Yates Report Recommends New Certification Standards

The voluminous report that resulted from Ron Yates’ investigations, which included visits to all relevant overseas airworthiness authorities, manufacturers and a number of operators, recommends per se that Australia should dispense with its own unique standards relating to FOT certification and instead adopt the standards of the country of manufacture. This follows the revelation that there was no justifiable reason for Australia to have its own set of standards when indeed it does not even design or manufacture indigenous heavy transport aircraft. A move internationally towards a common certification standard is also seen as the logical way to go by both the European and North American regulatory authorities and one that greatly influenced the recommendation to accept the standards of the country of manufacture as an appropriate standard for Australian FOT certification.

Thus in one fell swoop, the very bane of the entire local industry would be eliminated overnight. Our in-depth report into this very problem in our January ’89 issue (p36) highlighted the depth of animosity against the CAA and its predecessors in this regard, and in turn led to the initiation by the CAA Board of the Yates Report to offer, for the first time, an independent perspective of the issue.

On this matter the report is unambiguous in its support for the practical, logical and proven benefits of accepting the FOT certification standards of the most respected of the aerospace nations. This is particularly relevant now that the thirteen major nations of western Europe have formed together to create the Joint Aviation Authorities which in turn administer the Joint Airworthiness Regulations (JAR) on behalf of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Together with North America (the FederalAviationAdministration and Transport Canada), these nations produce virtually every transport aircraft, large and small, that is likely to be operated in any numbers in this country. The Report concludes that for Australia to have its own separate and unique standards was technically, historically and financially unjustified.

More graphically, the Report stated: ”. A. fter exhaustive discussions with industry representatives in Australia, overseas and CAA personnel, the author is convinced that the present practices and procedures for airworthiness certification of imported aircraft are inappropriate and in many respects out of step with world opinion.

“Throughout this review the author could not find sufficient justification for continuing the policy of performing independent assessments of certification granted within the USA against FARs and those granted in Europe against JARs. Such audits might occasionally reveal some discrepancies against the requirements or interpretations of the regulations but the evidence available suggests the probability of severe consequences of not detecting the discrepancies is insufficient to warrant a continuation of this expensive practice. However, the CAA should continue to conduct independent validations for aircraft types originating in countries with less mature manufacturers and airworthiness authorities.

“Boeing, for instance, spent seven million engineering manhours developing the 747-400, a derivative of the basic 747 and plan to spend 15 million manhours on the 767-X model. One must question how much of 2,500 manhours of CAA effort, spread over 35 projects, could do to ‘satisfy’ the Authority of the soundness of the foreign product, Since Australia has virtually no aircraft manufacturing industry and a relatively small fleet of aircraft, virtually all of which are imported, it should not endeavour to emulate the activities of the major airworthiness authorities overseas”.

One primary reason the CAA airworthiness authorities have always given in defence of their extensive FOT analysis was that it allowed a team of specialists to be brought fully up to date on the aircraft under investigation. Whilst that is true, the Report also concedes that there are better ways for this to be achieved at considerably less expense to all concerned. Additionally, it passed the following prognosis: ”. A. review of staffing in the Authority’s Airworthiness Branch shows that four or five years after a FOT exercise, it is unlikely that the team of people that were involved will still be in the Airworthiness Branch and directly involved in the continuing airworthiness function. The importance of this function for a particular aircraft type increases with age. In the early years of operation the effort is mainly one of the operator overcoming The ‘bugs’ of new systems, new hardware and personnel training to improve reliability. The design deficiencies are more likely to surface after the five year period such as the 747 Section 41 problems which appeared 15 years after certification”.

The costs incurred by industry and operators of bringing aircraft up to the often unique CAA standards was also listed as substantial in some cases. Qantas claim that certification of the new 747-400 aircraft cost $725,000, whilst Ansett and Australian shared the certification costs on the 737-300 in 1985 and had to pay $264,228 per aircraft for CAA required mods and testing, all of which had already been done ad nauseam by Boeing and the FAA.

The Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) were also asked to review their summary reports on production and design failure occurrences and to advise whether Australian FOT procedures would have had an impact on these accidents/incidents. BASI consequently advised that: “Very few of the occurrences listed would have been prevented by FOT certification activities”. BASI was also unable to forecast what change, if any, might occur to the accident incident rate if FOT certification were to cease. They concurred that almost without exception the problems highlighted as design and manufacture-related would only be found by in-service experience. Corrective action would then be taken by either the manufacturer or relevant airworthiness authorities as has been the standard course of action for many decades.

