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SIEGE SOCIAL : 

1 ROND POINT MAURICE BELLONTE 

31707 BLAGNAC CEDEX - FRANCE 

PHONE +33 (0)5 61 93 33 33

FROM 

Philippe de Gouttes 

DATE 

05 February 2010 

PHONE 

+33 (0)5 61 93 27 91 

FAX 

+33 (0)5 61 93 31 55 

E-MAIL 

philippe.de-gouttes@airbus.com 

OUR REFERENCE 

M10005704 

YOUR REFERENCE 

Docket No. FAA-2005-20245, Notice No. 10-01 

Docket Operations, M-30 

U.S. Department of Transportation 

1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE. 

Room W12-140 

Washington, DC 20590-0001 

U.S.A. 

AIRBUS COMMENTS TO DOCKET No. FAA-2005-20245, NOTICE No. 10-01, EXTENSION OF 

THE COMPLIANCE DATE FOR COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER AND DIGITAL FLIGHT DATA 

RECORDER REGULATIONS 

Dear Sir, dear Madam, 

With NPRM 10-01, published on January 7, 2010, the FAA proposes to extend some compliance 

dates for cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data recorder regulations, compared to those 

dates required by FAR Amendment 121-338 et al., published on March 7, 2008 and effective on 

April 7, 2008, hereinafter referred to as “the 2008 rule”. As stated in the summary, this NPRM is a 

consequence, in part, of petitions sent to FAA from several aircraft manufacturers and industry 

organizations asking for extended compliance dates. Airbus was one of those petitioners. 

We welcome the opportunity to submit our positions on the NPRM, and provide clarifications that 

the FAA is kindly asked to consider in its further proceeding. 

When preparing our petition for exemption from the 2008 rule, Airbus was fully aware that the relevant operating regulations were not directly applicable to us as an aircraft manufacturer, but to our 

customers operating under Part 121 or 129. However, to support them, and as the systems affected by the proposal are highly complex and need sufficient time to be developed and implemented, we decided, after informal discussion with the FAA, to send that petition on behalf of our 

customers. 

Obviously, other aircraft manufacturers faced the same issues with the compliance dates required 

in the 2008 rule, and sent their own petitions on behalf of their customers, also requesting extended compliance dates for final rule Amendment. 121-338 et al. 

In the background section of NPRM 10-01, Federal Register Vol. 75 Page 945, chapter C. “FAA 

Response to Petitions”, the FAA makes the statement: 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 2 

“ The FAA is seriously disappointed with the manufacturers and other facets of the industry. 

The identicality and scope of the various petitions appears as a decision by industry not to 

comply with the April 2010 date, a decision that was made some time ago.” 

By this letter, Airbus makes it unambiguously clear that this is not true. There was in no way a 

manufacturing industry coordinated action to delay implementation of the 2008 rule. 

On the contrary, note that, already in 2005, in our comments on the NPRM that resulted in the 

2008 final rule, we emphasized that an implementation date 2 years after the effective date of the 

rule (April 7, 2010 in the final rule) was considered not feasible. See Reference [1], in which AIRBUS stated: 

“If the proposed sampling interval of 0.0625 seconds would become mandatory, the necessary modifications of all these systems will be not possible within the 2 years time frame 

given in the proposed regulation. AIRBUS expects lead times between 3 and 4 years for 

implementation (re-design of the new units plus integration, qualification and certification) of 

the modified systems, depending on the affected program.” 

We made it clear in our comments that the proposed recording rate change would not only affect 

the FDR and associated interface units (FDIMU), but would also require redesign of other critical 

aircraft systems providing the parameter information (Flight Control Data Concentrator, System 

Data Acquisition Concentrator; plus possibly others: Flight Warning System, Display Management 

Computers). 

In addition, Airbus stated that the impact of such a redesign was not covered in the compliance 

cost estimated in the NPRM, nor was the proposed 2-year time frame realistic for a redesign of 

these systems. Therefore, AIRBUS expected and requested a lead-time between 3 and 4 years for 

implementation (re-design, integration, qualification and certification, SB release) of the modified 

systems. 

