Avionics News February 2015 - 63

POINT OF COMMUNICATION
Continued from page 4

from the FAA's divisions of flight
standards, certification and its air traffic
organization. The AFT will provide
direct support to FAA field offices
and the aviation community, as well
as collaborate with manufacturers and
repair stations to address the installation
and avionics performance issues.
It is evident there is more work to
be done in regards to installation and
performance challenges, as reported
by Alex Rodriquez, of FAA AIR-130.
In Part 23 and 25 categories alone,
Rodriquez said the FAA is reporting
to date a 20 percent failure rate of
certified-equipment installations that
don't fully comply with §91.227
equipment performance requirements.
Common installation issues include:
* Emitter category is set wrong.
* Air/ground determination issues.
* Baro/GeoAltitude spikes.
* Missing baro altitude.
* Duplicate or wrong ICAOs.
* Invalid/missing Mode 3/A codes.
* Flight ID issues.
Rodriquez also clarified when a
field approval is appropriate for an
installation, and he implored avionics
repair shops to follow the revised
ADS-B installation policy memo
released in October 2012, which
supersedes all other memos.
While there was much discussion
on what constitutes a field approval
for ADS-B Out equipage, Rodriquez
assured the group that the ADS-B Focus
Team is working on additional guidance
to support the field offices on approvals.
Also, during the forum, the FAA
shared statistics gathered from those
operators who have already equipped,
which, by the way, has grown
three-fold in the last nine months.
Of those already equipped, Part 23
aircraft made up 81 percent; business
category accounted for 7 percent,

while rotorcraft tallied 6 percent. The
remaining 6 percent was accounted for
by commercial airlines.
There is much more work to be
done, and repair station representatives
working in the Part 25 arena called on
airframe manufacturers to issue service
bulletins to assist in installations, as
well as voicing their concern about
product availability for certain Part 25
class of airplanes.
The AEA took on the task of
creating a supplemental type
certificate online database listing
those STCs currently available for
the exclusive use of AEA member
repair stations, as well as keeping a
current database of available service
bulletins. These databases will be
updated regularly and, hopefully,

will become available within the next
several weeks.
The AEA plans follow-on forums as
the need arises, with a forum update
at the upcoming AEA Convention,
April 8-11, in Dallas, Texas. If your
repair station is preparing for ADS-B
installations during the next five
years, you will not want to miss the
information that will be shared during
the convention. The FAA promises
to attend in full force to answer your
installation and compliance issues. q

PAULA DERKS
President, Aircraft Electronics
Association

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Avionics News February 2015

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