Legislative Acts: Flight testing and certifications

 Hello again my readers!

 

    In this week's blog I will be discussing one of the Federal Aviation Regulation that I believe helped shape the aviation industry today. This gave guidance to manufacturers on the requirements needed for the aircraft or engines that is being built, designed and approved prior to its release to the public for its use.

Every type of commercial aircraft that is being utilized for transporting goods or passengers in the air went through multiple testing and certifications prior to it being approved for a Type certificate. The regulations that were put in place for aircraft designers and manufacturers to follow was 14 CFR part 21 which is the certification procedures for products and articles. According to 14 CFR part 21.35 Flight tests, each applicant for an aircraft type must perform multiple ground inspections and testing prior to being approved for flight test and must also have a certified flight test pilot (14CFR21 n.d). Flight testing is one thing, but what if during the flight test something fails? according to part 21.3 any failures of the component must be reported within 24 hours after the determination of failure has been found. This sounds bad but not really, this actually helps out the designers and manufacturers to locate the problem and fix it to become a safer aircraft. Take for instance the newly designed and engineered GE LEAP1B, it had to go through multiple testing prior to getting approved for a type certificate to be used in the new 737 MAX's.   

In conclusion to my blog post, 14 CFR part 21 is a very broad topic and it is very informative for people who want to design and manufacture their own aircraft. Without this regulation, there would have been no guidance in creating a safe aircraft for flying, and we could have had more accidents if this regulation was never put in place.

Thank you for your time in reading my blog about Legislative acts

till next time!

 

-Ralph 

 

References:

Code Of Federal Regulations (2021) Part 21- Certification Procedures for Products and Articles. Retrieved from: 

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-21

GE Aviation (2018, July 14) The Leap Engine 10 Years on. Retrieved from:

https://www.geaviation.com/press-release/jv-archive/leap-engine-10-years

 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aircraft Systems and Flight: Anti-Icing and De-icing system

Image
  Hello to my readers!                 In this week’s blog I will be talking about the Anti-Icing and De-Icing system of the aircraft and what are the preventative measure that can be taken when there is a fault in the system.   In last week’s discussion we talked about the operating environment and aircraft performance, one of the environmental factors where airplanes operate is freezing temperatures. According to the Pilot’s Handbook Aeronautical Knowledge chapter 7 (FAA 2016), Anti Icing is designed to prevent the formation of ice and De-Icing is designed to remove ice once it has been formed. For smaller types of airplanes, the wing leading edge of the aircraft is equipped with De-Icer boots and for large commercial airplanes, they utilize bleed air that is distributed to the wings leading edge to prevent ice to form. Having a Wing Anti-Ice (WAI) system is very convenient because pilots can just turn it on and it has a timer or a sensor that automatically activates the syst
Read more

The Airport and The Environment: Airport Construction

Image
Hello again readers!      In today’s module I will be discussing two factors that affects the environment around the airport. And what can be done to resolve this issue.      It is known that airport construction is one of the environmental impacts in the surrounding area. This is because the airport requires a large amount of land to properly operate. A small airport takes up almost hundred acres of land, so what more if it was for commercial transport? The reality is, aviation has been essential to people’s daily lives, whether it be for tourism or business, but at what cost can this lead to having to create an airport? (Johnson 2018). An airport can take up spaces that could be meant for housing and other necessary infrastructure, this also leads to deforestation depending on the location of the airport being constructed (Johnson 2018).  Having a large airport also means creating a pathway to get there like highways and roads, this increases the size of area that can affect the
Read more

Air Traffic Control Entities

Image
Hello again my readers!      Have you ever wondered how aircraft movement is possible on the ground and up in the air? In this week's blog I will be discussing the difference between the air traffic controllers and ground controllers on how they operate and the area of responsibilities they have.         Ground controllers are primarily responsible for safe movement of aircraft and other equipment, whether it be taxiing from gates to takeoff runways and from landing runways to gates (Freudenrich 2021). Aircraft taxiing is just a part of their responsibility, maintainers also communicate to ground controllers to request engine run up testing on remote pads or designated areas. Equipment operators or rampers as we would like to call them, also requires approval from ground controllers when they are moving an aircraft regardless of the location specially when crossing an active runway, this is to ensure that their status boards are up to date and accurate on where the aircraft is loca
Read more