| (1) | For the purposes of this regulation, any reference to— |
| (a) | a specified date upon which an application for type certification is submitted to a Contracting State means the date an application is made for a new aircraft type, not the date of certification of particular aircraft variant or derivative model; and |
| (b) | a specified date upon which an individual certificate of airworthiness is first issued means the first time a certificate of airworthiness is issued for a new individual aircraft serial number that has just come off an assembly line. |
| (2) | A person shall not conduct a commercial operation— |
| (a) | with a helicopter of an MCTOW exceeding 3 180 kg for which an individual certificate of airworthiness was first issued on or after 1 January 2016 unless such helicopter is equipped with a Type IVA FDR that complies with the requirements prescribed in Document SA-CATS 127; |
| (b) | with a helicopter of an MCTOW exceeding 7 000 kg, or having a passenger seating configuration of more than 19, for which an individual certificate of airworthiness was first issued on or after 1 January 1989, unless such helicopter is equipped with a Type IV FDR that complies with the requirements prescribed in Document SA-CATS 127; |
| (c) | with a helicopter of an MCTOW exceeding 7 000kg, or having a passenger seating configuration of more than nine, for which an individual certificate of airworthiness was first issued on or after 1 January 1989, unless if— |
| (i) | such helicopter is equipped with an FDR that complies with therequirements prescribed in Document SA-CATS 127; |
| (ii) | an air service operator has established and maintained a flight data analysis as part of its SMS for such helicopter; and |
| (iii) | a flight data analysis programme contains adequate safeguards to protect the source of data. |
| (3) | An air service operator shall ensure that the following FDRs are not installed in a helicopter referred to in sub-regulation (2): |
| (a) | engraving metal foil FDR; |
| (b) | photographic film FDR; |
| (c) | analogue FDR using frequency modulation; and |
| (4) | A Type IV, Type IVA, and Type V FDR shall be capable of retaining information recorded during at least the last ten hours of its operation. |
| (5) | An air service operator shall not engage in a commercial operation with a helicopter of an MCTOW exceeding 7 000 kg unless— |
| (a) | if such helicopter is equipped with a CVR; and |
| (b) | for a helicopter not equipped with an FDR, at least the main rotor speed is recorded on a CVR. |
| (6) | An air service operator shall ensure that a CVR installed in accordance with this regulation is not a magnetic tape and wire CVR. |
| (7) | A helicopter required to be equipped with a CVR shall be equipped with a CVR capable of retaining information recorded during the last two hours of its operation. |
| (8) | A helicopter for which an individual certificate of airworthiness was first issued on or after 1 January 2016, which utilises any of the data link communications applications prescribed in Document SA-CATS 127 and which is required to carry a CVR, shall be capable of recording data link communications messages on a crash-protected flight recorder. |
| (9) | A minimum recording duration on a data link recorder shall be equal to the duration of a CVR. |
| (10) | A data link recording to a data link recorder shall be able to be correlated to the recorded cockpit audio. |
| (11) | The documentation requirement concerning FDR parameters provided by an air service operator to the Executive responsible for Aircraft Accident and Incident investigation shall be in electronic format and take account of industry specifications. |
[Regulation 127.05.14 substituted by regulation 17(c) of Notice No. R. 3170, GG48228, dated 17 March 2023 (Twenty-Sixth Amendment of the Civil Aviation Regulations, 2023)]
