This OSTIV Passive Safety Standard (OPSS) has been developed within the Sailplane Development Panel (SDP), which is part of the International Scientific and Technical Soaring Organisation (Organisation Scientifique et Technique Internationale du Vol a Voile, in short OSTIV).
The OPSS is not a mandatory airworthiness requirement for sailplanes. Its purpose is to serve as a guideline for improving the safety of the sailplane occupants for organisations and persons who develop sailplanes.
Therefore, the OPSS is published so that everyone can use the information and proposed minimum standards for improved occupant safety against the level of safety as defined in current airworthiness requirement for sailplanes, e.g. CS-22.
OSTIV and the SDP are not certification bodies and will therefore not provide either directly or indirectly a formal and regular certification cross-check on any documents that sailplane developers might draft to show compliance with the OPSS.
The basic idea is that the developer takes the OPSS requirements to improve the sailplane and could then declare as part of the sailplane product advertisement and information that the OPSS has been achieved for this sailplane.
Nevertheless, if such a declaration is made to advertise and sell such a product, the sailplane developer shall also, as a consequence, agree that the OSTIV SDP might approach this developer to analyze the way that compliance has been achieved against the OPSS requirements for the purpose of increasing sailplane safety. Participation of the developer in such an analysis is strongly encouraged given that the SDP is an open panel that promotes research and development for increasing safety in gliding.
If a developer does not want to participate in such an analysis and also does not want to offer documents requested for such analysis by the OSTIV SDP, then OSTIV reserves the right to publish the name of the developer and the particular sailplane on the OSTIV website, advising that adherence to the OPSS was declared but that no assistance for analyzing and demonstrating the compliance was provided.