The FAA did not accept these arguments on compliance lead-time and cost when it issued the final 

amendment 121-338 (et al.) in 2008. 

The 2008 rule requirements that were subject to industry petitions are: 

- Appendix M to § 121.344, footnote 18: 

“For all aircraft manufactured on or after April 7, 2010, the seconds per sampling interval is 0.125 (for flight control and input parameters: 12a, 12b, 13a, 13b, 14a, 14b, 

15, 16, 17 and 88). Each input must be recorded at this rate. Alternately sampling inputs (interleaving) to meet this sampling interval is prohibited.”

- New paragraph 121.359 (k): 

“All airplanes required by this part to have a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data 

recorder, that install datalink communication equipment on or after April 7, 2010, 

must record all datalink messages as required by the certification rule applicable to 

the airplane.” 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 3 

- New paragraph 121.359(j)): 

“All turbine engine powered airplanes subject to this section that are manufactured 

on or after April 7, 2010, must have a cockpit voice recorder installed that also (1) 

Meets the requirements of § 23.1457 or § 25.1457 of this chapter, as applicable.” 

[Note: For ease of reading, we only mention the relevant sections in Part 121, but our 

analysis applies to the equivalent sections in Parts 91, 125, 129, and 135 as well.] 

In the following sections Airbus details its position and actions taken after investigation of the 2008 

rule’s consequences and impacts: 

1. DFDR Sampling Rates

With regard to the DFDR sampling rates in Appendix M to FAR 121.344, Amendment 121-

338 introduced 8 samples/second (i.e. 0.125 second interval) instead of a sampling interval 

of 0.0625 seconds (i.e. 16 samples/second) as initially proposed in the 2005 NPRM. With 

its change from 16 to 8 samples per second, the FAA apparently assumed that the required 

design change would be less complex, thus alleviating the implementation time problem. 

We have to make it clear that this assumption did not match engineering reality. 

Design changes which are necessary for 8 samples/sec (or 0.125 seconds interval), are 

generally as complex as those which would have been required for implementing a DFDR 

sampling rate of 16 per second. For example, a modified FCDC implementation requires a 

high speed bus for 8 as well as for 16 samples/second. 

As a consequence, the expected lead-time of at least three years to implement and to certify necessary changes continued to be a valid concern. 

After publication of the Final Rule in 2008, AIRBUS was in continuous discussion with the 

FAA (mainly with the Avionic Systems Branch, AIR-130) on how to manage the new recording rules, and especially the April 7, 2010 deadline. Information exchanges took place 

between AIRBUS and the FAA in order to achieve an aligned interpretation of the new rules 

and to reconcile the issues of in-time implementation of the necessary design changes. Because AIRBUS was highly interested to have a clear interpretation of the new rules, we initiated a meeting with the FAA on June 5, 2008 (reference [2]). Since then the FAA and 

AIRBUS exchanged information numerous times. 

The FAA AIR-130 organization gave very useful technical clarification about the rule of Independent Power for CVR and the interpretation concerning “approved data message set” 

for Datalink Recording. 

AIRBUS also provided detailed information and justification to AIR-130 concerning the 

technical impact of the FDR requirement for 8 samples per second on some parameters 

and the time needed to implement it. The latest information submitted to the FAA on November 30, 2009 provided sufficient data of the development schedule (references [2] and 

[3]). Among others the following information was submitted: 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 4 

A318/A319/A320/A321 [Single Aisle – SA – Program]: As all Airbus Programs are 

affected at the same time by the FAA regulations, the initial argument of "complex 

changes on parameter source systems" needs to be expanded with resources issues at Airbus and supplier engineering as well as test availabilities. Teledyne is for 

example currently busy with the A330/340 FDIU/FDIMU until Q1/2010, then followed 

by SA FDIMU. The availability of the SA FDIMU is the "bottleneck", and will not be 

available before end 2010. 

 

A340/A330 [Long Range – LR – Program]: In general, the reason is similar to the 

statements given for A318/A319/A320/A321. The "bottleneck" for LR is a necessary 

change of the FCDC to provide the parameters with 8 samples on an A429 bus, 

which is not available on the current used bus. The target date (End of 2010) for the 

availability of the new FCDC is a result of the negotiation with the supplier. The 

change request for the FCDC was introduced on top of other equipment changes, 

that were already earlier planned (e.g. to ensure changes for A330-200F Freighter). 

