[HN Gopher] FAA changes course on eVTOL certification
___________________________________________________________________
FAA changes course on eVTOL certification
Author : jeffreyrogers
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-05-10 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theaircurrent.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theaircurrent.com)
| adrianparsons wrote:
| Wow, bad timing for Eve Air Mobility, who just started trading on
| the NYSE this morning.
|
| https://evtol.com/news/eve-goes-public-nyse-zanite-sharehold...
| jandrese wrote:
| This may even be seen as a warning to investors that the FAA is
| not going to be laissez faire with regards to regulating
| aircraft that carry passengers, so companies that are currently
| trying to skirt regulation are at risk.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| The FAA will downright torpedo the entire industry in the
| name of conservatism.
|
| A lifesaver for Boeing and Airbus to have such a restrictive
| regulator in the biggest market.
|
| The electric aviation (generally, not just eVTOL) over-
| regulation is the one that really gets me. The FAA will
| happily reinforce the status quo of fossil fuel aviation
| (including the leaded gas fiasco!) than take one iota of
| risk. Every 4500 tons of CO2 (just ten 777 flights) results
| in an excess death due to climate change[0], but that's not
| the FAA's problem!
|
| [0]https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/07/29/more-carbon-
| emi...
| jandrese wrote:
| > but that's not the FAA's problem!
|
| I think this is supposed to be sarcastic, but that's
| exactly how the FAA sees it. Their job is to prevent people
| from dying in or because of aircraft and that's it.
| Environmental concerns are the EPA's domain.
|
| Once the alternative fuels are available and the FAA has
| determined that they are safe to use it should be EPA
| pressuring pilots to make the switch.
|
| I do however agree that the FAA is outrageously slow to
| react to change. They are risk adverse to a excessive
| degree, but at the same time air travel is the safest way
| to get around on a per-mile basis, so their approach is
| working.
|
| My final note is that slow development in eletric aircraft
| is not entirely the fault of the regulatory environment.
| There is also the issue of battery technology being a bit
| insufficient for most uses currently and having bad failure
| conditions.
| bombcar wrote:
| The FAA is in a lose-lose position. Be conservative and
| everyone bitches about how they're holding back progress.
| Be "flexible" and allow the MAX and everyone rips them a
| new one saying "they should have known".
|
| The "game theory" move is to allow things in experimental
| and basically forbid them from passenger travel until
| some other certification body (EU?) sticks their neck
| out.
| starwind wrote:
| > The FAA is in a lose-lose position. Be conservative and
| everyone bitches about how they're holding back progress.
| Be "flexible" and allow the MAX and everyone rips them a
| new one saying "they should have known".
|
| It's not one or the other. They can allow innovation and
| still keep things safe. In fact, it's their job
| emilecantin wrote:
| MAX happened because the logical change (tweak the body /
| landing gear of the plane to accomodate the larger
| engine) would've been too onerous because of the FAA
| rules, so they fixed it in a stupid way that complied
| with the FAA rules.
|
| MAX was FAA's fault as much as it was Boeing's.
| aeternum wrote:
| Onerous certification incentivizes companies to invent in other
| countries.
|
| The FAA has become increasing bureaucratic and in many cases it
| is causing safety issues. Take the recent case where they deemed
| it illegal to do a low-pass over a private airstrip to assess
| safety prior to landing.
|
| I'd like to see the FAA do a pass over existing and new
| regulations to see if they can generalize any of the rules. IE if
| the concern for safety is due to momentum/potential energy,
| codify that rather than separate limitations on weight and speed.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| No country has the same capital floating around. It's much
| harder to get funding in Europe. IDK about Asia, but it doesn't
| look nearly as easy neither.
| aftbit wrote:
| >Take the recent case where they deemed it illegal to do a low-
| pass over a private airstrip to assess safety prior to landing.
