ETOPS - FAA regulation discussion and the impacts over EMBRAER aircraft

• Autor(a) principal: Carlos Alberto Moraes Gonçalves
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações do ITA
• Texto Completo: http://www.bd.bibl.ita.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=1255
• topic: Confiabilidade de aeronaves; Certificação; Regulamentação aeronáutica; Operações de linhas aéreas; Tempo de voo; Sistemas de propulsão; Homologação (dificuldade em serviço); Engenharia aeronáutica

Since the beginning of commercial operation twin-engine airplanes are limited to flying in a distance equivalent to 60 minutes, with one inoperative engine, from an airport. This limitation restricted for years the twin-engine operation on very important route such as the North Atlantic route, between United States and Europe. Based on requests from operator and aircraft manufactures during the 1980s the American aviation authority - FAA - issued an extension allowing the operation beyond the 60-minute rule. This extension was called ETOPS. With this extension the commercial operator of a twin-engine airplane should fly distances higher than the old one correspondent to 60 minutes distance, with one inoperative engine. Following FAA decision, several aviation authorities issued an extension for the 60-minute rule and ETOPS operation has been working as an extension of a regulation for more than 20 years. Because of this particularity, in 2000, FAA created a workgroup to discuss ETOPS operation and include its requirements within the official regulation (14 CFR), including the parts for product certification and operation, allowing that the airplane should be optionally certified for ETOPS operation, and its operation depending only on the operator certification. This dissertation details the FAA ETOPS rule and, at the end, demonstrate the EMBRAER airplane ERJ 190-100 capability for its operation.