The report emphasises the importance of maintaining, even strengthening, continuing airworthiness standards and capabilities with a greater extent of hands-on checks. Much of this can it is estimated by the CAA, be ultimately delegated out ‘to approved industry workshops. This is particularly so where standard CofA’s are required or mods approved where they already exist on a large number of already approved local aircraft. This would greatly reduce the cost of day to day airworthiness operations, free up the Airworthiness Branch for more relevant surveillance and analysis duties and reduce the time taken to get such aircraft and mods approved for the Australian register.

. The report also stated that it was impossible to specifically 1dent1fy any tangible gains In safety achieved by the CAA as a

result of its F OT policies and practices, irrespective of the cost involved in obtaining initial F OT certification. The Report reveals that the L!S FAA is required by law to perform cost/benefit analy­. Is of their proposed rule changes which are then checked by an independent government body. The FAA considers that this is a good discipline.

loser to home, the 1985 report from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure stated that the then Dept of Aviation “. . . accord a high priority to its stated aim of dispensing with or refining all operational requirements where the net safety benefit is not commensurate with the costs imposed on either the aviation community or the Department”. A Ministerial response (tabled in Parliament on December 8, 1987) to that recommendation, it was stated that: “This task is a key obJect1ve of the Department as it will be for the intended CivilAviation Authority”. The review thus strongly recommended that the CAA adopt a firm policy of requiring cost/benefit studies to be made and checked/endorsed by an external Department such as Finance, of any proposed regulatory change along the lines of that conducted by the FAA. New Zealand is soon to introduce a similar policy while the JAA is also working towards the same objective.

Another area of contention, primarily with the airline community, is that of Amendment 62 to CAO 101. 6 regarding accelerate/stop criteria.

Australia this controversial amendment in July 1979. Essentially, It factors In a 2 second reaction period at V1 prior to brake initiation in the event of a rejected takeoff. This equates roughly to 400ft in a 7 4 7 and compares with the US and internationally used reaction time of . 3 of a second. Australia additionally incorporates a line up requirement which also Serves to shorten already marginal strips and is particularly Demanding when combined with the accelerate/stop requirements.

The ICAO standards that created Amendment 62 were intended to be applied to all new aircraft designs which could be optimised whilst still in the initial design phase for the revised rules, not existing ones. This was the approach adopted by all other countries except Australia which mandatorily applied it to every aircraft.

So, was the unique Australian requirement of any relevance to enhanced real time safety standards? The Report reveals that studies by the Aircraft Industries Association of America show that the increase in required runway length would not have affected any of the 77 refused takeoff accidents of worldwide commercial jet transports that occurred during the period 1959-88.

The Report reveals that our airlines are disadvantaged by having to comply with this unique (and totally unjustified in safety terms) requirement in two ways. The first was in the supply of unique performance data which, as a one-off expense, proved very expensive as Australia was the only country in the world which required this data. The second and more important cost laid in the ongoing performance penalty suffered by the aircraft. Such penalties also impose a competitive disadvantage for the operator when foreign registered aircraft of the same type operate on parallel routes.

As a typical example, Ansett cited the experience with their 737-200 when it was substituted in Polynesian Airlines service for a New Zealand registered 737-200 operating to US FARs. The performance penalty was 1940kgs or the equivalent of 20 passengers for the Australian registered aircraft yet both 737s were identical technically.

Ansett also cited significant restrictions at the time on 737 operations from Coolangatta, Proserpine, Rockhampton, Mackay and Launceston while their F28 operations out of Karratha, Broome and Port Hadland were similarly disadvantaged for no realistic increase in safety.

In fact, safety in real terms was actually disadvantaged in the West Australian operation as frequently, on a hot day, the scheduled non stop Karratha/Perth F28 would have to refuel en route due to the initial lower allowable fuel uplift. Considering that the vast majority of accidents occur in the approach, landing or takeoff phase of flight then this rule actively degraded overall statistical safety levels on the service whilst incurring for the operator a significant and totally unnecessary cost burden.

Australian Airlines commented that Amendment 62 served to reduce the payload of their 737-300s by approximately one tonne (worth an estimated $5,000 in potential revenue generation) or more importantly causes a reduction in the level of thrust derate used. This then translates into increased maintenance costs, wear and tear on the engine and a possible long-term reduction in safety due to increased engine wear, etc.

It is Qantas though which pays the piper on Amendment 62. It was assessed that Qantas pays over $1m annually for the privilege of operating to these unique standards. Prior to recent runway improvements, the carrier was significantly payload-limited out of Brisbane, Cairns and Perth in addition to Bombay and Harare.