|
| I am a big fan of Trent Palmer as well, so I tend to take his
| side of the story as more likely. However I believe the FAA is
| arguing that he never intended to land and was just planning to
| buzz his friend's house. I wasn't there so I don't know what
| really happened. However I agree, claiming that his landing was
| "not necessary" so the pre-landing pass was not protected seems
| very short-sighted.
|
| Here's Trent's video on this if you want to hear his side for
| yourself:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpFDRoStcd4
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| > Onerous certification incentivizes companies to invent in
| other countries.
|
| I'm sure there are lots of countries around the world that
| would bend their aviation rules to whatever whim a company
| wanted. I'm assuming they don't take advantage of that because
| of the lack of infrastructure, talent, funding, and a viable
| commercial market.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| As far as I understand it, this is less about the amount of
| energy and more to do with the type of pilot certificate one
| would need to have.
|
| The majority of pilots are initially rated for the Airplane
| category with Airplane, Single Engine, Land as the most common
| class. Powered lift is a completely different category, and so
| pilots rated for the Airplane category would have to qualify
| separately, including a certain minimum number of hours with a
| flight instructor, a certain number of solo hours, cross-
| country flight distance and a check ride.
|
| This would significantly raise the bar to fly these aircraft. I
| also don't even know for these eVTOLs whether it'd be credible
| to do e.g. the cross country flight which requires at least 150
| nautical miles of travel, including three full-stop landings,
| due to the battery lifetime.
| Justin_K wrote:
| I'm glad the FAA is clamping down on these... I don't want one of
| these falling on my house because someone forgot to set the
| environment variables.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| This doesn't effect existing fossil fueled aircraft. Every
| 4500tons of CO2 results in an excess death due to climate
| change[0], yet another example of where short-sighted NIMBYism
| is locking us into climate inaction and the increased death
| that brings. (Another example being NIMBYism killing
| electrified transit or High Speed Rail, nuclear power, wind and
| solar power either directly or via blocking transmission,
| increased sprawl due to dense housing being blocked, etc.)
|
| [0]https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/07/29/more-carbon-
| emi...
| jafo wrote:
| You are a NCIMBY?
|
| No crashing in my backyard?
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Or perhaps NOMBY: Not Over My Backyard.
| earleybird wrote:
| Why yes, yes I am :-)
|
| My back yard, and anyone elses.
| Justin_K wrote:
| LOL most definitely. If Boeing can't get it right, I sure
| won't trust a "move fast and break things" approach to
| flight.
| throwawayben wrote:
| There's an almost perfect test case of the two approaches
| in SpaceX's Dragon Vs Boeing's Starliner.
|
| The "move fast and break things" approach seems to work
| better.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Move fast and break things (on the lab) is certainly the
| way to do it. The problem is that breaking things on the
| lab is expensive, and some companies push it into the
| normal operation when they already make a profit.
| timbre1234 wrote:
| I'm usually not anti-government, but the FAA has absolutely lost
| its way and is causing far more harm than good nowadays. Look at
| lead in avgas. The Boeing fiascos. Inability and cost of
| innovating in the space. America is being left behind in global
| aviation.
| FabHK wrote:
| Do you think that aviation regulation is better anywhere else?
| In Europe it is a mess (particularly for general aviation), in
| Asia there is hardly any general aviation.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Serious question: what's wrong with lead in avgas?
|
| No one serious would ask what was wrong with tetraethyllead in
| gasoline fueling automobiles in urban areas, but aviation is a
| completely different context.
| chaxor wrote:
| It's completely unnecessary, as it has been shown that
| general aviation planes can operate on mogas in almost every
| single propeller engine. Additionally, it costs more over the
| long run due to the maintenance costs (e.g. spark plug issues
| from lead build up when you sit at lower RPMs for taxiing).
| Diggsey wrote:
| Going to need a citation for those claims...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas#Phase-
| out_of_leaded_avia...
