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Roadmaps are all the rage in government offices and now there’s a new one! What’s more, this is a ‘Landmark Roadmap’ agreed between the national aviation authorities from the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
The new roadmap is to speed up the certification of new aircraft types, and the validation process each country goes through to approve another country’s type certification.
So, a new aircraft type certified in Canada, for instance, should breeze through the UK CAA’s validation process.
What has brought this stunning revolution about, you might ask?
No, it’s not commonsense but the desire among governments to speed up the introduction of what’s called Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) aircraft, especially electric or hybrid power vertical take-off and landing aircraft such as the Vertical VX-4 or Beta Alia.
The UK CAA has today announced the release of the Roadmap for Advanced Air Mobility Aircraft Type Certification. A link to the roadmap is below.
The roadmap was developed collaboratively by the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), Transport Canada (TC), the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (NZ CAA), the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority (UK CAA) and the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Vertical’s VX4 electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing prototype is going through flight tests
Sophie O’Sullivan, Director of Future of Flight at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said, “This roadmap is part of our work to enable new technology into our skies and support the growth of the UK aerospace industry.
“It marks a significant milestone in the evolution of bilateral partnerships to meet the challenges of emerging aviation technology. It allows us to share data, research and safety information while also collaborating and sharing our expertise.
“While for manufacturers and operators, it aims to reduce the certification burden once aircraft have received a type certificate and allow them faster entry to multiple countries through harmonised airworthiness standards.
“By working together, we can ensure that the introduction of AAM aircraft is both safe and efficient, paving the way for the future of urban mobility.”
Currently, traditional aircraft are type-certified in the country of design using internationally harmonised airworthiness certification standards. Countries then validate the aircraft against these standards before the aircraft can be operated in other nations.
However, with new AAM aircraft types, there are differences in certification standards emerging across the world. The roadmap acknowledges these differences and provides a framework to converge and harmonise these standards to streamline validation and entry of AAM aircraft into multiple markets.
Observers might notice that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is not part of this roadmap. Odd, you might think given that the UK CAA has adopted EASA SC-VTOL as the prescribed airworthiness standards for type certifying AAM.
