April 12, 2016

Mr. David King

AW609 Chief Engineer

AgustaWestland

3050 Red Lion Road

Philadelphia, PA 19114

Dear Mr. King:

This is in response to your August 5, 2015 letter posted to public Docket No. FAA-2015-

4800 petitioning the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to add § 60.38 of Title 14, Code 

of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) to designate applicable Flight Simulation Training Device

(FSTD) qualification standards representing aircraft class that are not covered in other 

sections of this rule.

The FAA has reviewed AgustaWestland’s petition for rulemaking and the information 

provided. In the petition, you pointed out that part 142 requirements state that an FSTD used 

in an FAA- approved training program must be qualified under part 60. However, part 60 

does not adequately address special classes of aircraft such as the tiltrotor. Furthermore, the

deviation authority in § 60.15(c), which authorizes the Administrator to consider deviations 

from the part 60 Qualification Performance Standards (QPS), does not cover instances where 

an FSTD evaluation standard for a special class of aircraft is not defined in the part 60 QPS.

You propose adding the following section to the main requirement section of part 60:

§ 60.38 Designation of applicable FSTD qualification standards representing aircraft 

class that are not covered in other sections of this rule.

(a). For special classes of aircraft (e.g. powered-lift, tiltrotors, gliders, airships, and 

other nonconventional aircraft) for which FSTD qualification standards have 

not been issued under this part, the applicable requirements will be the portions 

of those other FSTD qualification standards contained in Appendix A, B, C, or 

D of this part found by the FAA to be appropriate for the aircraft and applicable 

to a specific type design or such criteria as the FAA may find provide an 

equivalent level of safety.
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(b). For FSTDs qualified under this section, the standards used to initially evaluate 

and qualify the FSTD will become the permanent qualification basis of the

FSTD and recorded in the FSTD's Master Qualification Test Guide (MQTG).

(c). The evaluation and qualification of an FSTD that represent an aircraft whose 

category and class has not been addressed in other appendices of this rule may 

be evaluated and qualified utilizing alternate means of compliance.

(d). The alternate means of compliance standards for qualification of the FSTD 

will be developed by the sponsor and approved by the FAA National Simulator 

Program Manager (NSPM).

The FAA has a priority list for rulemaking that addresses many issues crucial to the safety of 

the aviation community and the traveling public. The FAA must prioritize its limited 

rulemaking resources to provide the greatest safety benefit to the aviation system as a whole.

The FAA has determined this proposed change to have merit as a reasonable accommodation 

allowing FSTDs for nonconventional aircraft (i.e. those aircraft not fitting within the existing 

QPS appendices of part 60) to receive qualification in a timely manner while ensuring 

sufficient testing is accomplished to qualify the device. 

For the reasons above, the FAA will consider this during prioritization of future rulemaking

projects. 

Sincerely,

/s/

Dale Bouffiou

Deputy Director, Office of Rulemaking