Story ID: 
Many are relieved by STC rule delay
By: Gordon Gilbert
Caption: The National Air Transportation Association welcomed an 18-month delay in the compliance date for revised STC procedures.
Word Count: 146
The National Air Transportation Association welcomed an 18-month delay in the compliance date for revised STC procedures. The new procedures will effectively increase the cost of obtaining an STC by $5,000 to $15,000, estimated NATA when the revisions were adopted last year. Currently, STC projects are evaluated based on type certification standards that applied when the aircraft was designed. The new rule requires STC applicants to comply with the latest version of TC standards or provide data to justify doing otherwise. The original compliance date of December 10 has been pushed back to June 10, 2003, to allow the FAA to address unresolved issues. NATA “continues to have concerns with the effect of the final rule and the questionable justification used by the FAA in its development. However, the association has been encouraged by the agency’s efforts to reach out to the aviation community since the publication of the NPRM.”