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FAA STC on EASA aircraft

Peter wrote:

mh, if you really have to post just a zero-content one-liner, could you please keep it at least non-rude?

To be succinct: EASA itself is pragmatic and works towards mutual acceptance of STC and TC. FAA is blocking real life-works though and progress in mutual acceptance of certificates. These Anti-EASA notions
a) don’t represent nor value the work of all GA people within EASA
b) don’t reflect truth
c) usually is uninformed, more often self-chosen than not
d) doesn’t help in any way to achieve better legislation

Perhaps @A_and_C would like to contribute instead of mock?

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

From my perspective it looks like EASA is a self-serving bureaucracy interested only in bunker mentality and protecting their jobs at the expense of the people who pay their salaries through their taxes. For example

  • Dynon slide in EFIS D10 A ( and D100) has an STC in the States.
  • You can get slide in “glass” from Aspen for $ 4,999 with an STC
  • The US also have weather and ADSB out for collision avoidance

Why not just accept any STC which has the potential to save life? – I forgot, there would be nobody to pay the fees. So just like some sort of former Soviet country we are forced to use out of date technology and continue to risk our lives with unreliable Vacuum systems.

Thanks EASA, I’m sure you are really busy having lots of important meetings where you talk about safety.

United Kingdom

A lot of OWT flying around regarding the STC business …

  • A FAA STC holder may apply for an EASA STC, which is not very complicated if the FAA STC was done under current FAA regulations. Most FAA STC holder don’t care about the comparably little GA market outside the US though. The FAA is not always easy to handle, so they decide not to get involved with another one of that kind ;-).
  • A FAA STC not certified under current regulations, but using grandfathering in the US, does have a ton of additional paper to produce to get a standalone EASA STC and to get involved with the different way to work and another kind of clerk business and to do a load of tests and has to spend a vast amount of money – again for the little market here = they don’t do that.
  • FAA STCs can be validated for a single aircraft, if the holder is unwilling or unable to apply for an EASA STC. For some STCs and aircraft the EASA validation is a tricky business, but it indeed gives the opportunity to use orphaned STCs. There are consultants specialized in that area, me being one, so, sorry, I won’t tell all my business secrets here.
Last Edited by at 09 Jun 09:05

A very interesting post @dejwu and I hope you get some business from it We encourage participation by people who work in the business, provided it is informative.

Actually the single-airframe FAA STC validation came up before, here. It doesn’t appear to be a very commonly done thing.

Yes it has been well known that most US companies are not interested in the European market, so the process whereby the US company’s (the STC holder’s) participation is required, cripples the process. An individual aircraft owner might be more motivated… One case recently discussed here was an Aspen STC for the Robin, where there was ambiguity as to whether Aspen were sponsoring it, or not, or were, or were not…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Archer-181 wrote:

From my perspective it looks like EASA is a self-serving bureaucracy interested only in bunker mentality and protecting their jobs at the expense of the people who pay their salaries through their taxes.

EASAs GA team has done a lot, and it got much easier than it has been with national regulators for the vast majority of European aviators and appliances (e.g. IR flying, night VFR, opening airspaces, aligning Flight-Crew, Maintenance and certification standards, aligning Rules of the air and OPS rules, etc.

Archer-181 wrote:

Dynon slide in EFIS D10 A ( and D100) has an STC in the States.

So Dynon doesn’t care for the European retrofit market at this moment. Or, they are waiting for EASAs current rulemaking process (CM-AS-01) where EASA intends to grant the installation of non-certified EFIS systems (with a wider scope than FAAs NORSEE regulation), or maybe they have filed an input for the next CS-STAN update. You could make such an input, too. (Just follow the Rulemaking Proposal – but that’d require more work than ranting anonymously in an online-forum.)

Archer-181 wrote:

You can get slide in “glass” from Aspen for $ 4,999 with an STC

Yeah … Aspen has EASA STCs, too. Garmin, too, with the G5. In fact, a friend just installed a G5 into his Archer II. It’s a very neat device.

Archer-181 wrote:

The US also have weather and ADSB out for collision avoidance

You can install ADS-B in/out with CS-STAN, so the certification is as easy as getting Form 123 and have it signed by your Part-66 CFS. EASA has no jurisdiction about UAT, frequency use, the hole dilemma is in fact a national one, because no nation wants to have these frequencies mandated across Europe. These nationalistic sensitivities are, in fact, responsible for Mode-S Mandates, 833 kHz, etc.

Archer-181 wrote:

Why not just accept any STC which has the potential to save life? –

Yes, why wouldn’t the FAA just accept EASA STCs? EASA has easy processes at hand, like dejwu explained. Counter-Question: Why are the NAAs blocking sensible regulations? Why is the UK mandating silly prop overhauls? Why is the LBA mandating silly Cessna SIDs? Or Background checks? Or the registration of non-german built homebuilts? Why do UK airports mandate silly high-vis-vests? Why are national airspace sheriffs blocking sensible European sector and frequency allocations? Why does the DGAC block new PPL pilots

Archer-181 wrote:

I forgot, there would be nobody to pay the fees.

EASA isn’t about making a revenue. Noone at EASA with whom I have worked, would remotely think in this direction and you are doing these guys wrong.

Archer-181 wrote:

So just like some sort of former Soviet country

I suggest you should read the gulag archipelago, before continuing comparing the EU and it’s agencies to the Sovjet Union. I mean… honestly?

