Industry Leaders Press on Cert, Validation Improvements

Industry leaders are encouraged by momentum to improve the certification process at the FAA, but continue to press for long-needed changes to bureaucracies that they believe slow the introduction of safety-enhancing technologies. At the same time, they see a need to rebalance validation efforts that may have gotten out of sync internationally—an issue they believe was highlighted by the recent White House statement that it would pull the certifications from Bombardier if Canada did not move on long-pending Gulfstream approvals.

Speaking during the General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s (GAMA) annual State of the Industry press conference on Wednesday, president and CEO James Viola pointed to a Mitre study that was mandated by Congress on the future state of the type certification process for the FAA. The study identified paths to leverage safety oversight and stakeholder accountability, along with the use of tools such as digitization and modeling techniques. That study also pushed for more of a risk-based approach than the one currently employed by the FAA.

“We are pleased that the FAA is reviewing these ideas as well as looking into how to introduce safety improvements and correct actions in the certification process and evaluating best practices and tools utilized by other authorities,” Viola reported.

He also pointed to bills jointly introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate targeting refinements to improve transparency and set guideposts for the agencies, as well as a reorganization at the FAA that elevated certification to directly under the purview of FAA Deputy Administrator Chris Rocheleau.

However, Viola added, “the challenges are still there…the pain level is still there. We continue to try to work through it.” He cited as an example that during a recent meeting, FAA officials maintained their employees want to work remotely. “My response was to send them to the manufacturers if they want to work remotely,” he said. “So yes, there’s still a lot of distraction going on.”

But not all of these distractions are on the shoulders of the FAA, Viola added, pointing to the 40-day shutdown and the difficulties of keeping a workforce motivated in the face of that.

Textron Aviation president and CEO Ron Draper praised the FAA for working to make improvements. “They are in the office. They are hiring. They’re trying to train people,” Draper said. “We see progress, and so I would give them a pat on the back because they’ve experienced turnover and leadership [changes], and different obstacles.”

But having said that, “I would challenge them that there’s a lot of improvements that could be made, and I think they know that as well,” Draper continued.

As far as working with the international community, Viola noted that GAMA “has been advocating for a continued focus among all regulators to improve the validation process, and we believe there are some ideas that would help move this forward.”

When asked about the recent White House threat to revoke Bombardier’s certificates as certain Gulfstream validations remain pending in Canada, the leaders who participated during the GAMA event did not address the Canadian manufacturer specifically. Rather, Textron Aviation's Draper said, “Even though the [national aviation authorities] have agreements that they’ll recognize each other's certifications, there’s friction there, between our certification agencies. And I think it just highlighted that that’s a problem.”

He continued that these issues have always been evident in aviation. “At times, it needs to be worked on, and we need alignment between these regulations.”

The industry works closely with the regulatory agencies to work on harmonization. “The regulators meet, and they come up with bilateral agreements," Viola agreed. "Occasionally, if it’s not being tracked properly, things get out of balance, and it was an opportunity, I think, to rebalance some of the things that are going on.”

Draper added that as a manufacturer, “We don’t design and build it just for the United States or Brazil or Europe. It’s going to meet the certification standards of all those agencies. And then once we do, how do we get all those agencies to recognize it?” 

Draper further said that this is an ongoing issue that the industry frequently discusses with agencies. “As an industry, how can we help solve that problem?” He further agreed that the White House statement highlighted a certification issue. “There may be good reasons for that. There may just be workload or resources or whatever. So I think we just need to have a perspective.”

Viola also stressed the importance of harmonized standards. “We shouldn’t have to make airplane different for different countries. We should be able to produce a standard aircraft that could be sold everywhere, and it’s got to be flown everywhere. Our goal is how do we work together and cooperate on that.”