The FAA's new lithium battery technical standard misses the mark

For the first time in seventeen years, there is to be a new lithium battery standard for aviation. In 1990, the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) struck a committee to write a new standard to cover the variety of lithium batteries that would find use in aircraft equipment. In June 1995, the RTCA published its MOPS for Lithium Batteries, RTCA Document No. RTCAiDO-227. The FAA will adopt the MOPS as the new TSO at the completion of the sixty-day response period after publication in the Federal Register. It would then become the new standard in the US. It would almost certainly be adopted here in Canada, and affect civil aviation worldwide. Some possible problems with the standard are discussed.