Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 25. June 6, 2025
- New RISE powerplant benefits from decades of GE research and development June 5, 2025
- Engine makers emphasizing durability, reliability June 4, 2025
- Boeing CEO: Lessons learned are key to certification of 737-7/10 and 777X June 2, 2025
- Digital twin is a key to JetZero’s hopes for Blended Wing Body entry June 2, 2025
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 33. Multi-country Certification
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam and Andrew Telesca.
December 10, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Our aircraft has now achieved its first deliveries and is Entering Into Service (EIS) with our launch customer.
This covers one customer and one jurisdiction. As each country is sovereign in Airworthiness certification, we have work to do for each market we want to address.
Figure 1. A new 19 seater design, the Cessna 408 SkyCourier, started life as a cargo aircraft certified to US Part 23 standards. Here, the passenger version. Source: Cessna.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 32. Aircraft delivery and EIS
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca
December 3, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we went through typical problems by the start of serial production, such as weight creep and traveled work.
Now we discuss the ins and outs of delivering the aircraft to the customer airline and how we support the aircraft’s entry into service.
Figure 1. A new 19 seater design, the Cessna SkyCourier. Source: Cessna.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 31. Serial Production problems
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
November 26, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we started our analysis of the serial production phase. If development is filled with revelations and problems to solve, production has it as well.
We start this week by looking at the beginning of serial production, where several issues are overhangs from development. There are areas of the aircraft, though we have achieved our Type Certificate, that are not quite to the maturity level we want for long-term serial production.
Figure 1. A typical aircraft Final Assembly Line (FAL) site. Source: ATR.
Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of airliner development. Part 30. Serial Production
By Bjorn Fehrm, Henry Tam, and Andrew Telesca.
November 19, 2021, ©. Leeham News: Last week, we described how we finished the testing and the process to get our Type Certificate.
Now we look at the phase after Design and Production certification, the start of production, Figure 1. The upstart and ramp of production have many challenges. We will start the discussion with one that is often overseen, the cost of ramping production to full serial production rate.
Figure 1. Our program plan for the aircraft. Source: Leeham Co.
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 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.