Certification "grandfather rights" for derivative aircraft are about to be phased out.
David Learmount/LONDON
T HE ISSUE OF "grandfather rights" as they apply to aircraft certification provokes righteous indignation, anger and transatlantic disharmony. Something had to be done about them, but reaching agreement without destabilising the business of aircraft design and manufacture has seemed impossible.
Grandfather rights refer to the right of a manufacturer to continue certificating successive derivatives of a mature aircraft type under the certification rules applicable when the original design was cleared - despite subsequent advances in safety regulation.
Arguments generated by the issue include the European Joint Aviation Authorities' (JAA) insistence in the 1980s that the cockpit/upper-deck floor of the Boeing 747-400 be strengthened to contemporary standards, to protect the flight-control runs which pass through it. The US Federal Aviation Administration disagreed, but the JAA insisted, so today, European-registered 747-400s have upper-deck floors built to a higher specification than those registered in the USA and elsewhere.
EUROPEAN DISADVANTAGE
It used to be the rule that all aircraft designs certificated after 1982 were originally required to be operated to much stricter take-off performance requirements than aircraft given the all-clear before 1982. This upset European consortium Airbus Industrie when its A320 series began to lose out to derivative US competition. Now, however all production aircraft must comply with the new rules.
The latest issue concerns the Boeing 737-X series and whether, despite being a rewinged, re-engined, re-instrumented version of the previous series, it will gain any advantage over the A320 by virtue of grandfathering anomalies. This has yet to be made clear.
In general, the situation is improving. The regulatory solutions to grandfather rights exist in draft form and their release into the final public-scrutiny phase is imminent.
The conflicting issues, which have to be resolved are on the one hand, the need for safety regulation to be able to advance, taking advantage of experience and technological improvement and on the other hand, the need for manufacturers to produce aircraft to approved designs, which can remain basically unchanged long enough to be built, tested and put into operation and then to achieve sufficient sales, for a reasonable return on investment.
Grandfather rights were effectively sentenced to death in 1989 when the FAA and JAA met in Bordeaux, France, at their annual harmonisation conference. Although, at that time, the authorities agreed in principle that things could not stay as they were, the condemned grandfather rights were given a long stay of execution while the rule makers haggled over the means of execution.
The chosen method is a set of step-by-step guidelines for the certification of derivative types (see diagram). These aim to enforce compliance with the latest regulations wherever practicable and, where not practicable, to enable decisions to be based on the in-service record of the aircraft concerned.
The ultimate decision could vary from acceptance of the original certification as adequate, through enforcing compliance with some of the later requirements, to demanding that the manufacturers submit the aircraft for a completely new type certificate (TC).
Since January 1993, there has been a JAA/FAA interim policy on "the joint type-certification basis for derivative large aeroplanes", which describes amendments to FARs and JARs allowing the regulators to start implementing some of the proposed new policies, and putting pressure on the manufacturers to be ready for them.
The JAA has been ready for months with its final notice of proposed amendment (NPA) for the applicable rules (principally JAR 21, but also any JAR relating to design as it affects safety). The JAA's regulation director, Yves Morier, has expressed frustration at the FAA's delay in completing its promised equivalent, a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the US FAR 21.
The only difference between the FARs and JARs, according to the UK Civil Aviation Authority's head of design and manufacturing standards, Peter Harper, should be those "inherent" in lawmaking on one side or the other of the Atlantic.
Transatlantic differences may run deeper, however. Derivatives have not posed much of a problem to the JAA. Its first certification was awarded to Saab's SF340, in May 1984. That aircraft, and all those which have followed it, including the ATR series, the Airbus fleet from the A320 onwards and British Aerospace's 146/RJ series, have all been original aircraft certificated to standards which have required little amendments to comply with the latest - and proposed - changes to the JARs. The FAA, on the other hand, has had to deal with the Boeing and McDonnell Douglas (MDC) fleets, the derivatives of which include the world's best-sellers. The only US airliner certificated without any reference to derivative status, and which was awarded joint FAA/JAA certification from the outset, is the Boeing 777.
