At 11:00 AM 4/05/2012, you wrote:
There is nothing in this statement from Mike B that contradicts what
I wrote. It is not I that misunderstands the certification process
or the politics surrounding it. I think that Mike B does too, but
objects to some of the consequences of the process and the politics.
Like more expensive aircraft which then sell in fewer numbers and an
industry that consequently isn't as large and vibrant as it should be
that continues to make obsolescent stuff because re certifying is too
expensive. Established manufacturers won't complain too much because
new entrants find it difficult to begin. Not to mention the odd bit
of corruption or ridiculous events like the then DCA requiring the
removal of the stick pusher from the first Learjets in Australia
making the aircraft less safe by the time they had finished
"certifying"it. My BD-4 was built under the old Amateur Built 101.28
rules. It was tested by a CASA/CAA/DoT test pilot (whatever they were
called then) and remained in that condition until I bought it. It was
marginally dangerous in my opinion. Once it was Experimental a couple
of minor tweaks made it far safer and actually quite civilized and 5
knots faster on less fuel burn.
A South African manufacturer elected to certify to the European
standard, to gain a type certificate issued by the South African authority.
AFAIK the European Authorities encouraged them to get SA
certification to give them some experience and ease the path to
European Certification. So they lied. Jonkers are up against another
Euro non tariff barrier.
Many people rail against "certification" for gliders and say we do
not need it. Would they likewise say that we should all be able to
go out and buy a car that had not been shown to meet the Australian
Design Rules? I doubt it, as the liability issues are far greater
with a car because of the number of "innocent bystanders" they
expose is a much bigger number.
I've driven cars overseas that don't meet Australian design rules and
it bothered me not one whit. There are older cars on our roads that
don't meet current rules either. In any case a car manufacturer has a
much larger production run over which to amortise the certification costs.
All of which has exactly nothing to do with the requirement to
certify pieces of sporting equipment. Certification of gliders is a
historical accident. If they were invented today gliders would likely
have certification similar to LSA aircraft or even none at all given
their limited appeal and relatively small numbers.
So what does certification do? It identifies that the individual
airframe conforms to a known and proven standard, giving at least a
partial guarantee that it has no known design defects and will
presumably be able to be sold to someone else in future without
leaving the seller with any residual responsibility.
I suspect you presume wrong. As Mark said "What's a partial guarantee".
(Most experimental aeroplanes in the US are never sold to a second
owner - even if perfectly serviceable they are simply abandoned when
the owner/builder retires either themself or the aircraft from flying.)
Seems there's a good trade in used Experimental aircraft though and I
have yet to hear of it having any effect on glider sales there. Don't
know if it extends to 51% but so what? Certainly there's a lot of
buying and selling going on on the BD-4 newsgroup. There's also quite
a few people willing to buy Experimental aircraft who don't or can't
build them themselves - hence the various "builder assist" programs
or you simply ask someone to build you one and buy it from him
afterwards. This did lead to a problem as the builder gets the
repairman certificate which lets him sign out the Annual Condition
Inspection. Some builders' contributions to the build were limited to
being photographed with the partially completed aircraft. This could
be fixed by a course to get the Repairman qualification - for that
aircraft only while you own it. Canada has for some time has owner
maintenance of simple light aircraft IIRC.
It also provides protection to the original buyer that the
manufacturer takes responsibility for the design and is required by
law to report any known problems and issue service bulletins to
resolve them - these form the basis for Airworthiness Directives to
legally enforce carrying out the work to fix the problem, as well
as providing a maintenance schedule to keep the aircraft in its
original (or at least within tolerances of that) for as long as possible.
Meaning it is kept in a state where it cannot take advantage of new
technology. I wouldn't trade my LightSpeed electronic ignitions for
magnetos and aircraft plugs ever. For starters fuel burn is 15%
better with the electronic ignitions, the engine runs smoother
particularly at altitude and seems to pull a little better manifold
pressure for takeoff. My sparkplugs cost $5 each. Bought an aircraft
plug lately ?
