40 FlightCom Magazine
Words: rennie van Zyl
General Aviation:
QUO VADIS
“ONCE an airplane rolls off the assembly
line, current FAA certication rules have
made it really hard and expensive to install
new equipment that would enhance safety.
Hopefully, that’s all about to change,” said
George Perry, Senior Vice President of the
AOPA Air Safety Institute.
Installing non-certied equipment in
certied aircraft will bring a new lease
of life to a large segment of the general
aviation eet – aircraft which are perfectly
serviceable but constrained by regulation
to be expensively maintained to equipment
standards that are no longer practical.
South Africa has the largest number,
in Africa, of civil aircraft on its register,
estimated to be around 12,000, with
reference to past SACAA Annual Reports.
However, the register is not unique in terms
of aircraft types.
The majority of African states seem
to have between 6 and 50 aircraft on their
registers, and the experience that their
Civil Aviation Authorities (CAAs) have,
is largely related to certied aircraft used
by airlines. There are virtually no general
aviation activities.
In South Africa, the situation is very
different. It is estimated that of the 5,000
aircraft that have been issued with a South
African Certicate of Airworthiness
(CoA), only about 2,000 operate in the
scheduled and non-scheduled commercial
environment, in other words, carry
passengers for reward. The reduction of risk
to these passengers is essential.
That leaves about 3,000 certied
aircraft to be used for aerial work, training
and private, non-commercial, use.
The remaining 7,000 non-type certied
aircraft are mainly used for sport and
recreational purposes.
Commercial airliners go through
an extensive certification process
to remove as much risk as
possible to the passengers, as
passengers expect zero risk.
There are exciting developments in the United States to approve the
installation of non-certified equipment in certified general aviation aircraft in
the interest of safety. South Africa should follow suit and also consider some
changes to policy. Consultant to AOPA-SA, Rennie van Zyl, explores this.
Airbus
AOPA Update
FlightCom Magazine 41
We can therefore distinguish between
three levels of what is an acceptable level of
safety (ALoS) to those participating in the
different modes or categories of activities,
as described above.
INTERNATIONAL SAFETY
STANDARDS
The Convention on International
Civil Aviation (The Chicago Convention)
was developed to coordinate the global
transportation of passengers in a safe and
controlled manner. In this the Convention is
a success. More than 3.4 billion passengers
have been transported by about 900 airlines
around the world using about 23,000 airline
aircraft. This is expected to grow to 6.4
billion passengers and 40,000 aircraft by
2030.
For these paying passengers, their
expectation is that the risks associated with
their transport by air be reduced to a level
as low as reasonably practical. In short,
the paying passenger does not expect to be
exposed to any risk. Hence the design of
such aircraft has to be proven to meet all
the airworthiness requirements called for
by the Convention. Typically, such a design
and certication process can take up to 10
years before the aircraft enters service.
Once that aircraft enters service, it
has to be kept in a serviceable condition,
in other words, be maintained to ensure a
serviceability at the same level as when it
left the factory. Overall the airline industry
is well-run, well-regulated, and subjected to
constant oversight with a safe but not perfect
record. The Standards and Recommended
Practices (SARPS) contained in Annex 6 –
Operation of Aircraft, Part I International
Commercial Air Transport – Aeroplanes;
and Annex 8 – Airworthiness of Aircraft,
are also subject to constant review and
upgrading.
In the South African context up to 80%
of the SACAA budget is generated by means
of passenger user fees. It is therefore rational
that these commercial operations should
get the most attention from the SACAA
airworthiness staff. There is no argument
or misunderstanding about the importance
of managing the risks of these commercial
operations to ensure an ALoS and protect
the fare-paying passenger. However, that
shouldn’t mean that general aviation is not
also relevant.
General aviation (GA) is all civil
aviation operations other than scheduled
air services and non-scheduled air transport
operations for remuneration or hire. General
aviation ights range from gliders and
powered parachutes to corporate business
jet ights. The majority of the world’s air
trafc falls into this category, and most of
the world’s airports serve general aviation
exclusively.