|
| > 70% of 100LL aviation fuel is used by the 30% of the
| aircraft in the general aviation fleet that cannot use any
| of the existing alternatives
|
| On the second point: lead is specifically added to help
| increase the lifetime of components like spark plugs, since
| it decreases knocking.
| c1yd3i wrote:
| Lead isn't added to help increase the lifetime of
| anything. In-fact, that's hilarious, because lead fouls
| spark plugs and the rest of the engine. I've personally
| removed spark plugs with pea sized nuggets of lead wedged
| in the electrode. Problems caused by lead (e.g., stuck
| valves) are probably the #1 reason you have to overhaul
| cylinders. Lead is an octane booster, that's it.
|
| "Knocking" is an antiquated term. Knocking = detonation,
| and any severe detonation would destroy an aircraft
| engine. For example, this is why we take off with our
| mixture so rich, to create a huge margin against
| detonation by lowering internal cylinder pressures.
|
| https://www.lycoming.com/node/17607
| elihu wrote:
| That sounds a little like this famous skit:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
|
| "What do you do to protect the environment in this case?"
|
| "The planes fly outside the environment."
|
| "Into another environment?"
|
| "No, no, they fly beyond the environment. They're not in an
| environment."
|
| "But it must be somewhere. What's out there?"
|
| "Nothing's out there."
|
| "There must be something out there."
|
| "There's nothing out there. All there is is air, and clouds,
| and birds."
|
| "And?"
|
| "Twenty thousand tons of tetraethyllead."
|
| "What else?"
|
| "CO2 emissions, CFCs, and about seven hundred 737 Max's. The
| environment's perfectly safe."
| alexk307 wrote:
| You're upset with the FAA for the Boeing fiasco, but
| simultaneously upset that they are going to be more strict with
| certifying a new class of aircraft?
| dylan604 wrote:
| The FAA allowed Boeing to self certify, so they have blame in
| that. Strict regulations are not necessarily a bad thing if
| they are actually needed, but regulations for regulation's
| sake to keep the agency with a purpose is definitely bad. At
| some point the bueracracy takes over, and it's hard to avoid
| the useless regulations that make it look like things are
| being done but ignore the true things needing regulation.
| pmichaud wrote:
| Why not? One of the main failure modes of bureaucracy is
| escalating attempts to deflect blame for both individuals and
| the organization as a whole, where all that leads to a
| nightmare of red tape that pulls against the original intent
| of the organization. So you have a bunch of rules and
| strictness plus a bunch of snafus.
|
| "Be indiscriminately more strict" obviously isn't the thing
| to do. But I don't think it's too much to ask that a federal
| oversight organization be actually-effective at overseeing
| the industry it's tasked with overseeing. Be strict enough in
| smart ways to catch real problems before they happen, might
| be one way to think of the ideal mandate.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| If I had my way, organizations like the FAA would do a good
| job, they'd do it efficiently, and they wouldn't be subject
| to compromising incentives.
|
| I think this is basically what you're saying, too
| londons_explore wrote:
| They're taking the wrong approach to safety...
|
| The correct approach is to reward new things, reward changes
| and innovation, and punish massively anything that causes an
| accident putting lives at risk.
|
| For example, make a fund that any aircraft manufacturer pays
| fines into. Fines for engine failures. Fines for oxygen mask
| deployments. Fines for crash landings. Massive fines for
| deaths. Aim to fine about 50% of the value of all aircraft
| sold.
|
| Then _give_ the pot of those fines back to aircraft designers
| and operators per passenger mile safely flown.
|
| Overall, the industry gets the same amount of cash. But
| manufacturers and operators who manage to do it more safely
| will end up more profitable.
|
| You also need a system of watchdogs who try to find
| 'coverups' - ie. times where a safety procedure is skipped to
| avoid the fine. A combination of whistleblower rewards and
| automatic data reporting from the plane should help with that
| issue.
| hammock wrote:
| Regulation is not just on a spectrum with not enough on one
| end and too much on the other end.