 

There were clear indications from the FAA that our positions, although sent informally, were 

valued, comprehensive and considered justified. Airbus got the impression that the FAA 

would finally publish a solution not penalizing operators and manufacturers. 

Having in mind that situation, we were surprised when, on January 7, 2010, the FAA published NPRM 10-01 to amend FAR 121 and other operating rules. The FAA denied all petitions and modified the compliance date from April 7, 2010 (Amendment 121-338) to December 6, 2010 for the implementation of the revised DFDR sampling rates (Appendix M to 

§ 121.344). Once adopted, this would provide only an eight-month extension for the implementation (design, certification and installation) of those changes to allow our customers to 

demonstrate compliance with the applicable operating rules, instead of a one-year extension (until April 2011), which we determined as the time normally needed for such implementation. 

 

Airbus is now faced with this new situation. To allow industrial planning, we provisionally 

take December 6, 2010 as the new deadline. 

To avoid that any concerned operator will run into conflicts with the expected deadline of 

December 6, 2010, AIRBUS immediately launched actions to ensure compliance with the 8-

samples/sec requirement on or before this date. AIRBUS has increased the pressure on 

equipment suppliers as needed to achieve implementation and timely certification. 

However, at this point in time – one month after the NPRM issuance - AIRBUS is not yet in 

a position to guarantee the implementation of all necessary design changes for the beginning of December 2010. AIRBUS is fully aware that non-compliance with FAR 121.344 Appendix M would prevent operational approval of affected airplanes. We cannot at this time 

be sure that this will not happen without the one year extension in compliance time, as we 

already requested. 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 5 

2. Datalink Recording

AIRBUS has proposed, for Datalink Recording, a technical solution fully compliant with the 

FAA requirements. This solution has already been certified and implemented in AIRBUS 

A380. It will be available for the AIRBUS A330/340 and A320 families at the end of 2011, 

which is after the required implementation date. This is why AIRBUS sent a petition to the 

FAA, asking for a temporary exemption. 

The AIRBUS petition was formulated to allow delivery of production airplanes without being 

compliant with the rules after April 7, 2010 until the date when compliant datalink recording 

systems can be certified and installed on aircraft. 

The rule is not directly applicable to aircraft manufacturers, but to concerned operators. 

Consequently we had to send this petition “on behalf of our customers”, in order to support 

them in possible further proceedings. 

Airbus requested relief from the datalink recording rule for FANS-A+ new generation until 

December 2011. In addition to the petition that AIRBUS sent to the FAA on June 11, 2009 

(see reference [4]), AIRBUS submitted much more detailed information to the FAA (see reference [5]). The latter contains not only the timing constraints for implementing datalink recording, but also a description of the technical implementation. 

There were clear indications from the FAA, in particular during the meeting held in Washington on June 5, 2008 that the petition as sent was justified and the FAA would provide a 

solution not penalizing operators and manufacturers. During the FAA/EASA/AIRBUS meeting on November 17-18-19, 2009, the FAA repeated their understanding of the justification 

and need for extension of the compliance time. 

 

There are many considerations that AIRBUS asked the FAA taking into account to accept 

the petition: 

• The AIRBUS solution for datalink recording is mature, fully compliant with the FAA 

mandate and even beyond as recorded data are really taken close to the source. It 

is common to all AIRBUS aircraft and already validated in A380. It could be installed 

either in forward-fit or in retrofit. The relevant provisions (i.e. CVR, cabling, power 

supply, ATSU, etc.) are ready and could be installed from now. The remaining item 

(ATSU software), presently under development, could be installed at the end, allowing a quick retrofit. 

• There are a limited number of AIRBUS aircraft potentially concerned with a temporary petition: About 20 aircraft will be delivered by AIRBUS under N-registration and 

equipped with FANS before AIRBUS can provide the retrofit kit (essentially the software package). 

