Elimination of periodic air tests in UK CofA GA aircraft.
 

As most UK flight testers will know, the UK-CAA has decided to eliminate periodic air tests (mostly they were done about the star-annual) for EASA administered CofA aeroplanes. This seems to be a UK interpretation of an EASA procedure, but is pretty much consistent with the rest of Europe's longstanding practice.

There have been a lot of grumblings about this, and many people are convinced that this is an anti-safety decision. Now I'm sure CAA wouldn't make such a decision if there was evidence to suggest that it was unsafe - but on the other hand the majority of air-test snags never get reported. CAA would only ever see a report either (a) when it's been sorted, or (b) if it's severe enough that it can't be readily sorted requiring Gatwick to be called - a rare occurrence.
So there doesn't seem to be formal evidence as to whether there is, or is not, a problem. Being of an inquisitive state of mind, I'd like to know.

To do this, one would need sight of the private records /logbooks of some of the more busy air-test pilots under the old regime, so as to see..

(a) what they flew?

(b) for each test, what or whether any faults were found?


Would anybody be amenable to opening their records for me to take a look? I'm happy to give credit or anonymity depending upon personal preference, but would just like to get to an answer and put it in the public domain.

I confess that I personally also think that it's an anti-safety decision - I do a fair number of annex II (PtF) annual air tests and have found a fair number of faults not identifiable on the ground, and don't see that a CofA will stop that happening necessarily. I've also seen CofA aeroplanes out of maintenance with problems that would have been picked up on a properly conducted air-test, and anecdotal evidence suggests that I'm not alone. But, I'm more than willing to put my hand up and say I'm wrong - if the evidence is there to do so.

Anybody like to help? I am really only interested in GA by the way - personally I think that the level of oversight of an airliner negates the issue, but if I'm wrong, there's only so much I can worry about at a time anyhow, and I am mostly a light aviation bod.

G

Genghis “I … think that it's an anti-safety decision”, I agree.
Whilst testing an elderly HS125 as a third party ‘expert’, the aircraft demonstrated quite unacceptable stall characteristics. The outcome of which could have been hazardous except for a very knowledgeable FTE who during walk round noted the poor wing leading edge fitment (and filler), with a briefing – ‘watch this one during the stall’. The aircraft had just completed a major overhaul and an approved ‘flight check’; it was fortunate that neither the ‘john’ nor galley were fully serviced.
I support your concerns about commercial aircraft; I will thumb a few log book pages to seek some details.
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Hi Genghis

Not much to report from my point of view (fair size offshore commercial helo fleet). We did fleet sampling C of A flight tests so each airframe was test flown every 3 years. Very seldom anything to report on the Puma fleet. The mediums (Dauphin and S76) tended to fail height climbs and need some fettling, but that was always expected and a good way of keeping an eye on things. We and our competition are in the process of introducing a Company continued airworthiness flight test (C of A in all but name) to keep oversight of the state of the fleet.

Cheers
Steve

I heard this a few weeks ago and initially thought the same as Genghis (in my very limited capacity as a pilot and engineering graduate). However, I have changed my mind.

Anecdotal evidence that I have heard suggestes that many aircraft that "fail" things like climb performance, get written down as the book figure anyway and my own personal experience supports this. Some of the flying club aircraft I have flown have demonstrated what I would consider to be fail points, such as an engine that always oversped because it "had the wrong prop" and a couple of other bits.

I also heard that the CAA have written down the climb performance of a light aircraft type due to the overwhelming test evidence - the reduction being of the order of 60 ft/min. Hardly a reason to carry out an airtest every three years.

If airtests were carried out "properly" then we may have a case, but I feel in most cases the aircraft is flown and figures manufactured to fit the paperwork (not critiscism of anyone here, just an observation of light aircraft star annual tests).

One question we need to ask, is what action has been taken due to airtests? If no significant action has been taken in all these years, then there is no point in doing them.