Archer-181 wrote:

Thanks EASA, I’m sure you are really busy having lots of important meetings where you talk about safety.

Perhaps you would start to inform yourself, instead of blaming EASA for things
a) EASA hasn’t done
b) EASA isn’t doing
c) EASA has nothing to say about
d) are untrue.

I know, the UK is currently seeking for all reasons to justify brexit, but frankly, you are writing uninformed nonsense.

I am very sorry to sound that harsh, but these rants don’t help at all, on the contrary. Yes, there are enough issues within EASA, but the good guys need our support for lighter regulation, not some polemic bar room level talk. Because by deluding the discussion with nonsense, the really sensible items get predominated and in the end improvement is more work than necessary. If you want to have something changed, EASA is more than willing to listen. But it needs to be substantiated and not ranted into some forum.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

Dear @Peter, EASA single validation is not used much, because, although the process itself is not over complicated, the preconditions and preparedness of the GA aircraft files are usually not set appropriately.

Just to state this explicitly – EASA has done a great job for GA over the last years!

In contrast to FAA, EASA faces a multitude of NAAs fighting hard for their sinecure. If we could overcome a structure of tribal stem duchies and put EASA in charge for all of European Airspace we may even see a revival of GA ;-). But this would require to set up the state of Europe. Do we want that?

Last Edited by at 09 Jun 10:26

Sorry, I disagree with part of that.

EASA has over-burdened sub 5.7-tonne aircraft with airline-level regulations, and is maybe halfway through reversing that, and even then only for sub-2-tonne aircraft.

Where I agree is that for countries that had this sort of regulation in the past – and where in some instances the NAAs are still fighting, as you say – this may seem like progress. For all others, it is not.

Biggin Hill

A lot of the progress is like if you are faced with a crocodile biting off a leg, or a crocodile biting off just your balls (apologies to the lady readers here ) then the latter is definitely progress.

A historical comment, but IMHO not inaccurate when the usual historical comment is made that EASA has improved things.

What has EASA done for us

The UK CAA validated many FAA STCs into UK CAA versions – see the AAN database. For example they got so many mod requests for the EDM700 that they said “bugger this – let’s do a blanket approval”. When EASA took over certification in 2003, they grandfathered all properly documented and local-CAA approved mods into EASA-wide mods at that point, but they also killed fresh approvals via the AAN route. And there isn’t a Euro-wide database where you could find all this stuff, anyway…

Also worth noting that on a registry transfer N to (say) G, the sometimes grumpy local CAA inspector EASA accepts FAA-approved mods done via the Field Approval route, as well as FAA STC / DER8110 etc. But that is a different route, which works due to the Export CofA being done by a US DAR, and the entire airframe is being accepted. Also I think FAA Minor mods are going to be a grey area – even if the DAR lets them through. More here.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

mh wrote:

I am very sorry to sound that harsh, but these rants don’t help at all, on the contrary. Yes, there are enough issues within EASA, but the good guys need our support for lighter regulation, not some polemic bar room level talk. Because by deluding the discussion with nonsense, the really sensible items get predominated and in the end improvement is more work than necessary. If you want to have something changed, EASA is more than willing to listen. But it needs to be substantiated and not ranted into some forum.

You are missing the point. EASA is, always has, and always will be compared with the alternatives. Today these alternatives are:

  • Microlights/UL (quasi pan European)
  • “Regular planes” in Annex II (quasi world wide)
  • Experimental homebuilt planes (quasi world wide)
  • Foreign regs, predominately FAA reg. (fully ICAO)
  • Local national regs, non-EASA (no longer an option)

EASA listens, EASA will do some changes – in the future, EASA this and that ? It means nothing as long as the only thing EASA compare itself with is itself. EASA is not alone. There are altogether 5 different “regimes”. Any slightly informed pilot wonders: hmmm – how will I get most bang for the buck? EASA always ends up at the bottom, no matter what. EASA is chosen for one of two reasons:

  • Ignorance
  • No other viable option for a particular kind of flying/aircraft.

EASA is at the core nothing but a tool for Airbus. It was made out of necessity to make Airbus and related industries profitable ventures. Light GA simply came along, and with devastating consequences. EASA is trying to fix that now, but as I see it, they mostly get caught up in their own web making new layers of regulations, a multitude of derogations and micromanagement increasing complexity. Just look at CS-LSA. A class of aircraft competing head to head with another class that EASA created for the sole purpose of not having to deal with all the “nuisances” of light private GA; Annex II. With microlights now getting 600 kg MTOW, also an EASA/EU construct (but operated outside EASA), this shows how ridiculous the whole thing has become.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

mh I am the first to admit that I don’t understand the system. I clicked on the EASA link about accepting an FAA STC and my eyes glazed over. This is written by people who have gone “native” for others in the system not the typical owner of a GA aircraft.

I am not suggesting complete deregulation but the present system means that small innovative manufacturers from the US are “locked out” of the EASA system. It is not a question of not being bothered about selling in the EU, they simply don’t understand the system. Also you raise valid concerns about the FAA not accepting EASA STC’s and silly yellow jackets – yes I totally agree with you.

So what should EASA being doing? – Accept all EAA/ FAA STC’s (STC but non TSO’d) avionics into EASA land for GA, EASA specifically favours the larger suppliers like Garmin who understand and have the resources to cope with the system. The result is definitely restricted consumer choice and safety.

United Kingdom
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