Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 23. Development risks. September 6, 2024
- If a strike occurs, here’s what Boeing can do September 5, 2024
- China banks on C919, but numbers say it still needs Boeing September 2, 2024
- Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 22. High Turbine technologies. August 30, 2024
- The A330 for medium haul or twice the frequency with A321XLR? Part 1 August 29, 2024
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 29. Finishing Flight tests
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
November 12, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at our role in creating comprehensive crew training so the aircraft can be safely operated during its lifetime.
With maintenance and crew training docs and curriculums well underway we can return to our Flight tests and describe how we finish up the testing and get our Type Certificate.
Figure 1. The Type Certificate for the Part 23 Beech, now Textron, King Air series. Source: FAA.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 28. Crew training
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca
November 5, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at our role in creating a competent maintenance activity so our aircraft can be kept airworthy throughout its operational life. The other important part of operational safety is crew training.
We learned that these two parts, keeping the aircraft airworthy with its maintenance and providing adequate training and information to the crews operating the airplane, have a major influence on flight safety. In fact, FAA has found that these parts have a larger influence on flight safety than the aircraft certification regulations.
We, as the OEM, must therefore develop the documentation, curriculum, and training tools so that crews working in the aircraft can fly it safely. This encompasses not only initial training but a continued refresh and check training throughout the crew’s life with the aircraft.
Figure 1. Air Training Supporot’s simulator for the 19 seat Beech 1900. Source: A.T.S.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 27. Maintenance competence
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
October 29, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked into Instructions for Continued Airworthiness (ICAs), and what roles it plays in air safety.
Equally important for air safety is the qualification and training programs we design for the organizations and people that shall carry out the work with our Instructions for Continued Airworthiness.
Figure 1. Aircraft Maintenance on an IBERIA A320. Source: Wikipedia.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 26. Maintenance planning
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
October 22, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked into Continued Operational Safety and there specifically Safety Monitoring and Reporting. Now we look at the role Instructions for Continued Airworthiness (ICAs) play in preventing the air safety issues we talked about last week.
An important part of the Instructions for Continued Airworthiness, ICA, is how to maintain the aircraft in a continued airworthy state during its operational life. The aircraft is airworthy when it rolls out of the factory but it needs to keep this condition for its 25 years or longer productive life. How this is done is contained in the maintenance documents, but there is more to it than just producing a maintenance manual.
Figure 1. The Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM) for the Boeing 747, part of ICA for the 747. Source: Boeing.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 25. Safety monitoring and reporting
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca
October 15, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we introduced the activities around Continued Airworthiness that we have to do during development and flight testing of our aircraft.
As described, the majority of accidents for aircraft are attributed to failings in Continued Airworthiness and Operations rather than design. We listed Continued Operational Safety, Operational Preparedness, and Service Readiness as the three important areas for Continued Airworthiness.
We dive into Continued Operational Safety first, specifically Safety Monitoring and Reporting.
Figure 1. A graph showing how an OEM and FAA surveys the operation of an aircraft and takes action. Source: Boeing.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 24. Parallel Activities
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca
October 8, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we described how we conduct the Certification Flight Test together with the Regulator.
Before we describe our path to completion of our flight test program, we need to pause for a minute and discuss some of the other parallel activities that need to come together prior to issues of Type Certificate and roll out of production aircraft.
In article 3 you’ll recall we reviewed the breadth of regulatory involvement in aircraft development. While the work on the design and initial airworthiness (on the left in the chart below) is critical, it’s not the only set of rules we need to be working with if we want to achieve a successful Entry Into Service (EIS) of the aircraft.
In Part 21 of our series we already discussed the preparation of the production system. In the next few articles, we’ll be discussing three additional areas of work that we’re engaged in that must all come together at the program’s completion:
Figure 1. The Wymann Shell FAR Chart explains how 14 CFR Parts relate to each other. Source: FAA. Click to read easier.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 23. Certification Flight tests
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
October 1, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we described how we produced our Flight Test Articles, FTAs, and how the company flight tests are made.
Now we have finished the Company flight tests and made any modifications required to the FTAs so we can apply for Certification Flight tests with the regulator.
Figure 1. VMU flight test with the Airbus A350. Source: Airbus video.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 22. Flight tests
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
September 24, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at the necessary Production Certificate for the production of our airplanes.
Now our program plan has approached the mid-phase of the Post-Launch phase. We start assembling our test aircraft to get to flight tests.
Figure 1. The program plan for our project. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
Airbus presents their CityAirbus UAM
By Bjorn Fehrm
September 21, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Airbus helicopter division presented their entry for the UAM market today at the Airbus 2021 Summit in Toulouse.
It was a presentation of a vehicle and ecosystem that has been cooking for years. After two demonstrators that tested different aspects of eVTOL flight and thousand of hours on supercomputers and in wind tunnels, the final CityAirbus is here, Figure 1.
Its configuration is as unique as Airbus’ approach when presenting it.
Figure 1. Airbus UAM entry, the CityAirbus. Source: Airbus.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 21. Production Certificate
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
September 17, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at the Production facilities and tooling. In order to bring in revenue, we need to deliver aircraft.
But to have the right to deliver aircraft we need a Production Certificate in addition to our Type Certificate for the design. We need to start the work to get a Production Certificate well before we flight test the aircraft and complete the type certification work, Figure 1.
Figure 1. The program plan for our project. Source: Leeham Co.