical mods.
the STC holder in the US has to make the application via their FAA ACOWas this not the case pre-EASA too? The problem is that is most cases the STC holder is not interested in co-operating because America is a big enough market for him. The party which is interested in pushing it is the aircraft owner, but without the STC holder's support he is powerless. And the STC holder's support is even less likely to be forthcoming if there is no hardware sale involved e.g. on a N to G transfer.
Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
I wouldn't trust EASA to do anything sensible and effective, bureaucratic, useless, dangerous and expensive is what they do. Their leadership is the worst kind of arrogant mediocre French bureaucracy.
wigglyamp
2nd Apr 2011, 20:05
Before EASA, we (EU avionic shop) could submit a major mod application to NAA (UK CAA in our case) and just quote the FAA STC number and provide a copy of the AFMS and that was all that was required - nice and simple. A couple of weeks later, we got an AAN (major mod approval document) and we could release the aircraft to service. Occasionally we'd have a regional office surveyor come to look at the aircraft to sign off part one of the AAN if it was a new autopilot install that they hadn't seen before. The CAA didn't get the whole certification data pack and didn't have to comunicate with he FAA STC holder. They acccpeted hat the FAA had fully and properly investigated the design, and B2-2 allowed mutual acceptance.
For 337 mods, in most cases these were accepted at face-value on import, provided that the licenced engineer or organisation doing the certification did the obvious checks - is the equipment approved, are there any AD's not addressed, does it all function corectly, does it meet any particular national requirements such as Notice 76 (now GR18) and Notice 82/88 (GR4/6). Simple really. Now, because the B2-2 rule doesn't apply, the design of the 337-approved mod has to be investigated and approved. This is where we hope the new bi-lateral may help.
For 337 mods, in most cases these were accepted at face-value on import,
Was that (and the unquestioned STC acceptance) possibly because you were a CAA L2 company at the time?
That's very different to what I have been told by numerous people who went down this road.
wigglyamp
2nd Apr 2011, 20:55
We got our CAA E2 design approval in 2002, but I've been involved in importing N reg aircraft since 1987 and the situation I mentioned was certainly the case right from then until EASA came into force in 2003. We still maintain a CAA national design approval as well as EASA Part 21J, so we can cover ex-military aircraft on permits (doing a Meteor at present).
I don't suppose many people would have realised that e.g. moving N to G would be a lot easier if there was a design approved outfit in the hangar whose relationship with the CAA inspector will be a lot better. If you just get some random MO to do the transfer they will say "YesSir we can do it" but most of them get stuck when mods are discovered.