Aviation Safety Certification - Part 1 of 2

Embark on a journey to the cutting edge of aviation with us as we navigate the complexities of certifying revolutionary flying machines. From the adrenaline-pumping certification of wing walking to the integration of eVTOLs, we promise a behind-the-scenes look into the meticulous world of aviation innovation. With our special guest, Lachlan Kilby of Javelin Aerospace, we peel back the curtain on the stringent process that ensures every new aircraft design meets the gold standard of safety, without stifling the pioneering spirit that propels the industry forward.

Strap in as we reflect on the rigorous evolution of aircraft safety regulations, a narrative shaped by hard-learned lessons and technological triumphs. We dissect the meticulous standards that arose from historical accidents, including a deep dive into the life-or-death importance of the 90-second emergency evacuation protocol. Bridging past and future, we contemplate the integration of groundbreaking technologies like eVTOLs into the existing fabric of aviation certification, a quest that could redefine the skies of tomorrow. Join us for a compelling exploration of the balance between innovation and safety at the forefront of aviation's next frontier.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's a common saying the regulations are written in blood, and it's true.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Takeaway with MES. This series follows a group of students and industry experts as they join forces to create a flying taxi or EV tour. I'm your host, neeraj, and this is part one of my chat with Lachlan Kilby, co-founder and managing director at Javelin Aerospace and, incidentally, where I also ply my trade. Let's take it away. What is Javelin? What do we do here From playing picket ball and foosball?

Speaker 1: 0:46

Yeah, well, look, apart from the work-life balance, where life is definitely a massive part. Brief intro to Javelin we're a relatively new company. We branched out of certification for modifications and repairs, and that's our background, or my background personally. But we wanted to take, if we were going to start a new company, this is myself and my business partner, who's Andrew Bridge. Andrew Bridge, yes, we went to school together, so we've known each other for a very long time. So we thought it was only fitting that we would try a business venture together.

Speaker 1: 1:22

But what we wanted to do was focus, I guess, less on the boring stuff, let's just say, and we wanted to more or less realize some of our childhood dreams and try to tackle some of the problems that that were interesting at least, and more or less cutting edge as best we could anyway, because previously to that, my design and cert experience was very much focused on aircraft that had already been designed and you were focused on how you were going to keep them flying, how you were going to repair them, modify them, and we always found that the modifications were the fun part, because that's something new and you're tackling a problem that's really never been solved before.

Speaker 1: 2:02

So we really wanted to go in that direction. So I guess that's what Javelin has been so far. We've been. Obviously, we've stayed true to what we know, which is traditional design and cert, but we're looking to go and we've been really quite, quite lucky to have some projects that have come along, even only in our first year, not even two years of operation, where they've really pushed the boundaries of the existing frameworks that are in place from a cert perspective, and that's exactly what we wanted to do when we set out.

Speaker 2: 2:32

so so, yeah, there you go, there's javelin when you say expanding the framework, are you talking about projects like the wing walking focus come?

Speaker 1: 2:40

to mind. Yes, there's a few few fringe projects we call them, yeah, um that we have on the go at the moment and yes, one of them is wing walking, which is obviously as crazy as it sounds. It is as crazy as it sounds. You take a person, a willing person oh, believe it or not, so someone who's actually signed up and you strap them to the top of a wing of a world war ii effectively biplane, and they have to enjoy themselves up there while it's flying around and probably doing aerobatics and hope they don't die.

Speaker 2: 3:13

I told my wife bav this project and she couldn't believe it. She was like why would anyone in their right mind be able to do something like that? I was like, well, when that project does come to fruition, we'll probably be the first ones to be testing it as the engineers designing it. That's exactly right yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:32

So put our money where our mouth is. We'll get the podcast back. We'll do a little pre and a post interview if we do make it. You're right, you know that will be. That will be us that are testing it. You know the design engineers and it's always been that way. With boeing, for example, it would always be the first sort of proof. Flight test would have all the engineers on board that had designed the aircraft. So there's no real difference for us. If we're basically responsible for certifying something, then we need to be comfortable that it's safe for purpose and there's no better way to show that or put your money where your mouth is by actually doing it. So yes, one of us probably myself will be strapped on top of that thing when it first goes flying, which I'm quite looking forward to.

