The first thing you want to know about ASTM is that nobody in the know calls it the American Society for Testing and Materials, not anymore. “We were formerly under that name,” says Christine M. DeJong, manager, technical operations for ASTM International, “But it’s a global market now.”
Never was that any truer than in the aviation arena.
Indeed, and somebody has got to set and reconcile the standards by which industry operates. One prominent player is ASTM International. In all, ASTM says some 12,500-plus of its standards are employed worldwide to improve product quality, enhance safety, and facilitate trade. Five committees manage a portfolio of aviation-specific standards. Several others maintain materials and testing specifications.
By the numbers
ASTM’s reach is wide, its expertise deep. Consider, as of Oct. 15, 2015, Lui Fei, chief representative of ASTM’s China Office, said in a presentation that the organization had:
• 12,500-plus standards, 5,100 of which are employed in 75 countries;
• 147 committees;
• 32,000 members. Of those 32,000 members, 8,000-plus are international members. They come from 135 nations.
ASTM is accredited by ANSI — the American National Standards Institute, and its standards-setting process complies with World Trade Organization (WTO) principles, specifically the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement. It’s a pact which WTO says, “aims to ensure that technical regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures are nondiscriminatory and do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. At the same time, it recognizes WTO members' right to implement measures to achieve legitimate policy objectives, such as the protection of human health and safety, or protection of the environment. The TBT Agreement strongly encourages members to base their measures on international standards as a means to facilitate trade. Through its transparency provisions, it also aims to create a predictable trading environment.”
ASTM’s six key principles mirror those of the WTO: transparency, openness, impartiality and consensus, effectiveness and relevance, coherence, and consideration of developing nations.
Aviation-specific committees
That ethical umbrella covers a lot of territory in the aviation arena. There are five aviation-specific committees that translate these precepts into action:
• F37, Light Sport Aircraft: This first of ASTM’s dedicated aviation committees was formed back in 2003. As of this writing there were 204 members. F37, has generated 33 approved standards, with four more still in development. F37 works through an octet of subcommittees, subcommittees that cover a considerable swath of the market, from gliders to gyroplanes;
• F38, Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Formed in 2004, this committee has 153 members and over the years has produced a dozen approved standards, with 10 more in development. There are a trio of subcommittees covering airworthiness, flight operations, and personnel;
• F39, Aircraft Systems: Also born in 2004, the 100-member committee has put together six approved standards and has another nine in development. Its five subcommittees run the gamut — from design, alteration, and certification of electrical systems to design of avionics systems;
• F44, General Aviation Aircraft: This is the big one, and perhaps one of the most encompassing (not to mention needed) committee ASTM has. Comprised of some 290 members, 46 of whom are regulators, the General Aviation Aircraft Committee has spawned 11 approved standards, with another 10 waiting in the wings. Its seven subcommittees address things such as structures, powerplants, systems, and equipment — even regulatory liaison. The committee’s objectives are ambitious: harmonize current global GA requirements, increase safety while decreasing cost, and allow for newer technologies. That includes retrofits.
F44 is where much of ASTM’s aviation action is just now. Greg Bowles is the committee’s chairman, as well as the director of European regulatory affairs for the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.
He asserts, “The biggest benefit to the maintenance community is … the possibility of revitalizing light aviation.” Noting that the average age of GA aircraft today is 45 to 50 years old, Bowles says the category’s design rules “have become quite outdated and prescriptive.” FAA Part 23, for instance is a half-century old. The result: “We’ve got this point-in-time that’s frozen, and it’s allowed our [GA] industry to sort of stagnate. That stagnation is born, he maintains, of the fact “that it’s so expensive to get an exemption [to the rule] to do something different.”
DeJong says it takes at least five years to change a regulation via the traditional route. “With all the technological and safety advances available in the industry the Part 23 rule is about 50 years old. How can industry and global regulators keep up?” To say the aviation world has changed during that period understates the case.
