Latest news June 6, 2006 Sailplane Development Panel - second day The second day of the Sailplane Development Panel (SDP) started with a presentation by Roland Stuck, European Gliding Union (EGU) President entitled: ‘Is there a future for light and powered sailplanes?’. After the break we had a joint session with TSP dealing with collision avoidance systems. This included a presentation by the FLARM team followed by an discussion about an appropriate way how to deal with propriatary interests. Afterwards Andrea Schlapach, Urs Rothacher and Urban Maeder were awarded the OSTIV Prize for their work. After lunch, Ronald Blume of the Luftfahrt Bundesamt gave a presentation describing some of the issues regarding the design and certification of jet-powered sailplanes. Petr Kousal, of the Czech Republic, then reviewed a jet-engine test facility using a Blanik. We then heard Boudewijn Deuss give a general description of a European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), followed by a detailed discussion of the rolemaking process. He also identified areas in which the efforts of OSTIV/SDP in establishing airworthiness standards can coordinate with the rulemaking activities of EASA. Finally, the committee approved to make changes to the OSTIV Airworthiness Standards (OSTIVAS) to accommodate lightweight gliders, as well as to make the change to allow the maximum weights of sailplanes to be the same of as that of powered sailplanes; 850 kg.
