For years, the marketers of the Emergency Vision Assurance System (EVAS) have been asking the FAA to require the product. They argue that it is already STC’d and installed on a number of business and airline aircraft, and the FAA accepts that it is the only product designed to provide pilots with a means of seeing vital instruments and out the windshield in the event of “continuous” smoke in the cockpit.
Now, in an interesting twist, the FAA has ordered EVAS for dual installations in all 50 of its corporate, R&D, training and flight inspection aircraft (at about $28,000 per installation). All the installations, with the exception of the agency’s Convair CV-580s, are STC’d.
But while the FAA sees the need to make EVAS required safety equipment on its own aircraft, it still has no plans to issue regulations proposing that its installation be required on business or commercial aircraft. Current regulations require that an aircraft manufacturer show only that “temporary” smoke can be evacuated within three minutes after the smoke source is turned off so pilots can discern their instruments.
Despite the FAA’s steadfast reluctance to require EVAS, EVAS Worldwide, the Ramsey, N.J. company that markets the Emergency Vision Assurance System, continues to publish literature that provides a description of smoke-in-the-cockpit incidents as well as a history of the interaction between the FAA and Congress over the issue of smoke-in-the-cockpit regulations.
EVAS is certified in more than 30 aircraft models, and the company said it has delivered more than 2,000 EVAS units. STCs are required for EVAS when used in Part 135 operations.