Mike Meier <<Mike>>
writes:

Wills Wing T2C 144 Granted DHV Gütesiegel

The Wills Wing T2C 144 has been granted the Gütesiegel by the DHV, and is now
certified in Germany.

Details, In German:

http://www.dhv.de/db1/source/technicdatareport1.php?lang=DE&equptype=1&templatesetid=-1&idtype=-2252&nopr=

http://www.dhv.de/db1/source/technictestreport1.php?lang=DE&fieldvalue=-2252&fieldname=Types.IDType&templatesetid=-1&nopr=1

Details, In English:

http://www.dhv.de/db1/source/technictestreport1.php?lang=en&templatesetid=-1&fieldvalue=-2252

http://www.dhv.de/db1/source/technicdatareport1.php?lang=EN&templatesetid=-1&idtype=-2252&equptype=1&nopr=

The granting of the Gütesiegel by the DHV is the culmination of a seventeen
month process that began when Carsten Friedrichs was refused entry into the 2012
German Open competition because his T2C 144, although HGMA certified, did not
have the DHV Gütesiegel, and he was therefore not allowed to fly. There have
been multiple efforts over the last 35 years to have Germany recognize hang
glider airworthiness certification from authorities outside of Germany, such as
the British (BHPA) certification and the (international) HGMA (Hang Glider
Manufacturers Association) certification. None of these has yet been successful
– in Germany it is still required to have a Gütesiegel issued by an authorized
German testing house (of which the DHV is one).

Over the years, the DHV has offered varying levels of accommodation and
assistance to manufacturers holding other certifications in their pursuit of a
DHV Gütesiegel attesting to certification to the German LTF standards, but until
now none of these has eliminated the need for DHV testing of the glider to the
German LTF standards, and none has therefore addressed the problems and
additional burdens for manufacturers that result from requiring certification to
an additional and somewhat different set of standards. Following his
disqualification from the German Open, Carsten began a campaign to achieve a DHV
Gütesiegel for the T2C 144 based on DHV acceptance of the glider’s HGMA
certification status. What the DHV eventually agreed to was something less than
that; to accept the HGMA pitch and load testing results as valid evidence of
airworthiness, and that with the submission of complete documentation of the
glider’s manufacturing details, as contained in the HGMA Record Of Compliance,
and a DHV flight test to establish for DHV purposes a classification of the
glider’s flight behavior, the DHV would then issue the Gütesiegel for the
glider.

Carsten pursued this process relentlessly over a period of 15 months, with
significant support from Wills Wing’s Swiss importer Roberto Nichele, and with
ongoing technical support from Wills Wing, and finally he was successful in
obtaining the DHV Gütesiegel for the T2C 144.

The most straight forward and most obvious solution to this situation would be
for Germany to accept, without any additional requirements, HGMA and BHPA
certification, in the same manner that HGMA and BHPA certification are accepted
in other countries around the world, and in the same manner that German
certification is accepted outside of Germany without the addition of any further
requirements. This is what the CIVL does for competition – BHPA, DHV and HGMA
certification are accepted equally under FAI Section 7A rules. In the meantime,
we’d like to congratulate Carsten on his significant accomplishment, and we
thank Carsten and Nick for their extraordinary efforts in this matter.