In any case anyone owning a certified German self launching glider
would know what the certification is worth as far as the motor is
concerned. Nothing.
It is a sad fact that certification costs money (especially when the
certifying authority is EASA, as a 27-nation organisation has the
overheads of large bureaucracy without any particular advantage for
small or recreational aircraft).
None , I'd say.
The advantages accrue to the large aircraft operated by airlines,
and unless they find an acceptable process for light aircraft (and
this still costs to develop a suitable standard and process) then
EASA may never be a suitable certification authority for these
aircraft. They have not yet accepted the LSA standards that cover
most glider designs quite adequately, except that they restrict the
approval of modifications to the original manufacturer rather than
to a competent engineer - even to the kind of radio fitted in some cases!
And this helps safety how?
And yet ultralights have escaped this which is why there are a number
of very nice ultralight gliders in Europe. Some Euro countries don't
have an ultralight glider category so the designers put in an engine
and called it an ultralight aircraft. UL regulation has remained with
individual countries. It was beyond the wit of the gliding bodies to
resist assimilation by EASA. Funny thing is that the ultralight
gliders are not as strong or robust as CS22 gliders. 4g limit loads
instead of 5.3g. Much lower rough air and Vne speeds.
Another problem with a certified product is that the engineer who
approves a modification has to take responsibility for that
modification, which in these times involves product liability
insurance or the risk of being sued under an imperfect legal system.
Again this raises costs.
Another good case for Experimental where the operator is responsible
for the safe operation of the aircraft.
It all depends on how much responsibility you are willing, or are
permitted by society, to assume on your own shoulders - and society
is often unnecessarily restrictive on the individual in an effort to
protect the majority against the very few who would be classed as
psychopaths, or even those who exploit the weaknesses of others to
an unreasonable extent for personal gain. The problem is defining
what is reasonable!!!
The main problem is protecting ourselves against bureaucrats and
politicians who are psychopaths. They exploit the big lie that they
are protecting people in order to gain votes and keep their jobs.
I have no problem with some design standards. Outfits like the old
NACA and RAE and others codified the operational experience of early
aircraft and developed design standards which designers could use.
This is quite reasonable and is good for the designers as they don't
have to try to figure out just how many g the limit loads ought to be
and where the corners of the V - n diagram ought to be. Any competent
engineer can then design a structure to meet this requirement. What
costs is putting the damn thing on a fatigue rig and then breaking
one. After 50+ composite glider wing designs, all of which are built
essentially in one of two ways with no fatigue found, this is stupid.
Nobody nowadays is going to build a non ultralight glider that isn't
designed to CS22 although there are things in CS22 that over design
gliders particularly for countries like Australia where cloud flying
is banned. *Proving* to a bunch of bureaucrats that it meets these
requirements is where the expense is. I'd be happy with a statement
by the factory that the glider was designed to CS 22 and after
factory testing meets those requirements except in the following ways...
Certification DOES NOT protect the manufacturer from any liability
claims. Just ask Cessna, Beech(Hawker Beechcraft is about to go into
Chapter 11 bankruptcy), Piper, Frank Robinson etc. What it does do is
prevent innovation, prevent the entry of new participants, cost heaps
of money and generally kills the industry. As the guy said in that
FlightGlobal article "we have created a monster".
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - design & manufacture of quality soaring
instrumentation since 1978
www.borgeltinstruments.com
tel: 07 4635 5784 overseas: int+61-7-4635 5784
mob: 042835 5784 : int+61-42835 5784
P O Box 4607, Toowoomba East, QLD 4350, Australia
Borgelt Instruments - design & manufacture of quality soaring
instrumentation since 1978
www.borgeltinstruments.com
tel: 07 4635 5784 overseas: int+61-7-4635 5784
mob: 042835 5784 : int+61-42835 5784
P O Box 4607, Toowoomba East, QLD 4350, Australia
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
[email protected]
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
