Upholstery

[prasmussen]

What are the chances the final inspector for my project will reject my upholstery material because it has no FAA paperwork. Heard a rumor that someone paid a shop to install an interior and ran into trouble.

[rwanttaja]

What are the chances the final inspector for my project will reject my upholstery material because it has no FAA paperwork. Heard a rumor that someone paid a shop to install an interior and ran into trouble.

Personally, never heard of that happening. Presume you're referring to a homebuilt, of course.

Ron Wanttaja

[WLIU]

Today's question is whether you used FAR 25 qualified materials or just material from the local fabric store? If you used a supplier like Douglas Interiors who just ships qualified fabrics then just showing the receipts should be good enough. If you used local fabrics you should be aware that most upholstery fabrics these days pass the California test for resistance to ignition by a dropped cigarette. And I think that DOT has an equivalent test for auto fabrics. What you likely want to do is send a sample out to one of the labs like Skandia, Inc.Flammability Department and have their DER run the test. Not that expensive. You get a report that you can show your DAR if asked.

Best of luck,

Wes

[martymayes]

What are the chances the final inspector for my project will reject my upholstery material because it has no FAA paperwork.

If it's a homebuilt there are zero flammability standards. The final inspection is mostly a paperwork exercise.

[MPerkins]

Fabric flammability standards do not apply to E/AB aircraft.

[WLIU]

Technically true but burning to death applies to all types of vehicles.

"Heard a rumor" - does not provide much info. You likely would benefit from asking more specific questions of whomever is spreading that rumor.

For better or worse, the requirement for resistance to flamability comes from some history of aircraft fires. That said, the population of smokers has gotten much smaller these days and many, if not all, light planes, including homebuilts, do not have ashtrays installed or functioning cigarette lighters.

Best of luck,

Wes

[Airmutt]

Read 23.853, not that it applies to EABs. It’s not that it can’t burn, it can’t support combustion for more than 15 seconds once the fame is removed. Also addresses burning, dripping material too. Crashworthiness and survivability rate pretty low on EAB designs. But that’s the nature of the beast we all accept.