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Rutan on FAA certification



 
 
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Old November 1st 04, 07:09 AM
Jim Kingdon
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Default Rutan on FAA certification

Found this tidbit via HobbySpace from a speech Rutan gave recently.
The interesting part is that he says "you got to have government
certification that protects passengers", which might seem to put him
at odds with many space activists
(e.g. http://www.space-access.org/updates/sau105.html where it says
"industry participants have to be able to take some risks in these
early days in order to learn enough so that rockets can eventually be
as safe as airplanes only got after generations of accumulated
aviation experience"). Now, Rutan wasn't directly addressing HR 3752
in particular, so there might not be a disagreement, but his comment
seems to go against what many activists have been advocating for the
last decade or so.

Why certification of suborbital vehicles is a good thing:

You have to have certification, and its the cheapest thing you ever
buy. First of all, it costs you between nine and sixteen percent more
because the FAA is there. Forget these guys who say certification
makes it ten times as expensive. I know what it takes. I asked
Beechcraft when they were done certifying the structure on the
Starship [aircraft], which is a tough thing to do. I asked them what
if there was no FAA, what if you, Beechcraft, did your testing only
for your ethics. Now your ethics mean that its not a good thing to
kill our customers. What did certification really cost you? They
said. Thats a really good question, and we think we have the data for
a very good answer. They huddled and came back with a report for me
about a week later. That report showed me every test, every test
article, and every report that the FAA insisted that they do that they
didnt think be done. They took everything that was in dispute in other
words, I wouldnt have done that but the FAA made me do it and it came
out to be nine percent.

Certification is not expensive because of the FAA. And Ill tell you
something, its the very best thing you can buy when you have an
accident and somebody gets killed. The plaintiffs attorneys job is to
convince that non-technical jury that you did a sloppy job, that you
didnt do enough for his safety. The very best thing you can do is say
that there are specific government certification requirements and I
met every one of them, and you even get to bring the government in to
certify to the jury that you passed all of the safety
requirements. Without that you cant survive as an industry: you cant
survive the first accident, and you cant insure. So you got to have
government certification that protects passengers.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/255/2

 




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