The Report recommends that Amendment 62 should only be applied to those aircraft which have been certificated accordingly in their country of origin.

The other very highly contentious area, and the catalyst for AA’s initial article and the subsequent review, is the question of SFAR41 aircraft.

Indeed, getting the Beech 1900 commuter airliner onto the Australian register in 1989 was probably one of the greatest headaches that local Beech agents, Hawker Pacific, have ever had. This was not because there was anything wrong with the aircraft, but rather that it had the misfortune to weigh in at slightly more than 5,700kgs and thus to the CAA it had to be equipped to the standards of a 747 rather than a slightly larger and extensively improved King Air.

Hawker Pacific, the Report reveals, spent $1. 28m satisfying the CAA and funding ongoing holding charges on a 1900 that should have become operational with its prospective owner more than half a year before it finally was to enter revenue service. Furthermore, the Report goes on to state that: “None of the Australian required modifications for the 1900/1900C are contemplated for incorporation into production US 1900/1900C aircraft”. Hawker’s themselves were so discouraged (and mentally drained) by their treatment at the hands of the CAA’s Airworthiness Branch that they generally decided that it simply would not be worth the bother trying to get that all-composite Starship onto the local register while such a ‘head in the sand’ attitude prevailed. Thus Australia, once more, would be destined to operate older, less sophisticated and potentially less safe aircraft due to the very intransigence of the airworthiness authorities who profess so earnestly to be primarily motivated by matters of safety enhancement.

The Report concludes on SFAR41 “. . . In the light of the wealth of experience accumulated throughout the world in operating these aircraft, over 15,000,000 flight hours, it is difficult to justify Australia’s special requirements for SFAR41 aircraft. Considering the aircraft types currently carrying over 1,250,000 passengers on commuter type operations throughout Australia [each year], it must be concluded that adoption of SFAR41 standards without special Australian airworthiness requirements would not lower, but rather enhance, the safety of such operations”. The recommendation is thus that Australia should accept aircraft certificated in accordance with SFAR41C without modification. What a fantastic victory for sanity in the face of years of unjustified intransigence by nothing less than a battalion of concrete minded bureaucrats!

The issue of SFAR41 is one area that this magazine has argued about at great length with the relevant authorities for many years. All we have ever asked is for them to substantiate their obstructionist attitude towards this entire class of aircraft whose sole technical failing was that they exceeded the nineteen forties proclaimed weight limit of 5, 700kgs. Just as we, and everyone else in the industry long suspected, they have no technical or historic justification for their actions which have for many years denied millions of Australian travellers a higher standard of commuter airliner than they have in most cases been able to fly on.

Among other things, the Report recommends:

• Australia accepts JAA and FAA design standards.

• All unique national requirements should be eliminated unless they are on exceptional, compelling and publicly justifiable grounds C ost/benefit studies be required and endorsed by the Dept of Finance for all proposed airworthiness regulatory requirements. Where industry is in general accord, such studies are not needed.

• No independent assessment of certification be performed if the aircraft has already been certified by JAA or FAA or any other reputable authority. In such casesAustralia would virtually ‘rubber stamp’ their certification.

• No special flight tests by CAA test pilots if an aircraft has already been certificated by FAA or JAA.

• Amendment 62, revised accelerate/stop standards should only be applied to those aircraft which have been certificated accordingly in their country of origin.

• Acceptance of SFAR41C certificated aircraft without modification. The CAA should no longer perform independent assessments of Supplemental Type Certificates (STC).

• Adoption of a policy of independent familiarisation visits of specialists to manufacturers and airworthiness authorities.

• Development of an industry exchange program forAirworthiness Branch staff to gain practical experience and, in return, for industry personnel to gain experience of the regulatory system.

• Further delegation to Australian industry, when competence has been established, of continuing airworthiness functions such as Airworthiness Directives (ADs), Alert Service Inspections, etc.

• Temporary C ofAs to be issued when unreasonable delays are anticipated in the finalisation of a certification.

The Yates Report was distributed widely to industry groups and interested parties through early March. Industry had till March23 to respond prior to the report being consideredby the CAA Board. A full declaration of intent from the CAA shouldthus be finalised during the course of this issue.

Who would have thought a year ago, in their wildest dreams, that the CAA or its predecessors could have been able to offer to Australia’s aviation industry (and through it the travelling public) such a positive, forward-thinking, logical and technically relevant document. That they have is a credit to the hard work of the growingband of lateral thinkers within the CAA who deserve the industry’s whole hearted support that this document demands. The Yates Report states explicitly what virtually all of us have been publicly espousing for years and may well go down in history as the single greatest leap forward for civil aviation in this country