FAA and Regs

There are a few familiar names being bandied about for President Joe Biden’s nomination to replace FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, who is leaving the post this week. But according to the travel website Skift the leading contender may be a dark horse. Apparently former NTSB Chair Debra Hersman, current U.S. Ambassador to the International Civil […]

Hot air balloon enthusiasts appear to be calling on the FAA to find a way for them to comply with ADS-B requirements beyond seeking waivers for special events. According to the Albuquerque Journal, industry leaders in the unofficial capital city of the sport say implementation of the ADS-B mandate threatens the annual Albuquerque International Balloon […]

Outgoing FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said Thursday that Boeing needs “a systemic fix to their production processes” at its 787 factory and until that happens FAA inspectors will sign off on each aircraft coming off the line. Dickson told reporters a series of quality control problems that stopped deliveries are up to Boeing to fix […]

FAA Administrator Steve Dickson is expected to resign Thursday after sending a memo to staff thanking them for their support. “Over the past several years, my family has been a source of tremendous encouragement, strength and support,” Dickson wrote in a memo that was quoted by the Seattle Times. “Nevertheless, after sometimes long and unavoidable […]

The FAA has announced the next incremental step in putting drones into the National Airspace system with a field test of Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM.) The test will start in the next few months and will gather data on the integration of small drones operating at low altitude. “UTM includes a set of […]

The FAA is telling the NTSB to mind its own business and butt out of investigating spaceflight crashes. Last month the NTSB issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adding space transportation to the list of methods of locomotion that it oversees. The commercial space industry pushed back, fearful that the new layer would curtail the […]

Airline and charter pilots may be in for more stick and rudder time assuming a new proposed advisory circular makes it through the 30-day comment period. The FAA has issued a draft of the AC on Flightpath Management and it includes a host of measures the agency wants operators to include in training and operations […]

It would appear the chafe between 5G and aviation safety will be around for some time but FAA Administrator Steve Dickson told Congress on Thursday he expects future disruptions to be minimal. Dickson told the aviation subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that new rules on the interference resistance to 5G of […]

The NTSB wants the FAA to issue an AD for old Pipers after two incidents in which the rudder posts snapped and the top section of the rudder folded into a roughly horizontal position. The failure obviously had a big effect on the controllability of the aircraft involved, a PA-12 Super Cruiser and a PA-14 […]

The FAA issued an airworthiness directive (AD) on Tuesday prohibiting Boeing 747-8, 747-8F and 777 aircraft from landing at airports where Verizon and AT&T’s 5G C-Band wireless broadband networks could cause radar altimeter interference. The AD requires airplane flight manual (AFM) revisions to add limitations prohibiting dispatching or releasing affected aircraft “to airports, and approaches […]