EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
CIVIL AVIATION REGULATIONS
CIVIL AVIATION ORDERS
APPROVAL UNDER SUBREGULATION 207 (2)
Section 98 of the Civil Aviation Act 1988 empowers the Governor-General to make regulations.
Subregulation 207 (2) of the Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 (the Regulations) provides that an Australian aircraft shall not be used in any class of operations unless it is fitted with such instruments and is fitted with or carries such equipment as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) approves or directs.
Section 20.18 of the Civil Aviation Orders (the Orders) sets out instruments and equipment required for Australian aircraft engaged in certain classes of operations.
Paragraph 6.1 of section 20.18 provides that certain aircraft referred to in the paragraph must not be flown unless equipped with an approved flight data recorder system and an approved cockpit voice recorder system. An approved flight data recorder system is required by paragraph 6.5 to retain its last 25 hours of recording. An approved cockpit voice recorder system is required by that paragraph to retain its last 30 minutes of recording.
This approval under subregulation 207 (2) is for Eurocopter AS 332L helicopters operated by Lloyd Helicopters Pty Ltd, trading as CHC Helicopters, to operate with an approved flight data recorder system that retains its last 5 hours of recording. The approval is stated to be subject to the aircraft having an approved cockpit voice recorder system that retains its last 30 minutes of recording.
In addition, subsection 2 of section 103.20 of the Orders contains design requirements for cockpit voice recorder systems. One of these requirements is for the recording to occur simultaneously on at least 4 channels. This approval allows the aircraft cockpit voice recorder system to record simultaneously on only 3 channels if in all other respects it complies with the requirements of subsection 2, including installation and recording parameters.
Under regulation 5A, a “prescribed direction or exemption” that affects the operation of anything in an Order is a disallowable instrument. Because the approval affects the operation of paragraph 6.5 of section 20.18 and subsection 2 of section 103.20, it is a prescribed direction or exemption as defined in regulation 5A and has been tabled as a disallowable instrument.
The approval was issued by a delegate of CASA in accordance with regulation 7 of the Regulations and came into effect on gazettal.
[Instrument Number CASA 242/02]