Proposed Part 23 Means of Compliance based on Flight Testing of Level 2 and Level 3 Aircraft

General aviation suffers from an alarmingly high rate of fatal loss-of-control accidents. For a number of years, the aviation community has been working on developing new airworthiness certification standards and means of compliance to move the safety needle. This paper proposes a new Part 23 means of compliance based on flight testing of single-engine Level 2 and Level 3 aircraft, crafted to address the low-altitude and startled-pilot loss-of-control problem. This means of compliance encourages good low-speed handling qualities, promotes flight characteristics over warning devices, redefines roll limits to appropriate values, eliminates the ambiguous term “uncontrollable nose down pitching motion”, allows cost-effective flight testing with appropriate minimum standard flight test methodology, specifically emphasizes the qualitative assessment of the certification authority test pilot for compliance determination, and achieves a higher standard than previous Part 23 amendments. The means of compliance combines minimum thresholds for coordinated stall characteristics with point-based scoring for uncoordinated “feet-on-the-floor” stalls, longitudinal trim force changes during configuration changes, and warning devices. The paper reports on the flight tests executed in the development of this means of compliance and discusses the motivation and thought processes.