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STANAG 3447
Aircraft and refuelling equipment manufacturers working to a contract that invokes STANAG 3447 or the ATP-3.3.4.6 publication it covers
STANAG 3447 is NATO's ratification agreement committing member nations to the probe-drogue interface characteristics for air-to-air refuelling specified in ATP-3.3.4.6 Edition A.
STANAG 3447 is the NATO Standardization Agreement covering the probe-drogue interface characteristics for air-to-air (aerial) refuelling equipment used by tanker and receiver aircraft of NATO forces. This is Edition 5, promulgated 28 June 2016, superseding an earlier STANAG 3447 referenced as NSA(AIR)0392(2008)ASSE/3447.
A STANAG is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement a standard, not the technical specification itself. STANAG 3447's own text is short and administrative: an aim, a single interoperability requirement, and the ratification, implementation and review machinery. The probe-drogue interface characteristics named in its title are specified in a separate publication, ATP-3.3.4.6 Edition A, which the STANAG names as the standard participating nations "agree to implement". Anyone actually designing, building or checking a probe-drogue refuelling interface needs ATP-3.3.4.6's own text, not this cover agreement.
The single interoperability requirement reads in full: "Achieve and maintain the required compatibility among the interfaces required to engage in probe-drogue refuelling operations, to facilitate air-to-air refuelling between aircraft of NATO forces." The document also names a wide set of related technical documents that sit alongside ATP-3.3.4.6: STANAG 3971 (covering the air-to-air refuelling publication ATP-3.3.4.2), STANAG 7191 (covering the boom-receptacle system publication ATP-3.3.4.5), the US Department of Defense's JSSG 2001 air vehicle subsystems guide, two Aerial Refueling Systems Advisory Group documents, and a further fourteen US military specifications and standards for the hose, nozzle, coupling and drogue-cone hardware itself.
STANAG 3447 binds nations, not suppliers. A nation is considered to have implemented it "when a nation has issued instructions that future equipment developed or services contracted will be in accordance with the requirements detailed in the covered standard" - so a supplier meets it only where a contract or tender invokes ATP-3.3.4.6, not because the STANAG exists. The document also carries an exception for aircraft and refuelling equipment already in service, or already being procured, before promulgation: a nation in that position must instead "identify the exceptions to the requirements detailed in the covered standard for these aircraft", rather than retrofit them. Nations and NATO bodies report their ratification and implementation to NATO for the record; partner nations report their adoption separately, using a different annex of AAP-03(J).
STANAG 3447 describes no certification scheme and no audit. What it describes is nations reporting their ratification and implementation decisions to the NATO Standardization Office for the record; nobody is "STANAG 3447 certified", and the document never uses that language. Where a supplier's actual refuelling hardware does get checked against ATP-3.3.4.6's interface characteristics - test reports, drawings, acceptance records - the assessor and the evidence required are set by the contract's own quality clause, not by this STANAG.
STANAG 3447 covers ATP-3.3.4.6, the Allied Tactical Publication that carries the actual probe-drogue interface characteristics. Its "Other Related Documents" also list STANAG 3971 (covering ATP-3.3.4.2, air-to-air refuelling) and STANAG 7191 (covering ATP-3.3.4.5, the boom-receptacle system), plus the US Department of Defense's JSSG 2001 air vehicle subsystems guide, two Aerial Refueling Systems Advisory Group documents, and fourteen further US military specifications and standards for hose, nozzle, coupling and drogue-cone hardware, none of which sit in our catalogue. Nations report their implementation and partner nations their adoption using the forms in AAP-03.
STANAG 3447 and the ATP-3.3.4.6 interface characteristics it covers are met in aircraft design, manufacture and fleet management, not in a compliance platform: an engineer designs the refuelling probe or drogue hardware to the specified interface, a manufacturer builds and tests it, and a quality department retains the records that prove the delivered equipment matches the applicable characteristics and whatever the contract's quality clause demands.
What ComplyTrain does for that kind of work generally is give a defence supplier one auditable place to hold the design and inspection procedures, the training records for the people doing that work, and the evidence trail - non-conformances, corrective actions, document control, the declared exceptions for legacy aircraft - that a customer's quality representative or a government surveillance visit will ask to see.
ComplyTrain does not design refuelling equipment, test it, or determine whether a tanker or receiver aircraft's probe-drogue interface meets ATP-3.3.4.6's characteristics. That is aerospace engineering work, carried out against the publication itself and the contract's own technical requirements.
Which STANAGs and Allied Publications actually apply to a given aircraft or refuelling programme is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause, not by us. Browse the explorer to see what sits alongside STANAG 3447 and ATP-3.3.4.6, and talk to us about the evidence trail once you know which ones are in your contract.
Tell us how you need to work with STANAG 3447 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
Only where a nation has ratified and implemented it, and it reaches a supplier only where a contract or tender invokes it. The document itself binds nations, not suppliers directly.
STANAG 3447 is the NATO ratification agreement; ATP-3.3.4.6 Edition A is the Allied Tactical Publication that actually specifies the probe-drogue interface characteristics. Ratifying STANAG 3447 is how a nation commits to implement ATP-3.3.4.6.
No. STANAG 3447 describes nations reporting their ratification and implementation decisions to the NATO Standardization Office, recorded in the NATO Standardization Document Database. It describes no certification or audit scheme for a supplier or a product.
The document addresses this directly: a nation procuring or modifying aircraft with air-to-air refuelling equipment that existed before this agreement was promulgated must identify the exceptions to the requirements, rather than bring existing aircraft into automatic compliance.
The document states that this edition supersedes an earlier STANAG 3447 referenced as NSA(AIR)0392(2008)ASSE/3447, but it does not itself describe what changed between the two editions.
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