The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved an amended version of the Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act on Tuesday. H.R. 7553 would direct the FAA to revise portions of its type certification process for aircraft designed for advanced air mobility (AAM) missions and operations. The committee considered an amendment in the nature of a substitute during its Tuesday committee markup.
Certification Timelines
Under the amended AAM bill text, the FAA would have 180 days after enactment to publish a plan addressing its issue paper process, use of industry consensus standards and development of stable certification policy. Within 270 days, the agency would also be required to establish nonbinding expected time ranges for major certification milestones. Those would include issue papers, special conditions, exemption requests and means-of-compliance proposals.
“The Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act provides refinements to the FAA type certification process that can assist in bringing innovative technologies and new products more effectively into the global marketplace.” GAMA President and CEO James Viola said a Tuesday statement.
Unmanned Aircraft Included
The bill would also direct the FAA to develop its certification plan to ensure unmanned aircraft systems have safety, performance and redundancy comparable to manned aircraft conducting similar missions. The legislation does not further define what constitutes a “comparable” level or establish a numerical safety standard for that comparison. It also contains no AI-specific certification provisions.
The measure incorporates the AAM definition established under the 2024 FAA Reauthorization, which covers both manned and unmanned aircraft and identifies autonomous technologies among technologies that can be used for urban and regional air mobility.
The bill would also require updated FAA guidance governing certification delegation and criteria for determining when an issue warrants an issue paper. A Senate version of the legislation advanced from the Senate Commerce Committee by voice vote in July.
When you have your pockets stuffed full of tech donor cash, it’s easy to issue an edict. Even more so when you’re completely ignorant of what is required and the real status of the technology- not the hyped “just around the corner” picture.
Yes certification is a hard, costly process. It has been written in blood by lessons learned, not lessons ignored until now. Forget the safety advances of the past 100 years. This a return to certification circa 1926.