CAA Airworthiness Feature Response

discredit with one sentence a complete article or assertion by anybody who even remotely disagrees with what the

Bureaucracy deems as acceptable behaviour.

We saw this single sentence discrediting tactic used so well before when the bureaucrats massed to publicly discredit Dick Smith’s book Two Years in the Aviation Hall of Doom back in 1984/85. At no time though did one single bureaucrat specifically answer even one of the numerous questions raised in that book. Not one person at one time and in any way was able to specifi<:ally refute what Dick wrote in that book. Unfortunately

Dick did not have a medium such as a magazine with which to

continue the job but we do and we will be monitoring the CAA’s efforts in close detail via future issues. Ed)

_The CAA has been charged by the Government with giving primacy to safety considerations over commercial ones. It is aware though that cost impact of air safety rules needs to be taken into account. The Authority has a genuine interest in providing service to its customers and has adopted this as one of its principal objectives. It wishes to promote consultation and an open style of review of any matters that are of major concern to the industry or the public.

The CAA is aware that the industry believes the cost of some regulations is not justified by the increase in safety achieved. First-of-type certification of imported aircraft by the Authority is one example. Differences of view on this matter are long standing. Past efforts by the Authority’s predecessors to achieve workable consensus with the industry did not prove successful.

The CAA Board has therefore decided to commission a consultancy to assess the appropriateness of relevant policies and practices, having regard to costs incurred and safety levels achieved and to make recommendations for changes considered desirable. When the report of this consultancy has been confirmed by the Board it will publish the CAA’s future policy, together with reasons for any aspects that are known not to have industry support.

The CM has recently adopted the policy of promoting consistency between Australia’s air safety regulatory provisions and those of other leading aviation countries, with rigorous scrutiny of the need to retain or introduce unique Australian rules and practices. The consultant will be requested to take due account of this, which !s one of the Authority’s main corporate aims.

The authority also recognises that even when first-of-type cert1f1cat1on does not impose special requirements, the potential for delay in importation of new aircraft types may discourage operators from moving to more modern aircraft, or may place those operators who do take the risk of ordering aircraft not yet certified for use in Australia at a serious commercial disadvantage.

With this in mind, and pending outcome of the planned consultancy, the Board has endorsed the policy that as far as practicable certification will be based on design standards and requirements that are uniform with those applied to a particular aircraft type by one or more other leading aviation countries.

Australian special requirements might still be specified if considered necessary, but when the need for special requirements is questioned by an operator on the ground of cost to the industry, the matter will be reviewed at senior level within the CAA. Operators will be asked to provide details of costs in support of requests for review and will be urged to make appropriate arrangements with manufacturers for adequate documentation of costs claimed to result from CAA certification requirements.

Further discussion is to be arranged with the industry on certification requirements for SFAR-41 aircraft. The consultant will also be asked to make independent examination of this matter. It had been believed that workable consensus was achieved with the industry through meetings and the aviation regulatory proposal (ARP) process several years ago. Whether or not this was true at that time, it is apparent that fresh examination of the matter is desirable.

Other examples of how the CAA is encouraging consultation and open review are the setting up of a committee to review licensing and use of heliports and helicopter landing sites (HLS) and the establishment within the CAA of a Standards Development Division.

The committee to review heliport and HLS licensing requirements and use is drawn from the helicopter industry, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots and the CAA. The committee has been asked to make a careful assessment of overseas practices and will be visiting a number of other countries to assist it in formulating its recommendations.

The new Standards Development Division is headed by Mr Ron Cooper, who has joined the CAA from his former post as Director, Bureau of Air Safety Investigation. The Division will be engaged fulltime in the development and review of safety standards and will play a major role in implementation of recommendations of the Air Safety Regulation Review Task Force. That body’s first report (‘The Legal Framework of Air Safety Regulation”) was released in February 1989 by the Minister for Telecommunications and Aviation Support (Mr Gary Punch) and it is due to complete a second report by mid year.

Formulation and review of safety standards was formerly undertaken within the same Division as day to day administration of safety regulation. Locating these functions within a separate Division will allow more concentrated attention to be given to the major task of streamlining and simplifying Australia’s air safety rules.

As it appears that the basis on which the CAA and its predecessors approached first-of-type certification in the past may not be fully understood, short explanation may assist the planned consultancy and other proposed discussion with industry.

The CAA is responsible under the Civil Aviation Act for safety regulation of civil air operations. This includes developing and ensuring compliance with standards relating to the airworthiness of aircraft, or their ‘fitness to fly’. Australia, as a signatory to the . Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention), has the obligation to apply standards. developed within ICAO that are set out in Annex 8 to the Convention, entitled “Airworthiness of Aircraft”, or must advise the international aviation community of its intention not to comply with specified standards. A requirement of Annex 8 is that Australia establish its owri comprehensive and detailed airworthiness code, or adopt the code established by another Contracting State.

There is no single uniform airworthiness code followed by a. II other leading aviation countries that Australia could simply adopt While there is a good deal of nationality in the various airworthiness codes of other countries, there are also significant differences between individual codes. Most would agree that a uniform international airworthiness code is highly desirable, but this is not available and perhaps riot achievable.

The CM’s approach, similar to that of many other countries, is to adopt as the baseline of Australia’s airworthiness code for certification of a particular aircraft type, the relevant US Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs), British Civil Airworthiness Requirements (BCARs), or European Joint Airworthiness Requirements (JARs). National requirements, representing only a minor part of the overall code, are added to these baselines. These national requirements result from such factors as Australia’s. accident or incid_ent experience, Australian environmental factors, or particular expertise in specialist technical disciplines.

