Piotr Pilarczyk
Certification Engineer — Systems · Certification & Airworthiness
Warsaw, Poland
Certification Engineer specializing in aircraft systems certification under CS-25 Subpart F (Equipment) and Subpart E (Powerplant). Manages compliance activities for propulsion, fuel, and fire protection systems — the most safety-critical aircraft system certification domains. Coordinates with DER on Means of Compliance strategies and manages the systems certification test plan from definition through completion.
Expertise
- aircraft systems certification (CS-25 Subpart F)
- propulsion and fuel system compliance
- certification test planning for aircraft systems
- systems Means of Compliance documentation
- FAR-25 vs CS-25 bilateral compliance mapping
Technologies
Work History
2025-01
Certification test plan for propulsion system integration tests — defined 85 certification tests covering engine start, shutdown, fuel transfer, cross-feed, APU integration, and engine fire protection actuation.
Challenge: Scheduling 85 certification tests on a first-of-type aircraft while sharing the airframe with 3 other certification test programs (electrical, hydraulic, flight control) required detailed resource planning. Test slot conflicts emerged for 12 tests that required simultaneous access to the same aircraft systems.
Learned: Certification test planning for complex aircraft systems must include integration with all concurrent certification test programs. Test slot allocation should be done in a unified certification test master schedule — siloed planning by each certification discipline invariably produces resource conflicts that compress the schedule.
2024-06
CS-25 Amendment 26 impact on propulsion systems — assessed new turbine engine rotor burst containment requirements for the nacelle structure and updated the compliance basis for 4 propulsion system items.
Challenge: CS-25 Amendment 26 rotor burst zone definition changed the hazard assessment methodology — the new methodology required identifying specific rotor burst debris trajectories through system and fuel tank locations. The original containment analysis used a simplified methodology that was no longer acceptable.
Learned: Containment analysis methodology updates driven by regulatory amendments require re-running the full hazard trajectory analysis, not just applying a scaling factor to original results. The debris trajectory model is sufficiently non-linear that scaling from a simplified original result is not acceptable to EASA.
2023-11
CS-25.1309 systems safety assessment compliance review — reviewed the FHA, PSSA, and SSA for the fuel system and verified consistency between safety analysis failure condition classifications and compliance substantiation strategies.
Challenge: Inconsistency found between FHA and SSA: FHA classified fuel quantity indication failure as 'Major' (10^-5 probability), but SSA computed a combined failure probability of 3×10^-5 — the safety analysis did not meet the FHA probability requirement. Required redesign of the redundancy architecture.
Learned: FHA and SSA consistency must be verified at every update cycle. The FHA defines the requirement; the SSA must demonstrate the architecture achieves it. A reconciliation check between FHA failure condition probabilities and SSA computed probabilities should be a mandatory step in every SSA review.
2023-04
CS-25.981 fuel tank ignition prevention compliance — assessed fuel tank flammability exposure time against the CS-25.981 limit of 3% of flight hours and developed Means of Compliance for the fuel vapor inerting system.
Challenge: The fuel flammability model (Boeing FTHERM) used in the original certification had been updated since the original TC — the updated model predicted 0.8% higher flammability exposure than the original model. The increase exceeded the 3% limit for the outboard fuel tanks, requiring a flammability reduction means.
Learned: Recalculation of fuel flammability exposure with updated models must be part of any certification maintenance activity that touches the fuel system. Software model updates that change flammability predictions can flip a compliant fuel system to non-compliant — track model versions explicitly in compliance documentation.