What has EASA actually done for us?

LeSving wrote:

Meaning, they are able to get a more advanced and better performing aircraft certified much faster than others.

Which “Others” ?
Isn’t that done in other places / other manufacturers? Like Boeing “self certifying” their 787 batteries?

Doesn’t FAA certification for airlines basically translates to EASA and vice versa? As far as I recall, neither the A350 of B787 were delayed in each others markets due to certification, and I don’t recall seeing any issues with one being slowed down by the “other” certification agency imposing extra rules.

The 787 has probably been the worst disaster ever regarding a newly introduced aircraft. Anyway, the important thing is to get new advances in technology out to customers fast. This works faster if you are in bed with the certifying authority I would assume

For instance, Airbus will have their fully certified E-Fan 2.0 ready for sale in 2017. This involves certification of a completely new and different propulsion system for which no certification procedures even exists today. How can that be, when Lycoming isn’t capable of certifying their iE2 engines, and they have been producing engines for a century, essentially identical ones.

This E-fan program by Airbus is excellent though. They go ahead and clear a path for many others to come. Airbus/EASA making up for all the bad things they have done to GA

LeSving wrote:

How can that be, when Lycoming isn’t capable of certifying their iE2 engines, and they have been producing engines for a century, essentially identical ones.

Are these certificated by the FAA and not EASA? (I don’t know and couldn’t really find out)

@Peter, I’ve discussed that particular Lycoming situation with a potential OEM customer for whom automatic engine control is required, and you are correct. If I recall correctly I was told the Lyco development was heavily supported by a consultant company, any more work would require them to be reengaged, and there is not much interest. The potential customer has been doing their own automatic aircraft engine controls for going on 30 years.

@LeSving, I think the dH Comet remains the most troubled new commercial airliner introduction to date.

EASA has made it possible for a number of people to obtain a Class 2 medical and thus a PPL by overriding some of the local (stricter) limits regarding eyesight.

That is a plus.

EASA has made it easier to renew SEP class rating after not having used it for a few years.

EASA has not made it easier to convert a foreign ICAO PPL into an EASA PPL.

EASA has introduced the en-route IR.

So, some of the gold plating has been removed, and some has been introduced. Really is doesn’t make any difference. The only difference is that you feel you have less control. Where really before EASA you didn’t have any control either. It’s just that the bureaucrats were in your own country instead of in someone elses.

And GA is dying because of a whole lot of other factors than EASA. It’s dying all around the world. At least in FAA land it is too. And in CASA land.

Sorry Peter to say this on a GA forum. Just remember that I am a full-time employed GA pilot.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2057392/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Could you elaborate a little MedFlyer?

Archie wrote:

And GA is dying because of a whole lot of other factors than EASA. It’s dying all around the world. At least in FAA land it is too. And in CASA land.

This has to be specified, because GA is NOT dying. Traditional, certified GA is dying. Or even more precise: private ownership of certified aircraft is dying. There is no gross reduction of privately owned aircraft, there is a steady increase, but there is a shift from certified GA to experimental and microlight. EASA has since 1990 (called JAA until 2002) set the standard, set the regulations for all the basic infrastructure of maintenance, maintenance organisations and airworthiness of certified GA. They have been at it for 26 years, and in those 26 years, private ownership of certified aircraft has plummeted. This has happened all over Europe, all over the world in fact.

According to GAMA, Cessna sold 143 Skyhawks las year. Piper sold a total 111 aircraft all together. The LAA members in the UK alone builds and completes about 100 aircraft each year. That number is presumably fairly constant, or at least comparable all over Europe. When scaling the UK number up by population, this means 100*508M/65M = 780, or about 800 when including Switzerland and Norway.

A rough estimate is therefore 800 NEW homebuilt aircraft each year in Europe. Maybe the LAA number is a bit inflated, but it is about right when scaling it to the Norwegian population, so it cannot be all that inflated. But homebuilts are not equally popular all over, so 800 is probably the max. The European microlight industry produces 2500 new microlights each year, and most of them goes to Europe, lets say 2000. For a fact, each year somewhere between 2500 and 3300 NEW homebuilt and microlight gets an owner.

