THE COST OF additional or replacement equipment for business aircraft to meet impending regulations could cost almost $1 million for older aeroplanes, warns fixed-base operator Magec Aviation of Luton, UK. Some equipment has yet to be specified and its' cost to be defined.
Magec flight-operations director Capt John Robinson explained to delegates at the GAMTA conference that most of the rules are associated with the adoption of European Joint Aviation Regulations (JARs). Some, however, like the reduced vertical-separation minima (RVSM) in minimum-navigation-performance airspace such as the North Atlantic (NAT) routes, are regulations agreed under the International Civil Aviation Organisation future air-navigation-systems programme. RVSM requirements will be implemented in January 1998 in NAT airspace and in October 2001 in European airspace. They entail the fitting of accurate height-keeping equipment to allow vertical separation above flight level 285 (28,500ft) to be reduced from 2,000ft (600m) to 1,000ft.
Magec puts the price of meeting RVSM specifications as low as $5,000 for a modern aircraft with full air-data systems and an appropriate altimeter static system, but as high as $300,000 for an aircraft which has neither. Any aircraft, which does not meet the RVSM specification, will be excluded from MNPS airspace which, in the NAT region, for example, means that it will not be allowed above FL 270 on any track. The only other requirement entailing such particularly high costs is the traffic-alert and collision-avoidance system Mk2 (TCAS II), which costs $250,000-S300,000 to buy and fit. This is already required in US airspace, for aircraft with more than 30 seats, but will be required, in the UK from January 2000 for aircraft with a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) exceeding 15,000kg, or which has more than 30 seats and, from 1 January, 2005, for aircraft of above 5,700kg MTOW or maximum seating capacity of nine. It is possible that JARs will, in due course, specify TCAS, but they do not yet.
Source: Flight International
