Monday, May 16, 2011

EXCLUSIVE! BASA IPA Talks Start in New Delhi

Neelam Mathews

May 16, 2011

Time:6:55pm IST

India’s DGCA and the U.S. FAA talks began today in New Delhi on the Implementation Procedure for Airworthiness (IPA) taking the two closer to the signing of the Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement (BASA).

Chris Carter, who manages the FAA's Certification Procedures Branch is leading the FAA team of three members.

During the FAA visit from May 16-19, the draft of BASA IPA content will be reviewed by the FAA and DGCA teams. The final draft will then be submitted to legal counsel of both the Civil Aviation Authorities. Once the implementation procedure for airworthiness agreement is finalized and the Executive Agreement gets India’s Cabinet clearance, the final signing is expected in September.

The EA clearance is not expected to pose any problem, civil aviation secretary Nasim Zaidi , had told Aerospace Diary.

One of the first to benefit from BASA will be Goodrich. A “shadow” certification is under development with Goodrich in India for four-seat life rafts for use in general aviation aircraft. Development of the certification article is in progress and will become a model for entities involved in the bilateral arrangement.

Companies such as Honeywell Software in India are particularly interested in BASA as products designed in India have to be certified in the U.S resulting in delays and added costs.

Interestingly, HALs Advanced Light Helicopter- Dhruv- was earlier looking at an FAA certification, but later switched to the European EASA as the FAA process was longer and more complicated than it had anticipated.

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