Although the FAA and the US industry, through their participation in the International Certification Procedures Task Force (ICPTF), have committed themselves to abandoning grandfather rights and to espouse an analytical approach, they have to undergo greater change than does Europe, both in terms of industry and the existing regulatory philosophy.
The process leading to, the final verdict on grandfather rights, can accurately be compared to trial by jury. In this case, the jury has so far been the ICPTF. This task force, set up following the 1989 Bordeaux meeting, had its first meeting in San Francisco in April 1990. It included representatives of the manufacturers - including Airbus, Boeing and MDC - the airlines, and the pilots' unions, as well as regulators from Europe, the USA and Canada.
Although the ICPTF has now been suspended, its jury work having been completed theoretically upon delivery of its draft verdict, it may be reconvened if the new regulations founder during the imminent NPA/NPRM period.
POTENTIAL FOR ARGUMENT
Naturally, manufacturers will continue to seek the lowest-cost route to production and certification of a derivative, and will feel justified in fighting "unnecessary" regulatory requirements if the original aircraft has a good safety record. Arguments may break out over interpretation of the new rules. There are several key words in the guidelines whose definitions could allow considerable latitude in their interpretation. These are just two examples:
"significant" (also major or minor): used to describe the change or changes, and their potential effects upon the operation of the aircraft and/or the safety of its occupants;
"substantial": used to describe the effect of the change on the nature, size, weight or performance of the aircraft as a whole.
The ICPTF has chosen to use examples to clarify intent, and this narrows the opportunity for argument. There are expected to be some 15-20 examples incorporated in the final FAR/JAR amendments, together with a caveat that the list is not exhaustive. For example, the following might be allowed without need for a new TC: a complete redesign of a system installation which "...extensively invalidates the compliance demonstration of the original design", and the introduction of novel, or unusual, methods of construction or materials.
Changes which do not, however, make the aircraft a derivative, but qualify as modifications to the original, include fitting a different auto-pilot, fitting electronic flight-display systems, or an increase in weight "...which does not involve significant design changes".
The type of change, which might disqualify the aircraft from being considered a derivative would be a size and weight increase beyond 50% of that of the originally certificated aircraft.
In the spotlight is Boeing's new 737-X series (the 737-600/700/800) which is awaiting the final verdict on the regulatory changes deemed to affect the aircraft.
Boeing points out that its 737-X will comply with 362 out of 377 of the latest FAR/JARs, and that the ten or so "reversions" (derivative privileges) granted comply with the ICPTF guidelines. By the end of 1995, Boeing had admitted that there were some five items yet to be clarified, but it is reluctant to list them.
One of them, Airbus maintains, is the issue of whether the 737-800 shall be permitted, given the limitations imposed by cabin emergency-exit regulations, to carry 179 or 189 passengers. Airbus vice-president for product integrity, Wolfgang Didszuhn, says that, under the JARs as they were interpreted when the JAA certificated its own aircraft, the maximum 737-800 seating would have been 179.
A 737 has never been submitted to the JAA for certification - it was originally certificated by European national aviation authorities. The FAA, on the other hand, being the 737's original certificating authority, says that 189 is permissible under FAR grandfather rules.
The JAA's decision on the 737-800's maximum seating, expected in early December 1995, will now not be known until at least March. This, says JAA secretary-general Klaus Koplin, is because a working group has been set up to determine what cabin-evacuation test procedures will be acceptable to prove "equivalent safety" for a given exit configuration. Equivalent safety is one of the ICPTF-developed concepts, meaning that for example, even if an exit configuration does not precisely meet the latest dimensional requirements, if it can be demonstrated that the configuration meets or exceeds the safety performance target, (for instance, time to evacuate the cabin), it should be certificated.
All manufacturers seem to be pleased with the imminent certification philosophy. Airbus, for example, says: "We are definitely very happy now that this new agreement has been reached," although Didszuhn warns: "You will have to look at the final NPRM. One word changed can make a big difference." It is unthinkable, however, that full-scale grandfathering could return.
Source: Flight International
