scope:

PURPOSE AND SCOPE

General

The standards specified in this document define the requirements to be met in all aircraft required to carry a flight data recorder system for the purposes of accident investigation. The standards apply to recorders, ancillary equipment and their installation in aircraft.

Content

This document is divided into 7 Chapters and it has 6 Annexes. The remainder of Chapter 1 provides background material, comments and an explanation of the requirements from an accident investigation point of view.

Chapter 2 Defines the Operational Requirements which need to be met and which affect equipment capability, the manner of its installation and the support environment.

Chapter 3 (in conjunction with Annex 1) defines the data recording requirements.

Chapter 4 defines the equipment characteristics which need to be considered by the equipment manufacturer.

Chapter 5 specifies the Minimum Performance Levels of the recorder.

Chapter 6 defines the environmental conditions under which recorder performance will need to be demonstrated.

Chapter 7 specifies crash survival test requirements. The Annexes give guidance on parameter characteristics, equipment installation, flight testing, maintenance practices, crash survival testing and data compression.

Organisation

It is intended that the statements in Chapters 2 to 7 should be mandatory unless otherwise stated. The use of notes in these chapters is intended to add guidance material or to indicate acceptable means of compliance.  Similarly, the annexes provide guidance material to supplement the chapters and to indicate acceptable means of compliance

Relationship to EUROCAE Document ED-56

The standards specified in this document extend those previously published in EUROCAE document ED-56. Minimum Operational Performance Requirement for Cockpit Voice Recorder System. In partcular , the use of solidstate memory is now considered. The requirements for crash survival have been further enhanced taking in to account the severity of a number of recent accidents and the use of recorders in a wider range of aircraft . Guidance on crash survival testing has now been included.

 Units of Measurement

The requirements are expressed, where appropriate, in metric units . The approximate equivalent imperial units are given i n parentheses.