|
| There is an orthogonal dimension that comprises the quality
| of regulation (good and poor).
|
| Would that more understand this idea.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| I completely agree. From the recent 5G ground radar fiasco
| (where FCC had already adjudicated the issue) to a chilling
| case of FAA telling the United States Air Force that they
| cannot use their allocated spectrum for a Link 16 TRANSEC
| enhancement because of potential GPS interference.
|
| The USAF should instruct the FAA to pound sand. USAF has the
| primary spectrum allocation, and is the owner/operator for both
| systems.
|
| (Aviation Week 2/7/2022 pg. 16)
| coderenegade wrote:
| eVTOLs are powered lift aircraft, though, so this is moving to
| certify them under the correct specification. This is a good
| thing as far as I can see, because the FAA's job isn't to make
| life easy for innovators, it's to ensure that the technology is
| safe for everyday use. And quite frankly, that's how it should
| be; the FAA is the defacto standard for aviation regulation,
| and I wouldn't want to fly on anything that was incapable of
| meeting FAA standards. The 737 max fiasco was a major blow to
| the organization's reputation, and this is a good sign that
| they're taking their job seriously again, because people died.
|
| The real question should be why they were initially going to
| certify eVTOLs as light aircraft. That just seems like the
| entirely wrong category for them.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Could someone with an aviation background chime in on what this
| entails? I would think that VTOL pilot/aircraft certification
| would be more stricter/tighter than light aircrafts. I wonder if
| this move was made by the FAA being slightly concerned about the
| safety, though the AW609 mentioned in the (initial) part of the
| article is a light aircraft... which raises the question on why
| VTOL rules weren't applied right from the start.
|
| Side note: why does this website restrict copying text, or even
| middle-button scrolling?
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| The major thing is that the FAA loves to approve what someone
| at the FAA has _already previously_ approved. So if you have
| parts of the aircraft, avionics, pilot operating manual,
| performance values, etc that have previously been approved by
| the FAA then it is much easier to get them approved again
| because the precedent exists that it is ok. Someone else did
| all the heavy-lifting to get that first approval signature.
|
| By classifying them as the relatively rare "Powered-lift"
| category they have created a huge bureaucratic hurdle to
| overcome. You've gone from thousands of approved airframes to a
| handful of approved airframes. You can still work through it
| but there isn't a precedent for them to easily point to for
| fast approval.
| starwind wrote:
| > which raises the question on why VTOL rules weren't applied
| right from the start.
|
| I've had limited dealings with the FAA but my overall
| impression is they struggle to deal with change.
|
| They don't handle medical certifications well--God help you if
| you take an antidepressant and want to fly a plane, they failed
| on the 5G-radio altimeter issue, they can't approve a leadless
| fuel despite having one that passes all their tests and meets
| their standards, and now this.
| outworlder wrote:
| You may have some luck with antidepressants. What about ADHD
| (even with treatment)? Even more luck is needed.
| adhd1110101 wrote:
| A few antidepressants are now allowed. https://www.faa.gov/
| about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av...
|
| Having _ever_ been diagnosed with ADHD is disqualifying, as
| is taking any ADHD /psychotropic medication to mitigate the
| condition. All you can do is take a day-long battery of
| psych tests to demonstrate that you never had ADHD in the
| first place.
| fmakunbound wrote:
| It's three or four old SSRIs and that comes with with other
| caveats and requirements. I'm also a private pilot wannabe
| and the FAA situation in regard to this is bullshit. Is
| there a chart somewhere showing how many small planes fall
| out of the sky due to some dude taking his meds?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Is there a chart somewhere showing how many small
| planes fall out of the sky due to some dude taking his
| meds?
|
| Well, probably. The FAA is the accident investigation
| authority on the US, if anyone has that chart, it's them.
| (I know I don't have that information, but last time I
| worked on a safety related area (not on the US), and
| worked into getting a relation of causes for accidents,
| almost no cause had enough accidents linked to it to do
| any kind of analysis.)