These types of activities are addressed
by ICAO in Annex 6 – Operation of Aircraft,
Part II International General Aviation –
Aeroplanes. An important aspect is in the
foreword to Annex 6 Part II which says,
“The State does not have an equivalent ‘duty
of care’ to protect the occupants as it does
for fare-paying customers in commercial
operations.”
The above is not always well-
understood by the various CAAs. It implies
that participants in GA are willing to accept
higher levels of risk.
For those type certied general
aviation aircraft with a CoA issued, the
same process of continued airworthiness
is required, albeit at a reduced level. For
example, it is normally based on a generic
periodic inspection. In SA this is known as
a mandatory periodic inspection (MPI) to
be carried out annually or every 100 hours
ying time.
WHERE SOUTH AFRICA
DIFFERS FROM THE MAJOR
PL AYERS
To complicate matters, the SACAA
has introduced a different category of
general aviation aircraft which has shown
a signicant increase in popularity, namely
non-type certied aircraft (NTCA). This
includes micro-lights, gliders, home-built,
kit-built and ex-military aircraft and can
also be production aircraft built in a factory.
These aircraft are not required to go
through the rigorous process of certication:
proving compliance with the standards
for the issuance of a type certicate. This
enables lower manufacturing costs and thus
a lower selling price of NTCAs – a major
reason for the signicant increase in the
popularity.
The higher risk associated with
ying in such an aircraft is apparently
quite acceptable to the owners, pilots and
passengers. Therefore, the same duty of
care by the CAA is not required by such
participants.
Participants are only informed of the
increased risk by a placard displayed in the
cockpit implying that there is a greater risk.
Still passengers might not be aware of the
risk, particularly since the term ‘Production-
built Aircraft’ is ambiguous to a lay person.
It is recommended that more information be
available to the public/passengers and what
those risks are.
To summarise thus far, any continuous
airworthiness policy needs to address these
three different levels of risk due to the
different levels of what is an acceptable risk
to the participants:
For commercial scheduled and non-
scheduled operations the risk to the fare-
paying passenger should be reduced to a
level as low as reasonably practical.
For type certicated aircraft used in
general aviation, the duty-of-care of the
RIGHT: Pilots flying NTCA kitbuilds are
willing to accept a higher level of risk.
Regulations should take this into account.
42 FlightCom Magazine
regulator (SACAA) need not be at the same
high level. This provides for less stringent
continuous airworthiness requirements to
be enforced than for commercial operations.
The introduction of NTCAs implies
a further reduction in continuous
airworthiness requirements, which again is
an acceptable risk to the participants.
BENCHMARKING AGAINST THE
MAJOR ADMINISTRATIONS
Considering benchmarking, there are
two leading airworthiness agencies in
the world, namely the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) of the USA and the
European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
The FAA is probably the oldest
remaining civil aviation authority that still
has extensive experience in the certication
of aircraft. EASA is the new kid on the
block, having been developed from the Joint
Aviation Agency JAA of the EU in the early
2000s. All JAA requirements had to be re-
written under the EASA letterhead, creating
the misleading perception with many CAAs
that their requirements are the latest and
greatest. This creates a serious aw in that,
with the congested airspace over Europe and
its many States, there is little room for GA.
Hence the standards of EASA are based on
commercial considerations rather than the
lower duty-of-care GA responsibilities.
The FAA has a different approach. They
believe that because they have been in the
business for many years they do not need
signicant rewriting of their requirements –
they know what they are doing. The USA of
course has the biggest GA eet in the world,
probably in the order of 180,000 aircraft,
and therefore can claim to have extensive
experience in dealing with GA.
NORSEE
The FAA does, however, continuously
review its policies in partnership with
AOPA-USA. This has resulted in comments
released by AOPA-USA, such as, “AOPA
is endorsing a draft FAA policy that would
make it easier to install non-required
safety enhancing equipment (NORSEE)
in existing general aviation aircraft,” said
AOPA’s George Perry.
