FAA veteran Lance Gant was named manager of the Rotorcraft Directorate Aircraft Certification Service in 2015. Under Gant’s administration the Fort Worth aircraft certification service was reorganized, and the Rotorcraft Directorate began to tackle the large, and sometimes seemingly vexing issues, confronting rotorcraft certification modernization.
“The reorganization worked out really well,” Gant said. “We previously had three aircraft certification offices co-located here in Fort Worth. One handled strictly rotorcraft certification efforts in the region; another handled airplane certification efforts in the region; and the third was a special projects office that did just about everything else, including business jet interiors, balloons, engines, that kind of stuff. So we currently have 12 or 13 organization designation authorizations or ODAs spread among those three offices. When we reorganized into two offices we created one full-service aircraft certification office now referred to as the Fort Worth ACO and a second delegation systems certifications office, and all the ODAs in the region are being managed by that one group. That is where we have gotten the most positive feedback. Those ODAs now get a lot more direct attention, and the engineers and staff that work with them can concentrate solely on ODA activities and not be stretched out doing other certification activities as handled by the ACO now.
“It’s helped the [helicopter] OEMs here in the region get the attention they need and it has helped to make sure the ODAs are doing what we want,” Gant said. “[That is] when they show they have a good culture of compliance, that we delegate to them and get out of their way so they can get product to market in a timely fashion.”
Gant said the industry effort to rewrite Part 27, the FAA regulations that govern helicopters weighing 7,000 pounds or less or with nine or less passenger seats, should continue to be led by the industry, and that the FAA will examine industry work product at the appropriate time. That effort was spawned after the FAA denied a gross weight increase to 7,500 pounds for the Bell 429 light twin under Part 27.
“We put in public notice that if there were an industry need for weight limits for Part 27 and Part 29 we would be happy to have the industry embark on that effort and we would be supportive,” he said. “With that [the General Aviation Manufacturers Association] has taken the lead on this and is working on a proposal to get to the FAA. Our direct involvement is a little different than what we did [in the rewrite efforts for] Part 23. In Part 23 the FAA was hand-in-hand with the industry. The better way for this to work is for industry to decide how it wants to go forward. I don’t know if we will see a wholesale rewrite like we did on Part 23.”
Potential Rulemaking Efforts
Gant said he expects any rulemaking that might come from the work of the Occupant Protection Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee (ARAC) to advance swiftly. That ARAC had its first meeting January 21 and is charged with plotting survivability solutions for blunt-force injuries and post-impact fires in current production and legacy helicopters certified under older type certificates. Gant said pressure from the NTSB and Congress likely would keep the issue on the front burner.
“Staff here worked with the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute [CAMI] in Oklahoma City and actually did a study of helicopter accidents looking at autopsy data. We were able to parse the percentage of [deaths] due to blunt-force trauma and post-crash fire. The reality is that blunt-force trauma is a much larger contributor to fatalities in helicopters than post-crash fire, although–and rightfully so–the post-crash fire scenario is what really got the ball rolling due to some horrific accidents.
“The process is in three parts. In the first six months [the ARAC does] a cost-benefit analysis. The second six months is to have the advisory committee come back to the FAA with recommendations on how to get occupant protection into current-production helicopters. And the third tasking is to use months 12 to 18 to look at retrofit into the current fleet. These would come as recommendations to the FAA that would then balance them against the cost-benefit analysis and make a determination if we go into rulemaking. If we go into rulemaking it is not fast but, like I said, we’ve had pressures to do something. We’re driving the ARAC to get us something fairly quickly. And once that happens, the FAA will go forward with its normal processes but, with the impetus from some external stakeholders, maybe in an expedited fashion.”
Gant is looking at forming another ARAC, this to consider bird-strike risks to Part 27 helicopters. “Part 27 does not have any bird-strike requirements for the canopy, and we are looking at that. Our data shows that bird strikes on helicopters have markedly increased in the last handful of years. I don’t know if it is because there has been more reporting and more close calls.” An ARAC could be charged with exploring this as early as March.
Separate from revisions to Part 27, the FAA is considering an industry white paper that suggests more cost-effective ways of adding IFR equipment to Part 27 single-engine helicopters.
“We’ve been in discussion with industry for two years now on this concept,” Gant said. “On the certification side, industry took the position that if we lower the certification burden of getting autopilots and advanced avionics into helicopters, then IFR would be pursued more often from the certification side. They did send us their final white paper around the end of November of last year, and we made a commitment to get a response to that paper in the first calendar quarter of this year. It is outside of rulemaking because industry is asking us to make a policy change and not a rule change. I don’t have a good timeline on that, yet I would hope sooner rather than later. I don’t want to have to commit my guys to having had something done this year. We’re kind of looking at a little broader effort that would address equipage in Part 27 overall and not just concentrating on IFR. Generally we are favorable to the effort.”
Gant did mention a concern, however. “We can do our end to help streamline certification of IFR equipment and getting the aircraft equipped, but the other side is operations. You have to be able to train and maintain proficiency if you are going to be utilizing those aircraft IFR.”