The issue says DeJong is, “How do you get safety-enhancing products into an aircraft without it costing [too much]. There are incidents that could have been prevented by technology. You have all these products that could have been installed into the aircraft, but they either can’t be, or they’re too cost-prohibitive to put in the aircraft.
“So, since rule changes take such a long time, the industry is starting to go toward industry-voluntary consensus standards instead of prescriptive regulation. A standard can change in six months, and then the regulator can accept the new standard through policy instead of going through a rule change.” That’s the beauty of ASTM standards. In the world of clunky, cumbersome regulation changes, standards can be downright nimble, the lubricant that keeps the system moving.
Overall, ASTM standards across the board (not merely aviation) are propagating pronto. As of this writing, some 6,788 standards have either been adopted, used as a reference, or employed as the basis of national standards outside of the United States.
There’s movement too on the purely regulatory front. FAA has recognized just how cumbersome Part 23 is, and a re-work is on the way (indeed it may already be out by the time you read this).
Overall objectives will supplant tight, innovation-killing prescriptive rules. And that’s where Bowles says ASTM comes into play. “Standards that are being developed in that area will be really helpful in staying modern,” he says. “We can look for new ways of testing, new ways of manufacturing aircraft — and toward electric hybrid propulsion.”
Sustainable Biofuels
ASTM standards already underpin the fast-rising use of sustainable biofuels among many commercial airlines.
The ASTM publication Taking Flight: ASTM Standards that Support Aviation shows just how standards-setting works. ASTM International revised its D7566 Specification for Aviation Turbine Fuel Containing Synthesized Hydrocarbons by adding an annex to accommodate HEFA (Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids]-derived biofuels. Biofuels are destined to play an increasingly important role in commercial aviation in the years to come.
Developing the new standard, while melding it with an already-established one, was collaborative — just as all ASTM activities are. Involved were HEFA fuel producers, aircraft and engine manufacturers, regulatory representatives, and airlines.
The process entailed harmonizing D7566 with the provisions of D1655, a specification from the late 1950s. D1655 lays out the Specification for Aviation Turbine Fuels.
The aim was to ensure the new biofuel works, and won’t generate any unwelcome side effects. According to the new edition of D7566, criteria for the bio-derived or HEFA component encompasses better thermal stability, distillation control, and trace material properties — as well as setting out requirements for lubricity, distillation, and composition after blending.
In the ASTM publication, Mark Rumizen, FAA’s senior specialist for aviation fuels said, “The challenge [to revising D7566] was the need to balance safety with the need of the industry to introduce a renewable fuel and an alternative supply of aviation fuel.”
Again from the ASTM publication Taking Flight: “Oil companies, refiners, and producers of aviation turbine fuel and new alternative fuel producers will use the new specification in their operations to manufacture the fuel.”
F46 Aerospace Personnel
The latest ASTM standard, the one that rounds out the aviation-specific standards, is F46, Aerospace Personnel. Formed in 2014, this decidedly different committee has 73 members. As of this writing the committee had yet to have a standard approved. That’s because it’s so new. There are seven standards in development just now. Among other things the committee is looking at core competencies, soft skills, and that holy of holies in this business — compliance documentation.
To give you an idea of the scope of F46’s endeavors, there are eight subcommittees. In addition to endorsements, those subcommittees are tackling terminology and regulatory liaison.
This, then, is standards’ new frontier: people. And why not, asks Christine DeJong? “Standards aren’t just for products,” she contends. To be a good aircraft maintenance technician, she says, “‘You have to test this, you have to check that, you have to ensure this, you have to clean that.’ That’s what specifications or standards are going to tell you. Why wouldn’t that work for personnel? ‘You have to have this amount of training.’ This could come down to both levels of experience and base knowledge requirements.”
Five aviation-specific committees and counting. In this ever more complex world we inhabit, ASTM is a steady, enabling force — one whose influence seemingly can’t help but grow. As far as aviation is concerned that influence is on the rise at just the right time.
For more information visit www.astm.org.
