background image

146 

14 CFR Ch. I (1–1–24 Edition) 

§ 121.344a 

(j) Each flight data recorder system 

required by this section must be in-
stalled in accordance with the require-
ments of § 25.1459(a) (except paragraphs 
(a)(3)(ii) and (a)(7)), (b), (d) and (e) of 
this chapter. A correlation must be es-
tablished between the values recorded 
by the flight data recorder and the cor-
responding values being measured. The 
correlation must contain a sufficient 
number of correlation points to accu-
rately establish the conversion from 
the recorded values to engineering 
units or discrete state over the full op-
erating range of the parameter. Except 
for airplanes having separate altitude 
and airspeed sensors that are an inte-
gral part of the flight data recorder 
system, a single correlation may be es-
tablished for any group of airplanes— 

(1) That are of the same type; 
(2) On which the flight recorder sys-

tem and its installation are the same; 
and 

(3) On which there is no difference in 

the type design with respect to the in-
stallation of those sensors associated 
with the flight data recorder system. 
Documentation sufficient to convert 
recorded data into the engineering 
units and discrete values specified in 
the applicable appendix must be main-
tained by the certificate holder. 

(k) Each flight data recorder required 

by this section must have an approved 
device to assist in locating that re-
corder under water. 

(l) The following airplanes that were 

manufactured before August 18, 1997 
need not comply with this section, but 
must continue to comply with applica-
ble paragraphs of § 121.343 of this chap-
ter, as appropriate: 

(1) Airplanes that meet the State 2 

noise levels of part 36 of this chapter 
and are subject to § 91.801(c) of this 
chapter, until January 1, 2000. On and 
after January 1, 2000, any Stage 2 air-
plane otherwise allowed to be operated 
under Part 91 of this chapter must 
comply with the applicable flight data 
recorder requirements of this section 
for that airplane. 

(2) British Aerospace 1–11, General 

Dynamics Convair 580, General Dynam-
ics Convair 600, General Dynamics 
Convair 640, deHavilland Aircraft Com-
pany Ltd. DHC–7, Fairchild Industries 
FH 227, Fokker F–27 (except Mark 50), 

F–28 Mark 1000 and Mark 4000, Gulf-
stream Aerospace G–159, Jetstream 4100 
Series, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation 
Electra 10–A, Lockheed Aircraft Cor-
poration Electra 10–B, Lockheed Air-
craft Corporation Electra 10–E, Lock-
heed Aircraft Corporation Electra L– 
188, Lockheed Martin Model 382 (L–100) 
Hercules, Maryland Air Industries, Inc. 
F27, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. 
YS–11, Short Bros. Limited SD3–30, 
Short Bros. Limited SD3–60. 

(m) All aircraft subject to the re-

quirements of this section that are 
manufactured on or after April 7, 2010, 
must have a digital flight data recorder 
installed that also— 

(1) Meets the requirements of 

§ 25.1459(a)(3), (a)(7), and (a)(8) of this 
chapter; and 

(2) Retains the 25 hours of recorded 

information required in paragraph (h) 
of this section using a recorder that 
meets the standards of TSO–C124a, or 
later revision. 

(n) In addition to all other applicable 

requirements of this section, all Boeing 
737 model airplanes manufactured after 
August 18, 2000 must record the param-
eters listed in paragraphs (a)(88) 
through (a)(91) of this section within 
the ranges, accuracies, resolutions, and 
recording intervals specified in Appen-
dix M to this part. Compliance with 
this paragraph is required no later 
than February 2, 2011. 

[Doc. No. 28109, 62 FR 38378, July 17, 1997; 62 
FR 48135, Sept. 12, 1997, as amended by Amdt. 
121–300, 68 FR 42936, July 18, 2003; 68 FR 50069, 
Aug. 20, 2003; Amdt. 121–338, 73 FR 12565, Mar. 
7, 2008; Amdt. 121–342, 73 FR 73178, Dec. 2, 
2008; Amdt. 121–338, 74 FR 32800, July 9, 2009] 

§ 121.344a Digital flight data recorders 

for 10–19 seat airplanes. 

