The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has today published the second volume of its European Plan for Aviation Safety (EPAS) which includes the introduction of noise requirements for VTOL capable aircraft;
“The Agency has a mandate to collect and verify aircraft noise and performance information for noise modelling around airports, as per Regulation (EU) No 598/201472 Article 7,” says the text of the report. “A number of novel technologies are rapidly approaching market maturity. In order to respond proactively to these technologies and allow for smooth certification based on robust environmental assessments, a dedicated activity has been launched to assess their environmental characteristics and sustainability. This will include the electric propulsion project as well as the sustainability assessment of alternative fuels. The success of this activity will be ensured by engaging traditional stakeholders as well as aviation environment non-governmental organisations (NGOs).”
The Agency will also develop new ways of assessing the environmental impact of eVTOLs and other novel commercial aircraft within a life-cycle view.
Again, according to the Agency:
“The use of electric and hybrid propulsion systems has the potential of significantly reducing the aviation environmental footprint in terms of both gaseous emissions and noise. However, to ensure that this objective is met, the full life cycle of the product needs to be taken into account as well as the energy mix used to encompass the environmental impact from raw material extraction, production, operation as well as recycling of the parts after removal from service. To encourage the safe integration of new technological advancements in the wider electrical aviation sector overall, flexibility in the approach on all types of concepts, variations and design types will be enhanced.
In terms of its approach to certifying future electric and hydrogen based aviation technologies the Agency will expand the use of certification Special Conditions.
“To allow for the projects to thrive, a number of complex issues need to be tackled from a regulatory perspective. In terms of rulemaking for aircraft and propulsion systems design requirements, EPAS actions will be included once enough experience will have been gained on the use of certification Special Conditions (SCs).
“The use of performance-based and non-prescriptive specifications is already laid down in the SCs for VTOL-capable aircraft and electric and hybrid propulsion technologies and may be embedded also in the future CSs, as already used for e.g. CS-23. EASA has also developed a dedicated set of SCs, which will be applied together with existing certification specifications (CS-E, CS-23, CS-27, etc.) for the certification of aircraft with electric and hybrid propulsion, and on a case-by-case basis for each application. Moreover, in order to enable standardised type certification of electric and hybrid propulsion systems (EHPS), either in the case of having a separate engine type certificate (TC) for the EHPS, or in the case where the EHPS would be integrated into the aircraft TC, a set of technical specifications have been established in a dedicated SC for EHPS.
“The proposed SC E-19 was published for public consultation on 27 January 2020 and the consultation ran until 19 June 2020. EASA received 501 comments and provided a final version with a comment-response document (CRD) in April 202167. SC E-19 requires the aircraft installation to be known for the certification of the EHPS. As the definition of EHPS installation interfaces would depend on the specific aircraft application, the possibility to further define EHPS requirements to ensure a two-step approach (step 1: requirements for engine TC not related to a specific platform; step 2: requirements for engine TC relevant to a specific platform integration) will continue to be studied in 2023 with the objective of first confirming the industry need for this two-step approach.
“The first small aircraft type model with fully electric propulsion system was EASA type-certificated on 15 June 2020. Likewise, in electric and hybrid aviation EASA aims to continue building up knowledge on emerging technologies (such as H2 technologies, fuel cells, evolving technologies for batteries), to establish technical advice contracts (TACs) or IPCs to identify certification challenges in innovative products, and to continue liaising with relevant industry and standardisation working groups. …In terms of rulemaking actions for other aviation domains, RMT.0731 will lead to different streams of activities, one of them addressing the regulatory gaps identified in the existing regulations with regard to electric and hybrid propulsion.”
For more information
https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/document-library/general-publications/european-plan-aviation-safety-epas-2025
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