Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW), the joint venture of ST Engineering and Airbus, has received supplemental type certification for its A321 Passenger-to-Freighter (P2F) conversion from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
The Supplement Type Certificate (STC) comes one month after the prototype unit, to be redelivered to launch customer Vallair, made its maiden flight test on January 22. As the STC holder EFW is responsible for customer support services as well as the adaption engineering in the serial phase. Within the setup of the joint venture EFW is furthermore taking care of the overall Program Management, Marketing and Sales and the subcontracting of conversions to the lines in Singapore, China, the U.S. and Germany.
The program, launched in 2015, is the result of a collaboration between ST Engineering, Airbus and EFW. ST Engineering is responsible for the engineering development phase, up to obtaining the STC from EASA and U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Airbus contributes to the program with Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) data and certification support, on-board computer development, airframe engineering, flight-physics and flight-testing expertise. This is the exclusive A321P2F program whereby Airbus contributes with OEM data and certification support.