Ultralight Flying! magazine has asked Tom Peghiny to give updates on the progress made by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) committees creating the standards for FAA's proposed new Light-Sport Aircraft class of aircraft. As chairman of the airplane subcommittee, Peghiny has a front-row seat at the proceedings. Following are his observations from that front row.
Before going into Consensus Standards particulars, I would like to give an overview of the whole process.
The creation of the Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) category is, in my opinion, a unique opportunity for the sport of recreational flying. The federal government has tasked our industry to develop new rules for design, company-delegated certification and quality control for this proposed new segment of light aviation.
When the federal government allows an industry to self-regulate or deregulate, that industry is required to develop a set of consensus standards using input from all stakeholders to create the standards. The industry chose ASTM to manage our consensus standards development because of the organization's long history, the experience ASTM had developing aviation fuel standards and international acceptance of ASTM standards. To date, the management of the process to create new standards has been professional and sensitive to the needs of a small industry like ours.
In our committee (F-37), there are organizations representing end users, FAA and our industry. We believe this will produce balanced documents that will ensure the safety needs of the public, give our industry guidance in design and testing, and will ultimately raise the quality of the industry's products through communication and education.
What this means to us as manufacturers is very important. Our industry has been hampered for years by the lack of an appropriate regulatory path for companies to follow to produce ready-to-fly aircraft. The current FAA certification requirements are appropriate for small airliners and much more complex airplanes, but are a much higher level of certification than what is required for personal flying and light training duties. As a result, most planes in our category are sold only as ultralights or homebuilt kits that the builder registers in the Experimental, amateur-built category.
Our industry will now be allowed to have our aircraft flown for training towards an official FAA-issued Sport Pilot certificate. The certified Light-Sport Aircraft will be allowed to be rented to pilots also. That means flying clubs can be formed which will really reduce the up-front cost to get people flying. The training used towards an FAA certificate makes the aircraft, the instructor's rating, our businesses and the time flown in the planes more valuable.
An increased level of safety brought about by certification will also make insurance companies more likely to insure the planes. This may make financing for owners much easier.
What will the effect be on our industry?
This will be the first time that all the parts will be in place for our industry. A simple certificate for operating simple, light airplanes, an appropriate certification standard for selling ready-to-fly aircraft, and improved access to financing and insurance.
Why does this affect us so much?
When was the last time you assembled your new car or even a motorcycle? The prospect of assembling an airplane from a kit is more than most people want to take on, or even have time to do.
If you already have the only plane that you ever plan to own then these changes will likely never affect you. But if you plan to buy a new plane or give flight instruction in the future, this work being done is very important. The aircraft that comply with FAR Part 103 will still be unregulated. Amateur-built, Experimentally registered planes built from kits will still represent the majority of the activity, in my opinion.
So where are we in the rules development process?
The overall committee F-37 has several subcommittees. F-37.20 is for airplanes, F-37.30 is for powered parachutes, F-37.40 is for weight-shift aircraft, and F-37.50 is for gyroplanes. In the Sport Pilot NPRM-11133 released February 5, 2002, FAA required us to develop guidance documents for design and performance, quality assurance, continued airworthiness and production acceptance.
The powered parachute committee (F-37.30) has developed and voted on all of their required documents. The airplane committee (F-37.20) is about 75% complete and is in the voting process as this is being written at the end of March '03. The weight-shift committee (F-37.40) still has a good ways to go, in my opinion. We do expect to have the required documents finished before the announcement of the final rule, which is anticipated and hoped for July 2003.
I would like to make some observations about the airplane committee, of which I am chairman. This is perhaps the broadest category of aircraft covered by the NPRM and therefore it is the most difficult to cover with one rule. Remember that the proposed LSA airplane category includes aircraft that can fly up to 130 mph. The standards covering the design and performance are perhaps more involved than many had hoped (including me). It is my opinion, however, that the level of complexity of the specific aircraft will still greatly affect the difficulty in certifying it under these proposed rules.
We have to keep in mind that the proposed new rules do not affect existing aircraft that are going to be transitioned into the Light-Sport Experimental category, nor Amateur-built aircraft. The good news as well in all this is that the ASTM rules are not fixed forever. In fact, they are required to be updated at least every 2 years and anyone can and should be involved in the process by joining ASTM.
There are quite a few who may have liked things to stay the way they were in our industry. But times have changed, and we need to make it easier and safer for more people to get into the sport.
If we stay as we are, there will be fewer manufacturers left to supply planes in the future, in my opinion. I believe that the key is the proposed Sport Pilot certificate more than the opportunity to manufacture certified aircraft, but you can't have one without the other.
ASTM Light-Sport Aircraft Committees Update 2
The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Light-Sport Aircraft (F-37) committee met in Kansas City, Missouri, May 7-9, 2003 for a series of general committee meetings and various subcommittees as well. I had never been to Kansas City before and was impressed by the architecture of the buildings and some impressive monuments.