• There is a parallel development of generations of FANS (FANS A+, FANS B+). 

FANS B+ is developed to comply with European Implementing Rule for ATS Datalink, sharing the same AIRBUS industrial capacity and resources. This product, including new FANS functional improvements and Datalink Recording capability, is 

now required before the end of 2010. That is the main reason why AIRBUS decided 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 6 

to certify the FANS-B+ product earlier than the FANS A+ upgrade with Datalink recording capability. 

• There is no harmonization with the European operating regulations, which will not 

require datalink recording before 2012. Currently, datalink recording is not required 

in Europe for the Airbus Single Aisle and Long-range aircraft families. The EASA established Certification Review Items (CRIs) to set the datalink link recording capability certification requirements for recent (A380) and ongoing (A350) type certification 

programs. 

• ICAO reconsidered their Standards by asking for datalink communication recording 

on airplanes manufactured or modified on and after January 1, 2016 (State letter 

2009/56, August 17, 2009). 

• There are alternative means, which can be used at least temporarily, e.g. the use of 

ATC Ground recording capabilities, or/and the usage of the crew voice recording by 

repeating the received messages. 

However, in the new NPRM published on January 7, 2010, the FAA would deny all petitions 

and disregard all previous discussions. The FAA instead modified the above requirements 

to set a new deadline of December 6, 2010. 

From the beginning of enhanced FANS development in 2006, AIRBUS made a product policy which took into account all parallel FANS developments. The objectives were: 

• A FANS A+ product upgrade to provide datalink recording capability approved by 

FAA/EASA on 3rd quarter 2011, and available to operators by the end of 2011. At 

that time, this was compliant with existing (or foreseen) regulations requiring Datalink Recording capability. 

• A FANS B+ product, to answer the European Commission Implementing Rule for 

Datalink Services, available for operators at the end of 2010 (note the initial assumption we took into account was an European mandate for FANS B+ in April 

2009, which has been finally postponed to February 2011). 

From this, a reliable development planning was built, and activities launched accordingly: 

FANS B+: 

• Operational Needs : December 2005 

• Launch of FANS B+ activities : October 2007 

• FANS B+ development : From 2008 to 2010 

• Product availability : December 2010 

FANS A+: 

• Operational Needs : December 2005 

• Launch of activities : October 2006 

• First standard developed : September 2007 

• Final FANS A+ Perimeter definition : June 2009 

• Final FANS A+ ATSU specifications : February 2010 

• Final lab tests : March 2011 

• Final Flight tests : April 2011 

• Expected FAA/EASA approval : September 2011 

• Product availability : December 2011 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 7 

 

 In parallel and as already mentioned, a lot of activities were initiated to make the FAA 

aware of this status. Up to now no formal answer has been received about planning. 

The situation remains as described within the petition. The AIRBUS program is on-going 

with no adverse issue, but AIRBUS is presently unable to change the given program time 

schedule one year before certification activities. 

 

AIRBUS is still convinced that the circumstances should allow the FAA to temporarily exempt operators from the datalink recording requirement. 

If the FAA is unable to provide such an exemption to concerned operators, AIRBUS could 

provide an option to deactivate ATC datalink applications, the messages of which should be 

recorded by FAR 121.359(j) and (k). This could be done by physically removing CPDLC 

applications from the ATSU, a configuration that is already certified. This could also be possible by operational procedures. However, from the AIRBUS point of view, it would be a pity 

to penalize CPDLC operational procedures and subsequent benefits – both operational and 

in terms of safety – which are expected by operators, only because datalink recording is not 

available on board. We hope that the FAA can extend the compliance period for data link 

message recording to the end of 2011 to avoid this undesirable situation, and this inadvertent, unnecessary degradation of safety. 

3. FAA requirement of ten-minute backup power source for CVR

The FAA requires by § 121.359(j) to meet the requirements of § 23.1457 or § 25.1457 of 

this chapter, as applicable. In particular, subparagraph 25.1457(d)(5) requires an independent power source that provides 10 ± 1 minutes of electrical power to the CVR. The effective date of this implementation remains per § 121.359(j) on April 7, 2010. 