|
| I am personally against strict regulation for general
| aviation, but most of the eVTOL isn't general aviation
| (I'm not sure why people are lumping it there).
| lutorm wrote:
| I don't think that's entirely fair. Yes, they seem very
| conservative and often taking a punitive approach, but: https
| ://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/07/20210728-g100ul.htm...
| "FAA approves first high-octane unleaded avgas", for medical
| certification there's now BasicMed, the new light airplane
| certification standards mentioned in the article are a lot
| less prescriptive than the old ones, and they're now working
| on the MOSAIC changes to make special-airworthiness
| certificate rules more flexible.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Basicmed was mandated by Congress and forced through with
| the FAA kicking and screaming the whole way.
| repiret wrote:
| BasicMed came from Congress, not the FAA. And true to
| congressional style, it disproportionately benefits the
| elderly - it requires you had a valid medical within the
| past 10 years, which helps if age related health issues
| stop you from renewing, but not if you were never eligible
| for one in the first place.
| lutorm wrote:
| Not true, the requirement is to _ever_ have had a 3rd
| class medical. So yes, you still need to see a medical
| examiner once, but after that you never have to again.
|
| And I'd argue it does not benefit the elderly, it
| benefits everyone. Instead of having to find and pay a
| hundred bucks to a medical examiner every two years I can
| now accomplish this by having a chat with my primary
| physician, which I see anyway, every four years. I think
| it's hugely beneficial to all recreational pilots.
|
| But you're right in that the FAA had to be forced to do
| it.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| I deal with the FAA regularly and I agree with your overall
| impression. The people you deal with at the bottom/middle of
| the organization are incredibly reliant on existing
| rules/wording that when something new comes up they often
| seem to lack common sense.
| gumby wrote:
| > Side note: why does this website restrict copying text, or
| even middle-button scrolling?
|
| User-hostile moronity like this is pervasive and infuriating.
| If you're an Apple user get Stop The Madness -- I never see
| this crap.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| I'm not sure why this classification wasn't used originally. This
| shift makes sense to me but I'm also unable to read the entire
| article.
| lutorm wrote:
| Yeah, I agree. "Light aircraft" seems to imply that you are
| passively-stable and can glide to the ground in case of
| powerplant failure, which can't be true for these things.
| Powered-lift seems like a more appropriate classification, but
| I don't have any insight into what the differences in actual
| requirements are.
| sjburt wrote:
| The Joby vehicle looks like it would be capable of controlled
| descent, it has decent sized wings.
| jandrese wrote:
| I guess the cutoff is if you can maintain a sink rate low
| enough to make a landing without killing/severely injuring
| passengers in an engine-out scenario.
|
| I would expect most of these "scaled up quadcopter"
| companies to incorporate an emergency parachute system to
| handle similar to a Cirrus CAPS.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| Powered-Lift just means that they _aren 't_ using their wing
| surfaces for lift take-off/landing but _are_ using them for
| lift during normal flight. They [edit:might] be able to auto-
| rotate down in the case of a powerplant failure just like a
| helicopter.
|
| Here is the exact definition:
|
| > (425) Powered-lift. A heavier-than-air aircraft capable of
| vertical take-off, vertical landing, and low-speed flight
| that depends principally on engine-driven lift devices or
| engine thrust for lift during these flight regimes and on
| non-rotating aerofoil(s) for lift during horizontal flight.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I don't know about these eVTOLs, but the V22 can't
| autorotate (well technically it can but it probably won't
| survive the landing).
