The Compound Materials Aircraft Working Group can now look back on an important anniversary date: on 17th. and 18th. July this year, the members met for the 50th. time. The Working Group was founded on 20th. February 1987 by German aircraft engine manufacturers and the Federal Office of Civil Aeronautics under the chairmanship of the technical-scientific services provider IABG. In the meantime the chairmanship has been taken over by the firm Grob, Aerospace Directorate. The central task through to today is the creation of a common basis for the development and certification of structures for compound materials aircraft in accordance with FAR/JAR 23.
This important basis for the development of compound materials aircraft has been compiled by the Working Group by maintaining and updating the Compound Materials Aircraft Handbook. In this standard work for the small aircraft industry is documented the collective knowledge surrounding the development, design and manufacture of compound materials aircraft. Thus, for example, there are a large number of confirmatory methods coor-dinated with the Federal Office of Civil Aeronautics for the fulfilment of air-worthiness certification requirements in accordance with FAR/JAR 23 and which thus serve to strengthen the small and medium-sized companies in the aircraft industry.
In order to keep the Handbook always up-to-date, the members of the Working Group continuously worked on new topics in the form of subject papers which were then critically reviewed in the Working Group meetings every six months and included in the Handbook after having been revised and agreed. The proposals for contributions were initiated not only by members of the Working Group but also from external sources. Thus, for instance, the Federal Ministry of Transport repeatedly put forward individual topics. A current example of this is the development of a simplified confir-matory method for changing the resin system for already certificated struc-tures. This investigation was concluded in the middle of 2001 under the lead management of IABG and with the involvement of members of the Working Group and in close cooperation with the Federal Office of Civil Aeronautics.
In the 50th.Meeting of the Working Group, the participants discussed the necessary steps confirmatory method for changing the compound materials for already certificated structures.
The following firms and institutes are represented in the Compound Materi-als Aircraft Working Group
Firms:
- IABG mbH
- Aerostruktur
- Extra Flugzeugbau
- Grob, Unternehmensbereich Luft-und Raumfahrt
- Euro ENAER
- MK Helicopter GmbH
- Zeppelin NT
Institutes:
- Institut für Flugzeugbau (IFB) der Universität Stuttgart
- Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) Stuttgart
Governmental Agencies:
- Federal Office of Civil Aeronautics
