Avionics News January 2015 - 14

F R O M
R I C
P E R I
A EA V I C E P R ES I D E N T O F G OV E R N M E N T & I N D U ST RY A F FA I RS

The Aircraft Electronics Association's international membership continues to grow. Currently, the AEA represents avionics
businesses in more than 40 countries throughout the world. To better serve the needs of the AEA's international membership,
the "International News and Regulatory Updates" section of Avionics News offers a greater focus on international regulatory
activity, international industry news and an international "Frequently Asked Questions" column to help promote standardization.
If you have comments about this section, send emails to avionicsnews@aea.net.

CANADA

News & Regulatory Updates
CAR 521 revision update
The Transport Canada Civil Aviation Standards
division has been working with several internal
committees to advance the revision to CAR
521. Senate and Cabinet committees have been
reviewing the plan for the change and have asked
for clarifications in several areas. This has resulted
in further delays to the introduction of a notice of
proposed amendment and industry consultations. The
planned areas of revision have not changed since the
PICA was published a year ago. The most significant
change should be to cover specific language to allow
a delegate to issue an alternate design approval for
modifications instead of an STC.
An industry working group should be put together
sometime in 2015; however, it is not likely that an
NPA will be published for two years. At this time,
the change to CAR 521 is a high priority to Transport
Canada. But as part of the regulatory process, the
proposed changes must get through the Department of
Transport priorities, Department of Justice priorities
and parliament priorities.
A change affecting those involved in design
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january

2015

approval activities is the recent revision to the
surveillance procedures staff instruction (SUR001). It has added details on process inspections for
design approval holders and design delegates. Until
this revision, the requirement for the surveillance
of delegates and design approval holders had
not been clear and was not happening with any
consistency. With this change, however, there will
be more frequent surveillance activities for delegates
and design approval holders. The TCCA has not,
in the past, specifically audited design approval
holders unless they held delegation. However, with
the introduction of CAR 521, there were specific
requirements introduced that must be verified, such
as the design approvals holders are meeting the
regulation as any other civil aviation document holder.

EUROPE

News & Regulatory Updates
European Aviation Safety Agency
On Sept. 1, 2014, the European Aviation Safety
Agency implemented the new organization structure,
processes and procedures defined during the
"Convergence" project, whose objective has been:

Avionics News January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News January 2015