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:
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.
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.
September 10, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at the Rig design and manufacture for ground and flight testing.
We are now at the stage in our program (Figure 1) where we shall have scouted and deliberated over our Final Assembly production site (Violet bars). We now need to decide on the site and what facilities we need to build and/or hire.
September 3, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we looked at the Certification Compliance Planning we do concurrently with Detailed Design, Figure 1.
It’s now time for us to work on our Test rigs and systems for ground and flight testing. We need to get these defined before we freeze the aircraft’s configuration and start making our flight test aircraft.
August 27, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we started looking at our work during the Detailed Design phase after Product Launch. We outlined the exacting work needed to design all parts of the aircraft and how we must keep everything in sync.
An essential part of keeping everything in sync is the Certification Compliance Planning we do in this phase, Figure 1.
August 20, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through our second Design Refinement and how our Processes and Tools must be mature because the next step in the Post Launch phase is Detailed Design.
If the previous phases were about research and inspirational design work, where we measured, collated, and documented the overall design data for the aircraft, Detail Design is about a massive amount of work packages and execution.
August 13, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through the Certification Application, one of the most important milestones in the Pre-Launch phase.
Now we assume we got a Product Launch approval from our board/Investors. We start looking at the work packages that meet us in the Post Launch phase.
August 6, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through the OTA, Authorization To Offer milestone.
Now we look at another important milestone in the Pre-Launch phase, the design Certification application. It involves some tricky differences in rules and procedures between the primary Certification authorities.
July 30, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through the later tasks in the Prelaunch Phase. We talked about Concept refinement, Supplier selection, and Certification work.
Now we dig deeper into the important Authorization To Offer (ATO) milestone. This is where the project starts to promise stuff to customers and others, and it can be both good and bad.