Speaker 2: 4:22

I just hope I get my maths right um, so you talk about practical aspects of of certification, but making sure that it's safe. One way to do it is that you design it and then, with the thinking that you're going to be the one on the aircraft, that's a very old school method.

Speaker 1: 4:40

Um, there are obviously more modern methods that have come about, but it's always going to be a balance of are obviously more modern methods that have come about, but it's always going to be a balance. There's only so much that you can show on the ground and on paper. Yeah, you really have to for anyone to have any sense of, I guess, trust in what you've done. There's no better way to actually show it physically working.

Speaker 2: 5:01

As soon as you start talking about innovation in civil aviation in particular, you hit this wall.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Well, the certification people come along and start bashing you with a stick. That is that is uh, unproven, yeah, and too exciting. Start to rain on your parade. Yeah, that's it, and it's always been that way and we, we hate it, we, but we love it at the same time, because someone has to be the gate holder to safety and, in many ways, cert is one of the hardest parts about doing these sorts of projects.

Speaker 1: 5:37

You know, for all intents and purposes, a lot of the technologies within evtol. They're already established. So you have electronic motors, you have batteries albeit they're not where they could be in terms of battery technology, but that's a side point you have electronic control systems, you have composite structures, et cetera, et cetera. So all the technologies are there. And we have drones flying around. So the concept of the flight dynamics of one of these machines is already there.

Speaker 1: 6:09

So obviously I'm not discrediting any of the challenges that are there in the design and the construction phase, but typically those phases because they're so unhindered initially, which is the fun part right, you can really just have a clean slate and do what you want. Certification is where the fun stops and you have to start proving that it's safe to carry the general public and in this case, the first stage of an ev toll and many around the world is that it is safe to carry even just one individual. If we're doing hover testing etc, etc. That's still in the, I guess, the proof of concept stage, which is great. But yeah, the earlier you can start thinking about this certification stuff and the challenges that that poses and, I guess, the framework that you have to meet, the earlier you can start addressing those. Then it kind of hits you less of like a freight train when you finally get there and and I think you touched upon it, but I'd like to explore why certification in the first place?

Speaker 2: 7:10

There can be a lot of negative talk about certification. Right, and, as people who are experts in certification, what is the raison d'etre of certification? What is the value that it brings to a certain product, to a certain industry?

Speaker 1: 7:24

Brightly. So I mean, maybe we're being a little bit unfair. You know I can, obviously, because I work in certification. It's easy for me to say that we rain on the parade and for some of our clients especially if I'm talking about our experiences with Javelin in general it does feel like that Someone will have an amazing idea and you're the one that really has to sit them down and get them to think about the details of what they're proposing and and asking the hard questions. And I guess that's what certification is in a nutshell it's asking the hard questions that no one really wants to think about until the end. But the value of certification well, I mean, would you buy a car for your family if it wasn't ANCAP safety rated?

Speaker 2: 8:09

Well no. How do I know that it's safe enough for my family or good enough?

Speaker 1: 8:12

Would you fly on a Boeing aircraft if Well, no, I wouldn't fly. That is a bad example with recent events.

