The Flight Safety Foundation announced today the release of its Functional Check Flight (FCF) Compendium.
“Several accidents and serious incidents have highlighted the higher risk associated with conducting functional check flights. Because of this, the Flight Safety Foundation organized a functional check flight steering team with representatives from Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier and Embraer to address this challenge,” stated Jim Burin, FSF Director of Technical Programs.
In 2011, the steering team held a highly successful symposium that gather aircraft manufacturers, regulators and operators to discuss the challenges to be addressed and current best practices for conducting these flights.
285 attendees from 41 countries attended the symposium in Vancouver. After the symposium and in light of pending regulations by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) addressing these flights, the Foundation the FC steering team continued their work and created this compendium.
“The compendium contains several useful items,” Burin explained. “One is a paper titled ‘Be Prepared’ that addresses important aspects of functional check flights.” Also included in the compendium is a guidance document containing sections on FCF preparation, ground checks, and flight checks.” The flight check section consists of 29 modules addressing various FCF flight checks (e.g. air conditioning, electrical system, APU, etc.). The compendium also contains all of the material presented at the Vancouver FCF symposium.
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Flight Safety Foundation (www.flightsafety.org) is an independent, non-profit, international organization engaged in research, education, advocacy and publishing to improve aviation safety. The Foundation’s mission is to be the leading voice of safety for the global aerospace community.
Contact: Emily McGee, Director of Communications, +1 703 739 6700, ext 126; mcgee@flightsafety.org