Intended To Ensure Past Errors Are Not Repeated
The National Air Transportation
Association (NATA) will roll out "IC Check" -- billed as the only
comprehensive compliance-driven flight release system for
professionally flown general aviation aircraft operations -- on
June 10 at the 2008 NATA Air Charter Summit.
"The Part 121 community has been using flight releases for
decades to ensure regulatory compliance and improve safety," said
NATA President James K. Coyne. "After three years of development
and testing, professionally flown general aviation aircraft
operators now have a cost effective and easy way to confirm and
track compliance on a flight-by-flight basis."
"We're very excited about the potential IC Check holds for
improving the safety, security, efficiency and market advantage of
the progressive operators who already are using the program," Coyne
added.
NATA IC Check is an online application similar to online banking
or airline reservations systems that applies up to 300 algorithms
to individual flight data to confirm compliance with all applicable
Federal Aviation Regulations as well as other government
regulations and company, customer, industry and insurance standards
applicable to professionally flown general aviation flights.
IC Check's primary goal is to assess whether individual flights
for which an operator exercises operational control are flown only
with legal crew, legal passengers, legal aircraft and legal flight
parameters.
If IC Check's calculations indicate that the flight is "in
compliance" with all operator-specified requirements, the program
issues a "release" prior to flight in a process similar to that
followed by many Part 121 air carriers. Once initially configured
for an operator, the IC Check flight release process typically
requires two minutes of data entry per flight, much of which is
automated. Results are instantaneous.
To support ease of use, IC Check has
been integrated with CTA/FOS and Bart with integrations pending
with Avtrak, ATP, ARGUS, Wyvern, Skybooks and several other
programs.
Additionally, IC Check has been integrated with the National
Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's weather data feed to
record conditions at the origin of the flight, destination and en
route. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aircraft Situation
Display to Industry (ASDI) flight tracking data also will be
attached to individual flight records to prove compliance, per the
request of FAA officials who have reviewed the program and are
influencing its design.
NATA notes last fall's revocation of TAG/AMI's Part
135 certificate was triggered by 59 "charges" of
non-compliance with federal regulations, which were listed in
detail in the FAA's revocation order. The certificate revocation
also included a $10 million fine. Of the FAA's charges, more than
two-thirds could have been addressed to some degree by the use of
IC Check, according to the group.
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