Speaker 2: 8:23

But I get your point, like if you're talking even about, say, something like the Titan submarine that imploded. That wasn't correct me if I'm wrong, but that wasn't to the right certification standards.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Exactly. Yeah, that was actually an experimental machine that they were. Look, I won't get into any details or any sort of speculation, but from the outside it looked like they were using it for commercial purposes, in which case you would really be required to be operating a certified machine, which experimental, by definition, means it's not certified. So, yes, that's an example of what can go wrong if things aren't certified, but there's many more, many more examples of that. But really, in a nutshell, the minimum safety level that most governments or public agencies will accept for essentially transporting civilians around will be something that is certified, and it's the same with drugs, for example. So pharmaceuticals, you are not allowed to sell anything in australia or anywhere in the world.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Really, uh, in, I guess, advanced countries where it doesn't hold some sort of tga certification, or in america. It's the what is it? The fda? Fda, exactly, yeah. So you know, cert represents the most formal kind of threshold that we have for something that is safe for public consumption. So, really, if you don't have it, then it's okay, you can still do what you're doing, but you could never widen your experimental vehicle or experimental drug to the public market, for example. So with e-vetol and electronic aircraft, etc.

Speaker 2: 10:11

Those are the sort of things that I believe we're doing it because we want to open it to the public, so therefore, we need to start thinking about certification yeah, and I might just add a footnote to that, in that with aviation, in particular civil aviation, there's an added dimension to the sub process, whereas, let's say, for the tight end sub, something goes wrong like it did, you had a couple of people who died, unfortunately, but no one else was endangered, whereas in aviation, if something goes wrong, not only have the passengers of that you might be paying a fare, you might have the pilots, but then that can also fall on someone's head. Yes, so we have that added risk with aviation. And well, potentially, certification is a lot more important too, and that's where we've seen a lot of emphasis on certification procedures for aviation.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Yeah, absolutely the elephant in the room is always insurance as well. Insurance is really one of the mechanisms that modern societies have in order to allow risk right, because it's a risk-based approach to taking risks. So an insurance company you pay them money and they will agree to cover you in the case that something goes wrong, but that will come with terms and conditions, obviously. In most cases, that will revolve around some sort of certification. So you know, an insurance company will never insure you. If you were to drive around a car that you designed yourself, for example, it would have to be ANCAP safety rated, and it's the same with aviation as well.

Speaker 2: 11:46

Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Actually, actually, with insurance, never thought of it that way. Insurance is a mechanism that modern society has to allow risk. It's a very succinct way to put it.

Speaker 1: 11:59

And certification is the only way that insurance can function. Yeah Right, so they go hand in hand.

Speaker 2: 12:06

Right, yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:09

We were talking about the importance of certification, the commercial importance of certification be able to insure something, bring it to market, make it manage the risk enough so that it can be a commercial endeavor. Traditionally civil aviation quote-unquote normal aircraft you know the aircraft that you might go in at the airport and it takes off Two wing, you know one. Or you might go in at the airport and it's two wings. You know one or two or four engines, yeah, and it lands as an aircraft would land and anyone would know. It has had a long history of certification.

Speaker 2: 12:40

Look, they've changed sort of incrementally over the past years. New technologies come on board but fundamentally it hasn't really changed because the technology itself hasn't changed that much and how we use it hasn't changed. How an aircraft takes off has been pretty similar over the years and how it's landed, especially in civil aviation space. Now can you talk about this certification process or is there such a process for an eVTOL aircraft? You know we're talking about an aircraft that can take off and land vertically and then travel like a conventional aircraft. Perhaps it's cruise and land vertically at the other end and something that carries a person, so essentially cross between a drone and a normal aircraft. What are some of the certification aspects of that? Is there any such framework right?

Speaker 1: 13:32

now that's a great question. So you mentioned before that our idea of what an aircraft is has been quite traditional since the wright brothers, the early, early 1900s Two wings, any number of engines with propellers, you know some sort of tailplane. I guess certification has gone along with that. It's evolved as our understanding of aircraft has evolved. So while there wasn't probably a detailed design standard back in 1920, I can guarantee that by sort of 1930, there definitely was, because this is when there was a commercial interest in aviation and then someone started asking the insurance question. So the standards back then were very general, very general. They weren't too prescriptive. It was your aircraft needs to be able to take off within a certain distance, it needs to be able to maintain level flight if it has an engine outage, etc. Etc. And then what happened since then? The regulations tended to grow with technological advancement, so as new materials came along and the understanding of what an aircraft design was, and also with accidents.