(a) Except as provided in paragraph 

(f) of this section, no person may oper-
ate under this part a turbine-engine- 
powered airplane having a passenger 
seating configuration, excluding any 
required crewmember seat, of 10 to 19 
seats, that was brought onto the U.S. 
register after, or was registered outside 
the United States and added to the op-
erator’s U.S. operations specifications 
after, October 11, 1991, unless it is 
equipped with one or more approved 
flight recorders that use a digital 
method of recording and storing data 

background image

147 

Federal Aviation Administration, DOT 

§ 121.344a 

and a method of readily retrieving that 
data from the storage medium. On or 
before August 20, 2001, airplanes 
brought onto the U.S. register after Oc-
tober 11, 1991, must comply with either 
the requirements in this section or the 
applicable paragraphs in § 135.152 of this 
chapter. In addition, by August 20, 2001. 

(1) The parameters listed in 

§§ 121.344(a)(1) through 121.344(a)(18) of 
this part must be recorded with the 
ranges, accuracies, and resolutions 
specified in Appendix B of part 135 of 
this chapter, except that— 

(i) Either the parameter listed in 

§ 121.344 (a)(12) or (a)(15) of this part 
must be recorded; either the param-
eters listed in § 121.344(a)(13) or (a)(16) 
of this part must be recorded; and ei-
ther the parameter listed in 
§ 121.344(a)(14) or (a)(17) of this part 
must be recorded. 

(ii) For airplanes with more than two 

engines, the parameter described in 
§ 121.344(a)(18) of this part must also be 
recorded if sufficient capacity is avail-
able on the existing recorder to record 
that parameter; 

(iii) Parameters listed in 

§§ 121.344(a)(12) through 121.344(a)(17) of 
this part each may be recorded from a 
single source; 

(iv) Any parameter for which no 

value is contained in Appendix B of 
part 135 of this chapter must be re-
corded within the ranges, accuracies, 
and resolutions specified in Appendix 
M of this part. 

(2) Commensurate with the capacity 

of the recording system (FDAU or 
equivalent and the DFDR), the param-
eters listed in §§ 121.344(a)(19) through 
121.344(a)(22) of this part also must be 
recorded within the ranges, accuracies, 
resolutions, and recording intervals 
specified in Appendix B of part 135 of 
this chapter. 

(3) The approved flight recorder re-

quired by this section must be installed 
as soon as practicable, but no later 
than the next heavy maintenance 
check or equivalent after August 18, 
1999. A heavy maintenance check is 
considered to be any time an airplane 
is scheduled to be out of service for 4 
more days and is scheduled to include 
access to major structural components. 

(b) For a turbine-engine-powered air-

planes having a passenger seating con-

figuration, excluding any required 
crewmember seat, of 10 to 19 seats, that 
are manufactured after August 18, 2000. 

(1) The parameters listed in 

§§ 121.344(a)(1) through 121.344(a)(57) of 
this part, must be recorded within the 
ranges, accuracies, resolutions, and re-
cording intervals specified in Appendix 
M of this part. 

(2) Commensurate with the capacity 

of the recording system, all additional 
parameters listed in § 121.344(a) of this 
part for which information sources are 
installed and which are connected to 
the recording system, must be recorded 
within the ranges, accuracies, resolu-
tions, and sampling intervals specified 
in Appendix M of this part by August 
20, 2001. 

(c) For all turbine-engine-powered 

airplanes having a passenger seating 
configuration, excluding any required 
crewmember seats, of 10 to 19 seats, 
that are manufactured after August 19, 
2002, the parameters listed in 
§ 121.344(a)(1) through (a)(88) of this 
part must be recorded within the 
ranges, accuracies, resolutions, and re-
cording intervals specified in Appendix 
M of this part. 

(d) Each flight data recorder system 

required by this section must be in-
stalled in accordance with the require-
ments of § 23.1459(a) (except paragraphs 
(a)(3)(ii) and (6)), (b), (d) and (e) of this 
chapter. A correlation must be estab-
lished between the values recorded by 
the flight data recorder and the cor-
responding values being measured. The 
correlation must contain a sufficient 
number of correlation points to accu-
rately establish the conversion from 
the recorded values to engineering 
units or discrete state over the full op-
erating range of the parameter. A sin-
gle correlation may be established for 
any group of airplanes— 

(1) That are of the same type; 
(2) On which the flight recorder sys-

tem and its installation are the same; 
and 

(3) On which there is no difference in 

the type design with respect to the in-
stallation of those sensors associated 
with the flight data recorder system. 
Correlation documentation must be 
maintained by the certificate holder. 

background image

148 

14 CFR Ch. I (1–1–24 Edition) 

§ 121.345 

(e) All airplanes subject to this sec-

tion are also subject to the require-
ments and exceptions stated in 
§ 121.344(g) through (k) and § 121.346. 

