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STANAG 4671
Unmanned aircraft system manufacturers seeking a military type certificate against the USAR airworthiness requirements.
STANAG 4671 sets the airworthiness requirements for military unmanned aircraft. ComplyTrain ships the USAR requirement tree and certification document set, so the compliance matrix an assessor asks for is the system's normal output.
STANAG 4671 is the NATO Standardization Agreement covering Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airworthiness Requirements (USAR). This is Edition 3, promulgated 2 April 2019, superseding Edition 2 of the same agreement.
A STANAG is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement a standard, not the technical specification itself. STANAG 4671's own text is short and administrative: a stated aim, one interoperability requirement, the agreement to implement a named publication, and the ratification and reporting machinery. The airworthiness requirements themselves are not detailed in this document; they sit in a separate publication, AEP-4671 Edition B, which the STANAG names as the standard participating nations "agree to implement". Anyone actually designing or evidencing against those airworthiness requirements needs AEP-4671's own text, not this cover agreement.
The stated aim is interoperability, answered by a single interoperability requirement: "To use common standards for the production of airworthiness requirements for unmanned aircraft systems." The agreement lists no other related documents beyond AEP-4671 itself.
STANAG 4671 binds nations, not suppliers. The enclosed agreement "has been ratified by member nations, as reflected in the NATO Standardization Document Database (NSDD), is promulgated herewith", and partner nations are separately "invited to adopt this STANAG". Implementation is a further, distinct step: the STANAG "is implemented when the necessary orders/instructions have been issued directing the forces concerned to put the content of the covered standard into effect." Nations then report their ratification and implementation decisions to the NATO Standardization Office: "The national responses are recorded in the NATO Standardization Document Database (NSDD)"; nations are invited to report effective implementation, and partner nations to report adoption, both "in accordance with AAP-03". A supplier or design organisation meets STANAG 4671, or the AEP-4671 requirements it covers, only where a contract or tender says so - the document itself sets no obligation reaching a supplier directly, and names no NATO-wide effective date.
STANAG 4671 describes no certification scheme and no audit of its own, and it does not say that meeting it certifies an unmanned aircraft system's airworthiness. What it describes is nations reporting their ratification and implementation decisions to NATO for the record. Where a specific unmanned aircraft system's airworthiness is actually assessed against AEP-4671's requirements, that is a matter for the national airworthiness authority responsible for the programme, and for whatever the contract's own quality clause requires - not something this STANAG grants, arranges, or evidences on its own.
STANAG 4671 covers AEP-4671, Edition B, the Allied Engineering Publication carrying the actual unmanned aircraft systems airworthiness requirements; this is a binding relationship, since implementing AEP-4671 is the whole point of the agreement. Nations report their implementation and adoption in accordance with AAP-03, which governs the reporting mechanism rather than the airworthiness requirements themselves. The document lists no other related documents.
The USAR requirement tree and the certification document set are prebuilt and ship with the standard. This is the deepest document set of the NATO standards ComplyTrain supports, and the one where certification language is fully at home, because there is a real type certification basis to build toward.
Because the means of compliance is recorded against the requirement, and evidence is attached to it, the compliance matrix is a report rather than a project. Gap analysis over the tree answers the question that matters during certification: what is still unevidenced, and how was it meant to be shown?
ComplyTrain is not a certification authority, holds no airworthiness approval and does not grant type certificates. It is the system in which you build and evidence your case, which is then assessed by the authority.
Tell us how you need to work with STANAG 4671 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.
No, and no software can. Type certification is granted by an airworthiness authority against your certification basis. ComplyTrain holds the requirements, the declared means of compliance and the evidence behind them, so the case you present is complete and traceable. The assessment remains the authority's.
A record of each applicable requirement, the means of compliance chosen for it, and the evidence that means produced. It is what an assessor reviews to see whether the case is complete. Because ComplyTrain records the means against the requirement and attaches evidence to it, the matrix is a view of current state rather than a document assembled before a review.
As a connected chain rather than a set of separate documents: a functional hazard assessment at aircraft level, preliminary system safety assessments per subsystem, and a system safety assessment demonstrating compliance, each linked to the requirements it discharges. Failure condition severity classifications and probability analyses are held against the requirement, including the cumulative treatment of catastrophic conditions.
Both. The standard covers the control station and human factors, including handover of control between stations, demonstrating positive control through a handover, transition timing, and whether displays and controls prevent confusion when more than one aircraft is being handled. Minimum crew determination accounts for that workload.
The continued airworthiness obligations begin. The instructions for continued airworthiness must be complete, with a segregated airworthiness limitations section, specified mandatory replacement times and inspection intervals, and an established schedule for reviewing the design usage spectrum. These are requirements of the standard rather than good practice after it.
The requirement tree and all ten document templates ship approved and mapped, the deepest set of the NATO standards we support. You supply the certification basis, your engineering content and your evidence. Provisioning is done by our team, so the first step is a conversation rather than a signup.
Only where a nation has ratified and implemented it, and it reaches a supplier or design organisation only where a contract or tender invokes it. The document names no NATO-wide effective date.
STANAG 4671 is the NATO ratification agreement; AEP-4671 Edition B is the publication that actually carries the unmanned aircraft systems airworthiness requirements. Ratifying STANAG 4671 is how a nation commits to implement AEP-4671.
The document states that this edition supersedes STANAG 4671 Edition 2, but it does not itself describe what changed between the two editions.
The process
Type certification is an argument supported by evidence. These four steps are what keep the argument answerable at any point rather than only at the end.
Record the applicable requirements, any special conditions, the design usage spectrum and the aircraft classification. The certification basis is the agreement everything downstream is judged against, so it is a controlled document from the start.
Analysis, test, inspection or similarity: each applicable requirement gets a chosen means, recorded with it. This is what turns a requirement list into a compliance matrix an assessor can read.
Functional hazard assessment, preliminary system safety assessments and the system safety assessment connect to the requirements they discharge, with failure condition classifications and probability analysis held against them rather than filed separately.
The instructions for continued airworthiness, the segregated airworthiness limitations, replacement times and inspection intervals, and the design usage spectrum review are part of the certification, not a sequel to it.
A standard usually arrives as a contract condition rather than a project anyone planned for, and often at a company with no quality manager. Software is half the answer. Skylen's consultants are the other half, and because they build on ComplyTrain from day one you keep a live system your team owns rather than a binder and a departed consultant.
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