How many new certified aircraft gets their private owner each year in Europe? According to GAMA, the shipment was 1056 piston aircraft in 2015 world wide. Again, according to GAMA, 11.3% were delivered in Europe, which means 119 new certified aircraft in Europe. Compare this to 3000 homebuilts and microlights ! A fun fact here is that each year UK homebuilders finishes the same amount of aircraft as the total of all new certified aircraft delivered in the whole of Europe. You cannot simply close your eyes to this. Even discounting all microlights as useless due to weight restrictions, and only look at experimental homebuilts, the largest manufacturer of aircraft, by far, in Europe are amateurs building homebuilt aircraft. By a factor 8:1 compared with certified aircraft. Including microlight and the number is 28:1. Every single one of microlight and homebuilt goes to a private person, private ownership.

In the US, the number of amateur built experimental is about 35k. This has doubled since 1994, or doubled in 22 years. This means on average 800 new aircraft each year the last 22 years. The increase is probably not linear, there are built much more today than 20 years ago. In numbers, it is comparable to Europe though, and the US does not have anything resembling microlights (they have LSA, but that is increasingly just a synonym for a new Cub). Anyway, lets say the total number of NEW non-certified aircraft in the US is 1500 today, not to use a too low a number. According to GAMA 62.6% of new certified piston aircraft was delivered in the US, which means 660 new certified aircraft. The factor of new non-certified to new certified in the US is only 2.3:1, and could be even less. This is a continent where experimentals can be operated exactly as if they where certified.

To sum it up for new aircraft:
Europe, non-certified vs certified: 28:1
US, non-certified vs certified: 2.3:1
Europe, homebuilt vs certified: 8:1
Europe, microlight vs certified: 17:1
Europe vs US certified: 1:5.5
Europe vs US homebuilt: about 1:2
Europe vs US all non-certified: about 2:1
EASA reg vs all other (US and Europe): 1:45 (2.2%)

The conclusions must be:
The US is a vastly better place for certified GA than Europe.
Europe is surprisingly OK place for for homebuilts vs the US, even though the “home of homebuilding” is the US
More microlights are sold in Europe than any other GA aircraft category on the entire globe.
Private new EASA registered GA aircraft is about 2.2% of all new aircraft in Europe and the US.

In the grand scheme of things, what has EASA done for us? EASA has done one thing, the have marginalized themselves out of GA, They are hardly relevant at all. That is the reality. This will increase because the influx of new non-certified vs certified is 28:1. It’s only a matter of time before certified private GA is a thing of the past. The US has the same problem, but the FAA has NOT marginalized themselves out of experimental homebuilts, or LSA for that matter, so it does not make any difference there, not for private ownership (I mean, a turbine Evolution can compete with the best of certified aircraft). Things have changed. Private ownership of GA aircraft is no longer a “certified” thing. Private ownership belongs to the non-certified world, whether we like it or not. Clubs doing PPL training will survive – for some time at least, simply because people need PPL to fly a homebuilt, but they will increasingly become schools rather than clubs. Things are changing here also though, very soon basic training will be allowed in non-certified aircraft (probably already is in the UK?) I mean, why on earth learn to fly in an ancient C-172 that cost a fortune to maintain, when a person will spend the rest of his life flying RV’s, Lancairs or Europas?

Probably most important of all is the microlight reality. The majority (70-80%) of PPL pilots have no other ambitions than to fly short trips to neighboring fields on nice Sunday afternoons. You can do that in an ancient Cessna in a club, if you can stand all the patronizing nonsense and “club requirements”, and can withstand the urge to get a nice cheap microlight that you are fully in charge over and can fly when and how much you want. This is what the 17:1 ratio is about, and it speaks for itself.