On the first night there were task group meetings, which are less formal than official subcommittee meetings, and are used to create the basic outlines of documents and bring out differences prior to when actual balloting takes place.
The task group meeting on the new standard for Spark Ignition Reciprocating Engines had already started when we arrived and the discussion was very serious. The major items were the use of single ignitions on Special (certified) 2-place Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) airplanes, and whether FAR Part 33-certified engines (new and used, and it's not as simple as it sounds) can be employed on Special (certified) LSA airplanes. Please note that the powered parachute committee has decided not to require an engine to meet an ASTM standard and that an Experimental Light-Sport Aircraft can use any engine you want. The subcommittee did meet later in session and voted on the proposed changes, which are now up for vote by the overall committee.
There was initiation of a subcommittee, headed up by BRS, to create standards for ballistically deployed safety parachutes, and another subcommittee to create standards for LSA propellers. These items were not required under FAA's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, but have been requested by industry to give guidelines for supplying Special (certified) Light-Sport Aircraft. These are called "crosscutting committees" as the equipment will be used on all LSA-type aircraft.
The weight-shift (trike) committee (F-37.40), chaired by Scott Toland, is making progress on developing FAA-required standards for that part of the sport. An interesting note, Toland had voted negative on our .20 (fixed-wing) standards. Toland requested that the name Light-Sport Airplane be changed to Light-Sport Aircraft, Airplane. The overall committee thought he was right and changed the name.
As of May '03, the powered parachute committee (F-37.30), headed by Jim Stephenson, has finished its basic work and has the standards in place to meet the FAA NPRM requirements. Stephenson has now moved on to developing a standard for items that must be delivered with all LSA Special (certified) Aircraft, such as pilot flight manuals and other documentation.
Greg Gremminger, chairman of the gyroplane committee (F-37.50), continues to single-handedly organize and represent the gyroplane community for an ASTM standard. There is reason to believe that FAA will eventually include gyroplanes in the LSA category. Gremminger is a champion of the less-is-more ideology in general committee voting, and always pushes that philosophy in discussions.
At FAA's request, the U.S. Hang Gliding Association (USHGA) has created a subcommittee to create standards for Tandem Hang Gliding and Tandem Paragliding. They named their committee the FAR 103-compliant vehicle committee, which may seem like a mouthful to some, but gets to the point that they are operating aircraft that are fully compliant with FAR Part 103 requirements.
The Light-Sport Aircraft, Airplane committee had several subcommittee meetings and some or all of the previously mentioned items were discussed. In the NPRM, FAA required us to develop guidance documents for design and performance, quality assurance, continued airworthiness and production acceptance.
To date we have completed balloting on our first standard, the quality assurance, which is a good first step to getting the others done prior to the hoped-for official announcement date at Airventure '03 in July.
The design and performance standard, arguably the more difficult and diverse standard across the whole LSA spectrum, went through a lot of discussion on the rewrite of the load section (the key portion of the standard) done by Tom Price of Quicksilver. He had offered a more precise manner to do a load calculation, which is more accurate and more complicated. Price had also kept a very simple path in the text to follow where most of the calculations are done for you, but it was not balloted with the other changes. This created a little firestorm of negative votes and sentiment until he made a very professional Powerpoint presentation and the changes passed the balloting. The system does create balance by forcing groups to work out differences to allow the documents to go forward.
The Continued Operation Safety Monitoring standard (COSM), which covers how manufacturers will determine what is a service difficulty or a hazardous situation, went forward as well for the next round of balloting. The biggest item that came from several different sources was a caveat that keeps manufacturers from creating nuisance Airworthiness Directives (ADs) to drum up business. Personally, I think the lack of ADs in this business is a bigger problem than too many, but both FAA and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) proposed the wording.
At FAA's request, USHGA has included a stand-alone section for the towing of motorless aircraft (hang gliders, ultralight sailplanes and LSA, gliders). We welcome the addition of this activity to our committee.
As this issue goes to press at the end of May, the next round of balloting will begin in early June and we hope to adjudicate all of the negative comments in a manner that will help the standard be finished prior to July '03. We would like the administrator to have a complete package to refer to when she finally announces a regulatory path for people to follow to participate in flying Light-Sport Aircraft.
The creation of the Light-Sport Aircraft category is a unique opportunity for the sport of recreational flying. This will be the first time that all the parts will be in place for our industry - a simple license for operating simple light airplanes, an appropriate certification standard for selling ready-to-fly aircraft, and improved access to financing and insurance.
FAA has given our industry the opportunity to shape the future of our sport. We believe that developing the standards with the help of ASTM will increase both international acceptance and the quality of our products.
