None taken, Craig. I know you from the AOA forums and I know you have your heart in the right place. Plus you'll get a jet very soon, which I won't, which really bums me out!

I'm happy to give you a ride in anything I've got if you're in the neighborhood man. These things are to be shared.

As far as getting a jet soon, I can't justify it until I open in TX, so I need to get moving so I can have it in Q2 2016- it's going to take me a year. Compared to what I've got now in the Mits, it's just not needed to facilitate my current mission yet.

For now, we're both turbine little guys, lol.

Have them provide all the correspondence between them and the FAA and I think you will find the answer in that. Typically, they didn't provide something the FAA asked for or was required by regulation due to the vendor's ignorance or inexperience.

I do not believe it was that they provided everything required and the FAA sat on it for 5 years out of spite.


The rules for getting an STC are more stringent now.

If you feel like ranting, there are a lot of other topics you can chose in the "once upon a time I could do <blank> but can't any more" category. That isn't evidence the FAA is being arbitrary, that is evidence the rules have changed since olden times.


Which US companies have certified an airplane first in the EU? I'm not aware of any. I believe the ICAO bilateral treaties say vendors must certify in their home countries first, regardless.


That's why you need to see what actually happened to know if that is true and not engage in the reflexive government bashing that seems prevalent these days.

The FAA is not perfect, they make mistakes, they can be difficult, but I don't think they sit around for years delaying aircraft type certificates arbitrarily as has been postulated by some in this thread.

Mike C.

Adam,

Mike knows much more about the design/certification of aircraft than he is letting on. I'll leave it up to him to go into details if he wants too. He is not getting his info from Google but from close interaction with people whose job it is to design and get aircraft certified.

Adam, Mike, et.al.

There are basically three ways to qualify for a Type certificate and the subsequent production certificate;

Qualification by Test
Qualification by Analysis
Qualification by Similarity

Success and Failure in a program is often in the eye of the beholder and there are three (3) people that need to be satisfied. The FAA/DER, the Company and the Customer. Often the customer is the one that holds the most stringent of standards; Not the FAA and certainly not the manufacturer.

In a Qual Test, a test plan is prepared and run....then the results are arbitrated. The FAA DER will/can argue that the plan wasn't rigorous enough and the company can argue that a failure wasn't the result of an inherent flaw, but the test was unrealistic. Happens on every program I've seen.

In a Qual by analysis, the boundary conditions are set, and the analysis must show HOW it meets the standards. Again, an interpretation which can get argued over and arbitrated.

Qual by Similarity is the least rigorous method and can be completely open to interpretation. Its usually the easiest and if the Customer is already familiar with the exemplar, then "Bobs your Uncle".

Ive seen nearly entire aircraft and engines Qualified for Type Certificates mostly on similarity to another Aircraft or parts of aircraft. OTOH, some things only get qualified by test. 500 hour, 1000 hour engine tests come to mind.

In Mikes electronics world, "Burn-in" testing is often a fixed requirement. Not much room for interpretation there. It either passes the ATP (acceptance test procedure) afterward or it doesn't.


So, I guess, in some ways, you guys are ALL correct. I know that doesn't provide the visceral warm and fuzzy of winning an on-line argument (especially with Mike. ) but I hate to see you bashing each other for no good reason. Well, that's not exactly true, I do love watching Mike bash fuzzy logic coming from any corner.

I miss those halcyon days of Ken-bashing.

--Ciao

Mike C.

Actually, I am privy to some of the details since I offered to use my business connections to try and find why the project was stalled; a friend does a fair amount of consulting to the FAA.

Anyway, in one case, the FAA project manager retired. The project was re-assigned, no changes in paperwork, testing or anything. The new PM had it approved in three months.

Second case, the company moved the R&D facility to another state to avoid problems with Kansas Small Planes directorate. The project was approved one year later after attempting to get it certified for close to three years.

There are many more.

Tim

Willis,

Nice to see some factual information.
It looks like you have been through it before.

Tim

This is the effect of being "Retired In Place" or RIP on the job. Some call it "Short Timers syndrome" when the project stalls because a key player is procrastinating toward retirement and hasn't or won't deliver his bit of the puzzle.

More likely to happen in classified positions than in At-will positions, since there's no recourse to such poor professionalism. You cant fire a classified jobholder. (read civil class employee).

At the risk of stirring the pot, the FAA issue Type Inspection Authorization for the SF50. Cirrus still hopes for certification and to start delivery by year end.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Ci ... 749-1.html

Yahoo! I need to decide what to do with Penman's AMU...

That's great!

If the design is essentially finalized why haven't they published a rate of climb yet?

Yahoo! I need to decide what to do with Penman's AMU...

My guess is because they have still been doing development work and want to release them at a time that they think they will get maximal marketing impact. They do have a lot of data that is more impressive than what they have released.

They originally said they would release performance data earlier in the year. The position holders are getting restless and questioned this recently. The response was:

"We appreciate your patience with this and know it has taken longer than originally predicted. We want to be certain that every ounce of data is correct and thoroughly validated before we publish it, especially numbers as important as these. I can tell you that we are not finding any surprises or disappointments in the performance data. We have also been working closely with Williams International to ensure engine performance meets expectations while continuing to test each variable. Thank you for your questions and enthusiasm through it all—we couldn’t do this without your support. Hang tight for just a little longer…"

Sounds like standard delaying tactics to me. I'm not buying the aim for perfection cover story, nor the reassurance there are no disappointments. If they are going to deliver a plane in 4 months, this data has to be known by now, so the delay in release makes one wonder.

The mention of the engine is concerning, is it not performing to expectations? Note the FJ33-5A engine is NOT yet certified as of this date, so a problem there also affects the SF-50 schedule.

Mike C.