STANAG 3510 hydraulic power for servicing aircraft

What it is

STANAG 3510 is the NATO Standardization Agreement covering the provision of hydraulic power for servicing aircraft hydraulic systems. This is Edition 5, promulgated 18 November 2014, and it states that it supersedes a prior Edition 4 of the same STANAG, dated 2011.

A STANAG is not the specification

A STANAG is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement a standard, not the technical specification itself. STANAG 3510's own text is short and administrative: an aim, an interoperability requirement, and the ratification and reporting machinery. The hydraulic servicing equipment itself is specified in a separate publication, AASSEP-07 Edition A, which the STANAG names as the standard participating nations "agree to implement." Anyone actually designing, specifying or checking that equipment needs AASSEP-07's own text, not this cover agreement.

What it commits nations to

The stated aim is interoperability: "to standardize the essential characteristics of power driven hydraulic servicing equipment to facilitate cross-servicing of aircraft." In plain terms, so that one nation's ground hydraulic power equipment can connect to and service another nation's aircraft, wherever allied aircraft operate together. The cover also names three related documents on the same subject: ISO 3174, on threaded connections for checking aircraft hydraulic systems; STANAG 4714, on minimum quality surveillance for lubricants and associated products; and STANAG 3748, on hydraulic fluid.

Who it binds, and how

STANAG 3510 binds nations, not suppliers. It is effective "upon receipt and ready to be used by the implementing nations and NATO bodies," and it becomes binding on a given nation through ratification, which NATO records in the NATO Standardization Document Database (NSDD). Implementation is a separate step: the STANAG "is considered implemented when the provisions specified therein have been included in the national documentation concerned with reference to STANAG 3510." Nations then report their implementation using the form in Annex H to AAP-03(J), and partner nations report their adoption using the form in Annex G to AAP-03(J). A supplier meets STANAG 3510, or the AASSEP-07 requirements it covers, only where a national instruction, a tender or a contract says so - the document itself sets no obligation reaching a supplier directly.

How it's evaluated

STANAG 3510 describes no certification scheme and no audit. What it describes is nations reporting their ratification and implementation status to NATO for the record; nobody is "STANAG 3510 certified," and the document never uses that language. Where a supplier's hydraulic servicing equipment does get checked against AASSEP-07's requirements in practice - drawings, fit checks, acceptance records - the assessor and the evidence required are set by the contract's own quality clause, not by this STANAG.

Standards it references

STANAG 3510 covers AASSEP-07, the Allied publication that carries the actual hydraulic servicing equipment requirements. Its "Other Related Documents" also name STANAG 4714, on minimum quality surveillance for lubricants, and STANAG 3748, on hydraulic fluid, alongside ISO 3174, a civil standard on threaded connections for checking aircraft hydraulic systems, which sits outside our catalogue. Reporting and reviews of STANAG 3510 itself run under AAP-03. The STANAG is free to obtain from the NATO Standardization Document Database; NATO does not charge for its standardization documents and we do not host or sell copies.

Standards it references

• STANAG 4714Background
• STANAG 3748Background