Mooney_Driver wrote:
We do urgently need new affordable airframes with contemporary engines and avioncis at prices that a normal mid level household can afford.
Peter wrote:
Nothing hinders the certification of new airplanes.
That is not how it looks. At the very least, under current certification rules, certification is a process which has terminated most projects which were aspiring to get certification simply because it took too long, was way too expensive and drained the companies of money and ressources to the point where they either went bankcrupt or gave up the projects. Those who did succeed in certifying their products will of course put the whole certification cost on top of the price of their airplanes which exactly is the reason a new contemporary SEP costs up to 1 Million, which is totally ridiculous and way overpriced.
The same goes for avionics and engines. In today’s day and age, if market leading companies like Avidyne or King need 10 years to certify a bit of avionic which subsequently is obsolete by the time it has managed to be certified compared to it’s non-certified opposites, then the system is broken.
Certification cost in the US has also driven almost the whole industry to be Chinese owned now, as the original companies who made new airplanes all went bancrupt doing it. Both the Columbia and Cirrus certifications ruined the companies which did them so they had to be sold. At the same time, almost all the other newer airplanes are “experimentals” to avoid the same fate. That is NOT what government oversight and certification should be about.
That is why we are still flying 50 year old airframes with avionic kits which are obsolete technically and engines which no car manufacturer has seen installed in 30 years.
Your example is exactly that: If a component’s certification cost is such that it makes the component cost € 1000 rather than the € 300 it actually costs, the system is broken.
Transferred to airplanes and avionics, your example would suggest that airplanes are at least double as expensive as they would be if there was a reasonable certification process available, avionics should be the price of non-certified plus maybe 20%, not 300-500% of today.
If the new rulemaking proposes that certification cost will come down by 30%, even more importantly it should bring certification timeframes down to something a normal company can survive.
In the long run, I do hope that it will eventually make the avoidance of legal framework for most “non-certified” airplanes, avionics and engines obsolete and make it attactive again to certify airplanes for general use, leaving the experimental sector for the real home builders and similar projects.
We do urgently need new affordable airframes with contemporary engines and avioncis at prices that a normal mid level household can afford. This will probably mean that we will need a lot more simplification before this can happen, but the latest effort looks like a step in the right direction.
What is the real bottom line here?
An aircraft either meets defined handling characteristics (e.g. has enough elevator and rudder authority at Vs, etc) or it doesn’t.
And any company which has the resources to bring an aircraft design to production and to the market will know how to do all this.
Where procedures can be streamlined is in the component certification path. For example why can’t I buy an off the shelf hydraulic pump for €300 rather than pay €1000 for exactly the same pump with an EASA-1 form? Right away you can see who will try to block any relaxation of this one – who is making the €700? 
What I am getting at is whether this will make any difference in practice – beyind the installation of some “currently grey area” items.
I just don’t anything which will impact
the revision of part 23 is designed to break the deadlock of many decades which has hindered certification of new airplanes and kept an aging fleet alive rather than encourage development and growth of new techlology
Nothing hinders the certification of new airplanes.
It is not only an FAA thing, they do much talking for harmonizing with EASA. Here is the European NPA: https://www.easa.europa.eu/document-library/notices-of-proposed-amendment/npa-2016-05
Dealing with the objectives rather than hard specifications might be more or less work for the design organisation, depending on their level of understanding and streamlining the processes. I think we will see a lot getting certified using the old CS-23 and CS-VLA serving as an AMC.
AOPA article on the revision of part 23 concerning small aircraft certification.
According to the acticle, the revision of part 23 is designed to break the deadlock of many decades which has hindered certification of new airplanes and kept an aging fleet alive rather than encourage development and growth of new techlology. It should make certification a lot less expensive and achievable. Time will tell whether that is so.
According to the last US AOPA mag, this Part 23 reform still won’t allow non TSO avionics to be retrofitted.
I guess the route will remain open whereby the airframe manufacturer can certify something under their TC – as e.g. happened recently e.g. here and with more here
But very few manufacturers are taking this route, for some reason.
I haven’t read those NPAs, but is there a chance that they’ll appear in the Official Journal just as quickly as NPA 2014-29?
I think EASA should take that one on the chin! FCL.002, whose output went into NPA 2014-29, actually started in 2011. In September we will have been waiting 5 years.
The Part-23/CS-23 reorganisation is necessarily a globally coordinated process. It actually has a very clearly laid out timeline. 
One of the problems is actually the procedural aspect of NPRM in the FAA, which means that the FAA stops communicating with outside parties while the rules are being developed.
Jacko wrote:
Is retro-fitting an AoA indicator just a logbook entry for EASA aircraft? And FLARM too?
No, the are standard changes conform CS-STAN. You will still have to do some paperwork, showing that it can be installed safely and you meet all limitations / criteria. This paperwork is often overlooked. It doesn’t require further approval. The release for these AOA and FLARM are for engineers only, e.g. they don’t fall under pilot – owner tasks.
Sorry, I didn’t realise. Is retro-fitting an AoA indicator just a logbook entry for EASA aircraft? And FLARM too?
I haven’t read those NPAs, but is there a chance that they’ll appear in the Official Journal just as quickly as NPA 2014-29?
If they do make it as far as the OJ before poor old Jacko falls off his perch, he’ll set about eating his Bushwheels – which, incidentally, can’t readily be installed on an EASA-registered Maule – much too dangerous, I suppose.
Thankfully the mid-Atlantic aeronautical regulation diode continues to function properly