(f) For airplanes that were manufac-

tured before August 18, 1997, the fol-
lowing airplane types need not comply 
with this section, but must continue to 
comply with applicable paragraphs of 
§ 135.152 of this chapter, as appropriate: 
Beech Aircraft–99 Series, Beech Air-
craft 1300, Beech Aircraft 1900C, 
Construcciones Aeronauticas, S.A. 
(CASA) C–212, deHavilland DHC–6, 
Dornier 228, HS–748, Embraer EMB 110, 
Jetstream 3101, Jetstream 3201, Fair-
child Aircraft SA–226, Fairchild Metro 
SA–227. 

(g) All airplanes subject to the re-

quirements of this section that are 
manufactured on or after April 7, 2010, 
must have a digital flight data recorder 
installed that also— 

(1) Meets the requirements in 

§ 23.1459(a)(3), (a)(6), and (a)(7) or 
§ 25.1459(a)(3), (a)(7), and (a)(8) of this 
chapter, as applicable; and 

(2) Retains the 25 hours of recorded 

information required in § 121.344(g) 
using a recorder that meets the stand-
ards of TSO–C124a, or later revision. 

[Doc. No. 28109, 62 FR 38380, July 17, 1997; 62 
FR 48135, Sept. 12, 1997; 62 FR 65202, Dec. 11, 
1997, as amended by Amdt. 121–300, 68 FR 
42936, July 18, 2003; Amdt. 121–338, 73 FR 
12566, Mar. 7, 2008; Amdt. 121–338, 74 FR 32801, 
July 9, 2009; Amdt. 121–347, 75 FR 7356, Feb. 
19, 2010] 

§ 121.345 Radio equipment. 

(a) No person may operate an air-

plane unless it is equipped with radio 
equipment required for the kind of op-
eration being conducted. 

(b) Where two independent (separate 

and complete) radio systems are re-
quired by §§ 121.347 and 121.349, each 
system must have an independent an-
tenna installation except that, where 
rigidly supported nonwire antennas or 
other antenna installations of equiva-
lent reliability are used, only one an-
tenna is required. 

(c) ATC transponder equipment in-

stalled within the time periods indi-
cated below must meet the perform-
ance and environmental requirements 
of the following TSO’s: 

(1) 

Through January 1, 1992: 

(i) Any 

class of TSO-C74b or any class of TSO- 
C74c as appropriate, provided that the 
equipment was manufactured before 
January 1, 1990; or 

(ii) The appropriate class of TSO-C112 

(Mode S). 

(2) 

After January 1, 1992: 

The appro-

priate class of TSO-C112 (Mode S). For 
purposes of paragraph (c) (2) of this sec-
tion, ‘‘installation’’ does not include— 

(i) Temporary installation of TSO- 

C74b or TSO-C74c substitute equip-
ment, as appropriate, during mainte-
nance of the permanent equipment; 

(ii) Reinstallation of equipment after 

temporary removal for maintenance; or 

(iii) For fleet operations, installation 

of equipment in a fleet aircraft after 
removal of the equipment for mainte-
nance from another aircraft in the 
same operator’s fleet. 

[Doc. No. 6258, 29 FR 19205, Dec. 31, 1964, as 
amended by Amdt. 121–101, 37 FR 28499, Dec. 
27, 1972; Amdt. 121–190, 52 FR 3391, Feb. 3, 
1987] 

§ 121.346 Flight data recorders: fil-

tered data. 

(a) A flight data signal is filtered 

when an original sensor signal has been 
changed in any way, other than 
changes necessary to: 

(1) Accomplish analog to digital con-

version of the signal; 

(2) Format a digital signal to be 

DFDR compatible; or 

(3) Eliminate a high frequency com-

ponent of a signal that is outside the 
operational bandwidth of the sensor. 

(b) An original sensor signal for any 

flight recorder parameter required to 
be recorded under § 121.344 may be fil-
tered only if the recorded signal value 
continues to meet the requirements of 
Appendix B or M of this part, as appli-
cable. 

(c) For a parameter described in 

§ 121.344(a) (12) through (17), (42), or (88), 
or the corresponding parameter in Ap-
pendix B of this part, if the recorded 
signal value is filtered and does not 
meet the requirements of Appendix B 
or M of this part, as applicable, the cer-
tificate holder must: 

(1) Remove the filtering and ensure 

that the recorded signal value meets 
the requirements of Appendix B or M of 
this part, as applicable; or