Speaker 1: 14:49

So every accident that occurred it was forensically analysed. When something goes wrong to an aircraft that was certified, then it begs the question were the certification requirements adequate or not? And in most cases the answer was no, especially in the early days. And even now it's a common saying the regulations are written in blood. And it's true, because for every single accident that happens, a significant accident, the regulations they learn, they get revised. A classic example of something like that happening recently is the Japan incident. I can't remember the exact airline, but they essentially landed on top of a Dash 8 in Japan and the miraculous thing was that, at least for the passenger aircraft, everyone was able to disembark before the aircraft went up in flames. Believe it or not, had that have been a 1930s aircraft, it's highly likely that everyone would have perished on board. It would have just gone up in flames. But due to the innovations, I guess, in the regulations over time, there have been so many incidences of aircraft that have come down on fire with people on board and they have simply just not been able to get out in time. So that scenario is something that the regulations take very seriously and that's why they have minimum requirements there for the time it takes to evacuate right.

Speaker 1: 16:15

So for commercial aircraft in this day and age, I think the requirement is that you need to have everybody out within 90 seconds, which is quite ambitious when you think about how many people can be crammed onto these aircraft. But you look at the air japan's flight and the amount of time that it took everybody to get off I think it was 90 seconds on the dot right, almost as if they were hosted. We've played to the flight. Yeah, absolutely, and I guess that's an example of how, over time, our regulations have really become very, very good, for the most part, at making an aircraft safe, to the point that they would have done a test, a physical test, before the aircraft is certified. They have to actually so before an aircraft rolls out, they fill it up with people, they turn all the lights off, they don't tell anybody on board which doors are going to be obscured and they have to simulate a, an actual emergency landing and an evacuation scenario. And if they don't do it within 90 seconds, then the aircraft doesn't pass.

Speaker 2: 17:17

So I think we're looking at the wrecks the other day. Do I recall correctly that for the pill wreck we're looking at, half of the doors need to be?

Speaker 1: 17:24

correct, not working. Yes, and that was the case on the Japan flight.

Speaker 2: 17:30

Yeah, yeah, because I remember we were looking at that case and we were like, oh, that one got off in 90 seconds, but then some of the doors were obscured and how does that work? What does the red actually say? And the red actually had in there.

Speaker 1: 17:40

Yeah, so I can't speak 100% for that regulation. But it wouldn't surprise me if at some point that particular regulation maybe back in the 1970s said everybody needs to be able to evacuate the aircraft safely. And then they might have had an incident where there was a fire and people weren't able to make it out in time. So then they released an update to that regulation that says everybody needs to be able to make it out of the aircraft safely in 90 seconds, Right, and then that would have existed for some time. And then they would have had a situation where the aircraft was on the ground and it was on fire and half the doors were obscured, which, when you think about it, is probably a pretty good assumption to make.

Speaker 1: 18:30

If something has gone wrong and the aircraft's on fire, it'd be a fairly best-case scenario if none of the doors were actually obscured. So there was probably another accident at some point which the FAA or someone looked at and said actually we need to revise these regulations and make sure that they can still get 90 seconds, but half the doors need to be closed, which is Air Japan. That incident comes along and it's a textbook reflection of the test case that they have in the regulations and a textbook outcome, yeah, which is amazing and save lives. For the end of the day, Save lives. So I think that, amidst a whole bunch of other factors, I think that definitely the fact that that aircraft was certified and was able to meet those emergency evacuation requirements, that is a very strong reason why.

Speaker 2: 19:24

We spoke about the traditional aircraft certification and that it's been around for such a long time. And so what about eVTOL now and emerging technologies? How does that all fit in into this certification framework? That's been quite it's an old, in a sense that it's been around for a long time. Can you talk about that? How does that plug there? Does it even plug in there, or does it need a new framework?

Speaker 1: 19:50

Look. The short answer to the question is there a cert framework for eVTOL aircraft at the moment is no. There's not no-transcript.