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| Ah, you are correct. I edited my comment from "should" to
| "might". I can't imagine the F-35B is able to auto-rotate
| either. :)
| someweirdperson wrote:
| It doesn't need to. Martin Baker takes care of those
| situations.
| Animats wrote:
| Here's what they are. The "small airplane" certification
| standards [1] are for _airplanes_. A helicopter is not an
| airplane. A powered-lift VTOL incapable of gliding is not an
| airplane.
|
| "The airplane must be controllable and maneuverable, without
| requiring exceptional piloting skill, alertness, or strength,
| within the operating envelope ... (despite) flight control or
| propulsion system failure"
|
| "Continued safe flight and landing means an airplane is
| capable of continued controlled flight and landing, possibly
| using emergency procedures, without requiring exceptional
| pilot skill or strength. Upon landing, some airplane damage
| may occur as a result of a failure condition."
|
| So you must be able to glide to a landing, or at least a
| controlled crash, if you lose engine power.
|
| The FAA is correct here. The "eVTOL" class of aircraft based
| on quadrotor drone technology will fall out of the sky on
| either a power or control failure. It's worse than a
| helicopter, which can usually autorotate.
|
| [1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapte
| r-C...
| imglorp wrote:
| A few more details without a paywall.
|
| https://www.flyingmag.com/faa-modifying-approach-to-evtol-ce...
| marmalar wrote:
| Anybody noticed that you can't highlight text on this website?
| When I try to double click, it pops up an "! _ALERT:_ Content is
| protected !! ". Seems like a futile usefulness oversight,
| especially since if I really need to, I can:
|
| - copy the text via eyeballs->keyboard
|
| - copy the text from the dev console
|
| - take a screenshot and extract the text with Google Photos or
| something
| MR4D wrote:
| Copied (below). I'm on a Mac using Chrome. Not sure if that's
| relevant. The Federal Aviation Administration
| is dramatically revising its approach to certifying electric
| vertical take-off and landing aircraft, injecting new
| uncertainty into the certification programs of the United
| States' leading eVTOL developers. Although the shift
| comes as the FAA has been broadly rebalancing its relations
| with industry since the 737 Max crashes exposed its
| insufficient oversight of Boeing's certification programs, this
| recent move appears more geared toward bureaucracy than safety.
| Specifically, it is driven by a decision to establish
| operational rules for eVTOLs as "powered-lift" aircraft -- a
| definition that was originally introduced into federal
| regulations to cover conventionally powered tiltrotors like the
| Leonardo AW609, in development for the last two decades.
| Related: Approaching first flight, Eviation's Alice readies to
| test FAA Until now, developers of winged eVTOL
| aircraft including Joby Aviation, Archer and Beta Technologies
| have been proceeding on the assumption that their aircraft
| would be certified under the FAA's overhaul of small airplane
| certification rules that took effect in 2017. Those
| performance-based regulations were created out of collaboration
| with industry and kicked off a wave of new entrants emboldened
| by the opportunities they created to certify innovative
| technologies. Now, the FAA under new Acting
| Administrator Billy Nolen is reversing course, the agency
| confirmed to The Air Current, a stunning development that
| appears to have largely caught the industry off guard.
| While the full implications of the shift are unclear, it is
| likely to rattle investors who had believed that the FAA was
| working in harmony with industry to provide eVTOL aircraft with
| a clear route to certification -- an impression that Nolen
| himself bolstered in a recent appearance on 60 Minutes.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances--things
| like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-
| button breakage. They're too common to be interesting._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Just disable java script and all can be copied.
| pineconewarrior wrote:
| Totally. Some old guy from legal demanded the feature I bet.
| muglug wrote:
| They're using this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-
| content-copy-protector/
| keeganjw wrote:
| I hope the FAA and EVTOL companies can work this out and these
| new rules don't significantly disrupt or destroy such a nascent
| industry. Of course the aircraft need to be safe but I hope there
| will still be a clear path for them to become fully certified.
| trhway wrote:
| Just look at drones and FAA. That will kill any hopes on
| working something out. Especially considering that most new
| eVTOL are really just very large drones, pilot presence
| notwithstanding.
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(page generated 2022-05-10 23:01 UTC)