Rotorcraft Segment Looks to Modernize Safety Regulations to Foster Innovation and Enhance Safety

While we celebrate the small airplane design rule rewrites that aviation authorities around the world have implemented or are working toward implementing, industry leaders and representatives are now turning their sights toward a similar goal: to modernize the design standards for rotorcraft to improve innovation, safety, and efficiency of certification approval.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airworthiness design requirements for rotorcraft are published in Certification Specification (CS) 27 and 29 and Part 27 and 29 requirements, respectively. Over the past 20 years, new requirements have been piled on top of old to address safety features that were state of the art, at the time. As a result, many of the rotorcraft requirements are prescriptive methods of design and inhibit innovation and the introduction of modern technologies, which include many safety-enhancing features. Additionally, some requirements lead to reduced certification and validation efficiency, driving up costs without a proportional safety benefit.

The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) is collaborating with the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) to sponsor a working group of rotorcraft manufacturers that is conducting a comprehensive review of the CS/Part 27 and 29 design requirements and developing recommendations to remove outdated prescriptive rules and define performance and risk-based safety objectives. Proposed new requirements will consider safety continuum approaches, which establishes the appropriate level of design requirements and rigor based on a combination of risk factors, such as number of occupants, flight environment, type of operation (Instrument Flight Rules (IFR)/Visual Flight Rules (VFR)), design complexity, and rotorcraft performance. 

GAMA/ASD will submit its report to EASA and FAA in April 2018 with a request for harmonized rulemaking. The recommendations to update design requirements for new rotorcraft will stimulate innovation and facilitate the introduction of new technology and safety-enhancing equipment, while also streamlining certification and validation through harmonized and performance based rules. 

GAMA is also a strong advocate and actively engaged in initiatives to change rotorcraft design requirements to enable incorporation of new safety standards as retrofit into previously type certificated designs. A current initiative is the FAA Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC) Rotorcraft Occupant Protection Working Group (ROPWG).

A recent FAA fatal accident study demonstrated that Crash Resistant Fuel System (CRFS) and Crash Resistant Survival System (CRSS) requirements are effective in saving lives. But, there is slow progress to incorporate these new design measures into the current fleet of rotorcraft that were type certificated before the new standards were established. The FAA-industry working group is developing recommendations to accelerate the incorporation of CRFS and CRSS safety enhancements as a retrofit into newly manufactured and current operation rotorcraft.

The ROPWG recommendations will be submitted to the FAA by July 2018. However, there is significant interest in CRFS by manufacturers and operators and these recommendations are already being voluntarily incorporated in nearly all new production rotorcraft and STC retrofit kits are becoming available for large portions of the existing fleet.

GAMA recognizes that any new rotorcraft requirements must be harmonized and globally accepted through participation and commitment to improvement by global airworthiness authorities and industry. This focused engagement, involving key stakeholders will promote improved safety and innovation, strengthen industry and authority partnership and collaboration, and lead to a much stronger rotorcraft industry in the future.