Single-Engine Turbine Ops Still Proving Difficult in Europe

Kyle Martin, v-p economic affairs for GAMA

SET-IMC Conference at AERO

When the European Union enacted a new regulation in 2017 to allow Commercial Air Transport (CAT) operations using Single Engine Turbine (SET) aircraft, many in the industry thought that at last something that had grown solidly in the United States and some other countries since the 1990s would add a new dimension in Europe, adding considerably to connectivity and boosting the economic contribution of such aircraft – produced by manufacturers such as Pilatus, Piper and Textron.

In fact, some six years later, there are very few operators using SET aircraft for CAT in Europe, and the European SET fleet is still predominantly flying privately, although the size of the fleet has grown significantly (especially Pilatus PC-12s). The reasons for this lack of progress were debated at a SET-OPS seminar on Friday, April 21st at AERO Friedrichshafen, (EDNY) Europe’s leading event for general aviation (GA). The event was organized by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) in conjunction with Emerald Media and fairnamic, the company that runs AERO, and moderated by Volker Thomalla, editor-in-chief of Aerobuzz.de.

Among the main reasons SET-OPS (referred to in the regulations as SET-IMC due to it enabling CAT (e.g., charter) flights in Instrument Meteorological Conditions), has caused issues is the requirement to always have a landing site within gliding distance should the engine fail, along with higher approach minima (visibility and decision height) than with a twin-engine aeroplane doing the same operation.

“Operators are not able to take advantage of the full efficiency [of the aircraft] as they have to do strange routings to keep within range of landing sites,” said Kyle Martin, v-p economic affairs for GAMA. “There is a lot of added bureaucracy for no added safety.” SET-OPS is something that could help deliver on sustainability goals such as those set by EASA’s GA Flightpath 2030+, which was unveiled at the AERO Friedrichshafen show, along with 2050 net-zero targets. Yvan Nadeau, chief engineer customer service with Pratt & Whitney Canada, reiterated the very high reliability and efficiency of the PT6 turboprop, the mainstay engine of the SET fleet for more than 30 years.

Martin said that the debate over allowing SET-IMC operations started 30 years ago, in 1993, at a conference in Rome. He believes “there is still lots of potential in Europe…and SET is ideally placed to be early adopters of electric technology, hybrid engines, hydrogen.”

Bruno Budim, former executive director of Danish SET operator BenAir Norway

Bruno Budim, former executive director of Danish SET operator BenAir Norway, who was on the original EASA Rulemaking Group for SET-IMC in 2013, said: “We stopped [SET-IMC] operations as it was impossible to make it profitable. He pointed to the higher approach minima which meant less certainty of completing a mission.

“FedEx has been doing CAT for 32 years now,” said Budim. “More than 80 routes are operated daily by FedEx in the US,” while he said a recent operator survey showed operations were being conducted successfully in many parts of the world. This also showed a drastic decrease since 2017, however, as, somewhat paradoxically, before 2017 there were several SET operators using exemptions while the regulations were formulated by EASA.

Budim warned that the operating challenges in Europe were also “encouraging illegal charter,” whereby private operators conducted flights for payment, impacting safety levels. “We need EASA to act so we can return to the spirit of the original regulation.”

Tom de Neve, director of flight operations with Luxembourg-based PC-12 operator JetFly, said that Brexit (the UK leaving the European Union) meant that “all of a sudden we needed CAT [under the SET-OPS rules] to keep flying to and within the UK.” To help it gain approval, JetFly used a tool developed within Jeppesen’s ForeFlight flight planning app. “This gave us correct gliding distances and terrain, and we were able to plan routes”.

De Neve said the approval program was conducted in a Flight Simulation Training Device (FSTD) and involved 50 inflight engine shutdown flights with regulator observers, with instrument conditions being simulated at 11 different airfields. “EASA said that it proved that with a good in-flight shutdown procedure you can do all-weather operations,” he said. However, de Neve warned: “We’re still dealing with 800m [visibility] and 200ft [minimum altitude] minima, which is not helpful. It represents quite a restriction – we need a better guarantee we can do the flight. We support a performance-based approach, not a one-size fits all.”

While this work has led to draft changes to the regulations governing SET-IMC training, Budim warned that there are still hardly any simulators available worldwide, so regulators’ increasing expectations for SET-OPS emergency training to be carried out in an FSTD adds significantly to costs. He pointed out that the regulations actually state that ‘recurrent training and checking… should be carried out in an FSTD when available and accessible’. Meanwhile, he was also concerned that greater training costs simply encouraged operators to conduct single-pilot operations.

“The reason BenAir never bought new Cessna Caravans was that there was only one simulator in the world, and it was in Wichita,” said Budim. “There was only one EASA-approved FSTD for [around] 2500 C208s Caravans flying.”

The situation has changed little, according to Jonathan Shooter of London Biggin Hill Airport-based Oysterair, which specializes in PC-12 and Cessna Caravan type training. He said the use of simulator training was invaluable for SET-IMC and welcomed the decision by the UK CAA in April 2023 to approve a Frasca/Simcom simulator at Fly 7 in Lausanne, Switzerland for PC-12 SET-IMC training, under an exemption.

Shooter, who noted that a PC-12 type rating costs around £25,000 (more than US$30,000), also warned that operators should “engage with insurers very early” as they may be surprised at how much experience they require pilots to have for SET-IMC operations, and said another challenge was that instructors are difficult to find as they need 500 multi-engine hours, so generally end up coming from commercial/business operations rather than GA.

Nicolas Chabbert, senior vice-president of French SET manufacturer Daher’s Aircraft division, said “It was a super-long journey starting in 1993 and thanks to EASA for taking this step [in 2017], [but] today we should be ten years in advance of where we are right now …the elephant in the room is there; we have the tech, the motivation from the operators. I thought I’d see a large number of SET operators by now under CAT, but this is not the case. How long do we need – two years, five years, 15 years? We need a very simple way to operate.”

In response, EASA certification manager Ralph Menzel said following the study conducted in 2021 to better understand the selection and use of emergency landing sites, it had established a new Expert Group within EASA, and had “agreed a roadmap.”

Johan Glanz, senior manager safety and regulatory affairs for EBAA (the European Business Aviation Association), explained how Covid-19 had “actually made EASA realize that business aviation has a place – connectivity – we connect 1,400 airports, airlines connect 500” (and airlines reduced operations drastically during the pandemic): “I just learned that an Expert Group has been created on emergency landing sites – but it is disturbing that there is no industry representation – just regulators!” “It’s coming,” interjected EASA’s Menzel.

The conference concluded with an airports/airfields panel involving IAOPA Europe regional vice-president Michael Erb, the author, Ian Sheppard, representing Aviation Week Network’s AC-U-KWIK airport directory for business aviation operators, and Thomas Meyer of IDRF, an association representing many of Germany and Austria’s smaller airports and airfields. Erb’s main concern was the continued paucity of GNSS approaches in Europe, while the panel was also concerned that smaller airports were disappearing, reducing in number, while new technologies that would need them – eVTOLs for example – were emerging (although they face even greater regulatory hurdles).

“We’ll write a report after today with a clear set of requests to EASA on how to improve [the situation],” stated GAMA’s Kyle Martin.