The requirements of subparagraph 25.1457(d)(5) contain some specific design and installation driven constraints, which constrict partly solutions that would be otherwise in compliance with the intention of the rule. The FAA did confirm that the rule might constraint specific solutions. To overcome these constraints, AIRBUS proposes alternative solutions to 

the FAA. Discussions with the FAA (Avionic Systems Branch, AIR-130) resulted in agreement on the FAA side with the principles of the AIRBUS solution. 

To justify that the solution will comply with the intention of the rule, AIRBUS established 

ELOS “Equivalent Level of Safety” for each relevant aircraft program. At present time AIRBUS has received an agreement for the A350 (Issue Paper IP-SA5). For Single Aisle and 

Long-range aircraft, the FAA received the application from AIRBUS to approve the required 

changes and the solution to comply with § 121.359(j) referring to § 25.1457(d)(5). AIRBUS 

assumes that the FAA will be able to grant an approval for both aircraft programs before 

April 2010. 

In addition, AIRBUS recommends that the FAA publish guidance documents providing acceptable solutions to comply with the intention of subparagraph 25.1457(d)(5). 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 8 

4. Inconsistency of compliance dates in § 121.359 (k) and (j)

Further to what we detailed in sections 1, 2 and 3 above, Airbus takes the opportunity to 

ask FAA to provide clarification of the compliance date in § 121.359(j). 

NPRM 10-01 does not propose to align that date with those proposed for §121.359(k) and 

Appendix M to § 121.344. For Airbus and our customers, the requirement to have installed 

CVRs compliant with § 25.1457 by April 7, 2010, but datalink recording by December 6, is 

inconsistent and creates confusion. In particular, § 25.1457(a)(6) (at amendment 25-124) 

also requires that datalink recording be implemented. 

In that context, our experts were also asked how to interpret applicability of § 25.1457 as 

required by § 121.359(k). Most Airbus types do not have amendment 25-124 in their certification basis, thus are not required to have recording capabilities if datalink is installed 

Up to now, we did not conclude that for those airplanes compliance with § 121.359(j) can 

be achieved based on previous §25.1457 without provisions for datalink recording. 

Airbus recommends that the preamble material to the final rule resulting from NPRM 10-01 

include clarification on this issue. 

In addition to this position and comment document on NPRM 10-01, Airbus provides some information (e-mail communications with the FAA, a Technical Note, and meeting minutes) that support 

our explanations and activities detailed in section 1 above. We request that those documents, 

which are identified by the word (Proprietary) in the attached reference list, be handled as proprietary data and be excluded from the public docket. 

Thank you for considering our contributions. In case of further information needs, please contact 

the undersigned. 

Sincerely yours, 

Philippe de Gouttes 

Head of Regulations and Policies 

Product Integrity Division 
FROM Philippe de Gouttes DATE 05 February 2010 

REFERENCE M10005704 PAGE 9 

References: 

[1] Airbus letter M05008024 (27 June 2005) DOCKET No. FAA-2005-20245, REVISIONS TO 

COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER AND DIGITAL FLIGHT DATA RECORDER REGULATIONS. 

[2] (Proprietary) June 2008: Minutes of Meeting X31MN0812881 AIRBUS-FAA meeting New Recording Rules. 

[3] (Proprietary) E-mail exchange AIRBUS – FAA on rule for FDR 8 samples/sec: 

• AIRBUS to FAA, 3 November 2009 “Minutes of the Teleconference on 30.10.2009” 

• FAA to AIRBUS, 3 November 2009 “Confirmation that the Minutes of the Telecon are correct” 

• AIRBUS to FAA, 30 November 2009 “Information on remaining expected information for 

temporary exemption on implementation of 8 samples/sec” 

• Teleconference on 3 December 2009 + e-mail AIRBUS to FAA: Confirmation that information is sufficient. 

[4] AIRBUS Petition for Exemption to FAA 11 June 2009 (ref. X23M09026462). 

[5] (Proprietary) AIRBUS Technical Note DATALINK RECORDING CAPABILITIES ON AIRBUS 

FAMILY AIRCRAFT (5 January 2009; Ref: X23ME0900158 issue 1)