Most NORSEE categories fall under
the avionics and electronic instrument
categories. However, it also includes
equipment such as energy-absorbing seats,
belts, re systems and autopilots. The
association noted that making it easier to
install safety equipment is a reasonable
expansion of existing FAA policy and
can help reduce loss of control accidents,
which account for 40 percent of fatal GA
accidents.
The draft policy is aimed at
standardising the approval process for
installing NORSEE-based equipment on
the premise that it offers safety benets that
outweigh the potential risks.
NORSEE equipment installations that
require major changes to type design would
still need a supplemental type certicate or
other traditional form of certication.
CURRENT SOUTH AFRICAN
REQUIREMENTS
For many years the South African
general aviation eet has been subjected to
some absurd requirements, such as the re-
certication of equipment installations done
many years previously under a different set
of requirements.
One of the major conicts is around what
constitutes a major or minor modication.
This has in many cases resulted in aircraft
being prevented from ight, sometimes
for more than a year. This issue was again
raised at a recent aviation safety meeting
with the SACAA ofcers. The SACAA
was urged to embark on a full review
and the development of a comprehensive
airworthiness policy, taking into account
the difference of what is an ALoS for the
categories as described above.
The response appeared to be a head in
the sand approach. The argument given is
that an aviation policy is being developed
which will dene such policies.
Regretfully the government’s White
Paper on National Civil Aviation Policy
provides very little leadership and guidance
for general aviation and does not even
contain the ICAO denition for general
aviation operation. The only reference that
addresses GA, albeit in an indirect way, is
in Chapter 10, Titled ‘Non-Commercial
Aviation’, which does not take the status quo
any further. Considering that in Chapter 9
of the policy paper, ‘Commercial Aviation’,
where a total of 28 policy statements
have been developed, it is clear that the
government does not consider GA to have a
signicant role to play.
The White Paper therefore gives no
clear indication of how safety (management
of risk) should be handled, considering the
different ALoS between commercial and
non-commercial activities.
Clearly to ensure unbiased regulation
of aviation safety it is necessary to develop
and implement a clear policy as to how the
SACAA will deal with general aviation
and its operations, inclusive of continued
airworthiness in the interest of the South
African civil aviation system.
WHERE SOUTH AFRICA SHOULD
BE GOING
For South African civil aviation, what
is needed in such an Airworthiness Policy?
First of all, expansion of general aviation
should be encouraged. South Africa has
good weather and long distances between
towns. The SACAA and its policies should
accordingly make GA prosper.
It is inevitable that benchmarking
needs to be done in a consultative process
with the stakeholders. There should be a
clear understanding that there are currently
two major airworthiness authorities in the
world, namely the FAA and EASA. The
majority of CAAs around the world are
followers of the experience of the above
two entities.
However, with such benchmarking
in developing a policy, due cognisance
should be given to what the FAA is doing
as the leader in the eld of all airworthiness
matters, especially GA.
There should therefore be a clear
acceptance that three levels of ALoS needs
to be provided for:
• Commercial operations with a
high level of ALoS and constant
oversight by the CAA;
• General aviation involving type
certied aircraft where the
participants do not expect the
same duty-of-care and oversight
by the CAA and a reduced AloS;
• General aviation involving NTCAs
where the participants are most
willing to accept an even lower
level of ALoS and oversight by the
CAA.
• Overall, the emphasis should be to
encourage and make it possible for
GA to expand.
There is a need for positive and clear
leadership from the SACAA to ensure
the effective development of GA. This
key segment should be encouraged to
grow which can only be achieved by a
sound continuous airworthiness policy
that can satisfy the needs of the different
participants in the aviation industry as to
their acceptability of risk.
It is up to the aviation participants
and industry to call for the development
of a clear airworthiness policy as to how
the above will be handled. Only then
can realistic regulatory requirements be
developed and implemented.