Some consider it unnecessary for Australia. to add its own national requirements to airworthiness standards laid down by bodies such as the US Federal Aviation Administration, or for the CM to undertake its own certification of an aircraft type already certificated by bodies suchas the FM or UK CM.

If these views were acted upon, the CAA would still have the statutory responsibility to conduct surveillance of maintenance and the continuing ‘fitness-to-fly’ of Australian registered aircraft. For this responsibility to be adequately fulfilled, CAA staff must have adequate and up-to-date engineering knowledge of the aircraft types over which they exercise surveillance. .

Importance of the CAA’s surveillance function will be increased _in the more dynamic and quickly changing aviation environment expected in the aftermath of deregulation next year of domestic trunk route services. Rapid technological change and the greater sophistication and complexity of today’s transport category aircraft add further to the requirement for CM staff to be adequately equipped to discharge the Authority’s responsibilities in relation to aircraft airworthiness. .

An important, but not exclusive means, by which specialist staff acquire the necessary engineering knowledge of new aircraft types being introduced into. Australian operation is by undertaking ‘first-of-type’ certification of aircraft against airworthiness design standards. This certification process also establishes whether the aircraft design meets Australia:s airworthiness code and that the aircraft has been manufactured in accordance with the design approved tjy the country of

manufacture. . . .

Should the CM cease undertaking ‘first-of-type’ certification of new air; raft types as some parties advocate, there would be little change processes now followed by CAA specialist staff or in costs. Essential engineering knowledge of an aircraft type ‘would still have to be gained. The means of doing this would not differ significantly from the present certification_ process. The CM’s direct costs would therefore be little different, but there would be no cost to industry of meeting any Australian special requirement for modification of aircraft before these were accepted for use in Australia;

‘First-of-type’ certification undertaken by the. CAA is incremental in character. It does not seek to nor could it repeat in full the certification process undertaken by the country of an aircraft type. The CM)s examination concentrates on a limited number of aspects selected for reasons such as, lack of clarity or completeness in the engineering data, and areas of substantial novelty.

Benefits accruing from this certification process are incremental, but not insignificant. In some instances; non-compliance by the manufacturer with relevant design standards has been detected. In a few cases, deficiencies in the design standards themselves have been identified; subsequently leading to modifications being adopted by the country of manufacture.

Australian certification practices are 1n line with those followed by other leading aviation countries. Independent examination of selected aspects of a new aircraft type already certificated elsewhere is the general practice of such countries. Incremental benefits accruing from each independent examination contribute to a pool of knowledge from which all interested countries can.

Obviously incremental benefits from the certification process should be reasonably commensurate. with incremental costs incurred. Accurate identification. of incremental costs of CAA certification processes has been an area of contention in the past, and something to which the consultant will be asked to give particular attention.

Implications of adopting the alternative approach, which some parties advocate, of accepting certification by the country of manufacture can be outlined only briefly. The CAA’s responsibilities in relation to airworthiness of in a changed regime would need to be clearly defined in the Civil Aviation Act and Regulations. It would be inappropriate to make the CAA and its staff accountable for the airworthiness of imported aircraft if they played no role in technical judgements on which acceptability of the aircraft for carriage of the Australian public was determined. The legislation also would need to specify whether certification by any !CAO member country would be automatically accepted by Australia, or whether this would be limited to aircraft certificated by nominated_ countries only. . .

Respective airworthiness responsibilities of the CAA and the cc,untry certificating a particular aircraft type would need to be clearly defined for both legal and practical operational reasons. For example, should the basis for maintenance and continuing airworthiness control of the aircraft be specified by the CAA or the country of certification?

Such questions were considered the Canadian context by the Commission of Inquiry on Aviation Safety conducted by Mr Justice Dubin. In his 1981 report, Justice Dubin recommended that the Federal Aviation Airworthiness Regulations and the Federal Aviation Operational Regulations of the Us should both be used as the model for a Canadian Airworthiness code, supplemented by special conditions based on Canadian experience. He was of the view that failure to adopt the US Operational Regulations as well as US airworthiness requirements would lead to complication and_ uncertainty; as the Operational Regulations contained many airworthiness standards and were

An integral part of an airworthiness code.

In a paper-delivered last year, Captain A Terrell _of Qantas raised matters that have bearing on the desirability of adopting the airworthiness and operational regulations of another country. He noted that geographic, economic and political factors influence the approach of individual countries to safety regulation, and gave an example where adoption of FAA rules would have disadvantaged Australian aviation because of our different circumstances and requirements a:t the_ time.

Consideration would need . to be given to the desirability of providing scope in revised Australian legislation for appropriate allowance to be made for the geographic, economic and political factors to which Captain Terrell pointed, and the feasibility of

doing this. . . . .

The CAA looks forward to a harmonious and constructive relationship with industry and is committed to promoting this and beneficial change to regulatory practices. Australia’s excellent air safety record has resulted from the dedicated efforts of many parties. Our safety record will be best maintained by a constructive relationship between the Authority arid those it has been established to service as well as regulate. The CM’s aim is to keep its costs to the industry as lbw as possible while maintaining and where possible improving the safety record. The CM, as a new organisation industry’s in pursuing the common aim of serving the public, Constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement in the way the Authority approaches its tasks are invited and will be acted upon wherever possible.