Malibuflyer wrote:
Don’t understand your point!
Isn’t your “prove in flight test” exactly what we call “certification”?
Certification goes way beyond this.
In basic terms you could approve any installation by conducting a flight test and seeing if it does what it’s supposed to do for private ops plus run a simple avionic check (externally) on the conventional avionics. As long as this works out within proper tolerances in flight path and indication, you may use it for IFR.
Certification means each box has to pass the whole government procedure of several years plus needs to be fixed panel mounted plus plus plus.
Eg, any sort of PFD which can display all necessary data combined with a 8.33 com/nav/gs receiver and a say GPS696 or similar which has data connections to feed an AP and the PFD would be legal to use if it can be proven in a flight and ground test that the equipment delivers the required performance. Keeping within approach tolerances e.t.c. is the Pilots problem anyway, all the equipment has to do is to assure he gets the relevant information.
Looking at a normal installation which requires tons of paperwork and expensive certified boxes which sometimes can’t even do what the uncertified stuff does, for private ops this may well be a way to go. Possibly even further, if you abolish the need for STC’s e.t.c. in favour of a simple functionality check also for other things.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In basic terms you could approve any installation by conducting a flight test and seeing if it does what it’s supposed to do for private ops plus run a simple avionic check (externally) on the conventional avionics. As long as this works out within proper tolerances in flight path and indication, you may use it for IFR.
Sorry but that doesn’t work: Just that a box seems to indicate not complete nonsense on one flight in one situation doesn’t tell you anything! You can’t “prove” anything with this (beyond that it worked in this specific flight). Yes, certification is also a lot of paperwork – but the car cost driver of certification is not any kind of “government procedure” but simply the fact that you need to test the equipment in many different uses in many different situations. How can you “prove” after one test flight, that the equipment delivers the relevant information w/o errors?
We have seen radios that cause massive interruptions in the whole spectrum – but just when tuned to one specific frequency. AIs that start to tilt in level flight over time – but only after 5-10 minutes in continuous descent, etc. How would you “prove” that none of this happens by a simple test flight?
And why is private ops so different from non private ops? Are the people you hit on the ground because you crash 3 miles short of the runway less dead if the ops have been private?
@Malibuflyer wrote
“We have seen radios that cause massive interruptions in the whole spectrum – but just when tuned to one specific frequency. AIs that start to tilt in level flight over time – but only after 5-10 minutes in continuous descent, etc. How would you “prove” that none of this happens by a simple test flight?”
Yes we have seen all these things in expensive TSO’d certified avionics with ecpensive STC’s to be used in certified aircraft. It might be that the uncertified equipment, with much less regulatory oversight and tested by the owner on the type of mission s/he wishes to undertake would have a better track record than much of the certified equipment in IFR use today.
“And why is private ops so different from non private ops? Are the people you hit on the ground because you crash 3 miles short of the runway less dead if the ops have been private?”
A Jodel 1050 or a MCR 01 is likely going to do far less damage to people on the ground than your PA46 if it crashes. In fact the whole “raison d’ être” behind the ULM maximum weight restrictions in France is based on an algebraic calculation of the risk of killing someone on the ground if you were to crash on them.
I’m all with Malibuflyer here. The fact that sometimes approved systems also misbehave (can you say MCAS on the B737 MAX) is no reason to abolish certification altogether.
Where I do think that things have gone out of hand is with installation certifications. It is much simpler to show that a particular installation is safe than to show that the boxes themselves are.
The fact that sometimes approved systems also misbehave (can you say MCAS on the B737 MAX) is no reason to abolish certification altogether.
This is completely different, and has little to do with certification. MCAS is not a standard component or system, like for instance an altimeter or some avionics that must adhere to some production, performance and design standard. There is no standard for the MCAS itself to be certified after for a third party, as I understand it. It’s the final behaviour of the aircraft that must behave according to a standard.
The MCAS problem is more this kind of problem IMO, only the experts at Boeing obviously also lacked expert knowledge.
