Story ID: 
FAA Warms To Easier SE-IFR Helo Certification
By: Mark Huber
Caption: Industry views this as key to increasing the number of IFR operations and improving safety.
Word Count: 574

The FAA appears poised to adopt 2015 industry recommendations aimed at reducing the costs and complexities associated with single-engine helicopters meeting IFR certification requirements under Part 27 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs). The industry views the change as key to expanding IFR operations and improving safety. Led by the Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA), American Helicopter Society International (AHS), General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and Helicopter Association International (HAI), the rotorcraft industry had submitted a white paper to the FAA detailing proposed alternative means of compliance for meeting these standards.

In July, Lance Gant, manager of the FAA Rotorcraft Directorate, wrote that the FAA “has begun the process of adopting some of the concepts and recommendations of the white paper into a proposed Safety Continuum for Part 27 Systems and Equipment Policy Statement.” Gant noted that the proposed policy statement—which the FAA expects to release for public comment by December—will create “classes” of Part 27 rotorcraft defined by weight (up to 7,000 pounds) and passenger capacity.

“We are encouraged that the FAA not only appears to be supportive of the white paper but is adopting a much more tenable overall approach to leveraging advances in technology for safety and efficiency,” said AHS executive director Mike Hirschberg.

Earlier this year Gant told AIN, “We’ve been in discussion with industry for two years now on this concept. On the certification side, industry took the position that if we lower the certification burden of getting autopilots and advanced avionics into helicopters, then IFR would be pursued more often from the certification side. They did send us their final white paper around the end of November of last year, and we made a commitment to get a response to that paper in the first calendar quarter of this year. It is outside rulemaking because industry is asking us to make a policy change and not a rule change. I don’t have a good timeline on that, yet I would hope sooner rather than later. I don’t want to have to commit my guys to having something done this year. We’re looking at a little broader effort that would address equipage in Part 27 overall and not just concentrating on IFR. Generally we are favorable to the effort.”

Industry groups have long complained that certification of IFR installations in Part 27 helicopters is based on the rules for Part 23 fixed-wing aircraft, making such installations overly burdensome, complex and costly and thereby discouraging them and impeding IFR operations in this category of helicopter. The industry white paper noted that, as a result, the “number of single-engine rotorcraft IFR certifications has dropped from several in the 1980s and 1990s to virtually none since 1999. This is in spite of technology such as [GPS] area navigation and [Waas] GPS approach procedures which make IFR flight more relevant to helicopter operations than in the 1980s and 1990s.” It went on to point out that regulatory relief is needed in the form of decoupling the certification requirements for Part 23 fixed-wing avionics systems and those for Part 27 rotorcraft. “The relatively small rotorcraft market has traditionally relied on Part 23 airplane-derivative systems and equipment to achieve financial practicality. But as certification requirements for Part 23 airplane systems and equipment are reduced (especially in terms of Design Assurance Levels and equipment qualification), adapting low-cost, Part 23 technology to the Part 27 helicopter market becomes impossible in some cases, and in others, impractically costly.”