FeaturedNews

Reliable Robotics Achieves Certification Milestone with G‑1 Issue Paper Acceptance

Reli­able Robot­ics has announced that the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis of its advanced nav­i­ga­tion and aut­oflight sys­tem has been accept­ed by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA).

The final G‑1 issue paper defines the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis for the company’s Sup­ple­men­tal Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (STC) on the Cess­na 208 Car­a­van, a pop­u­lar car­go air­craft, which will enhance safe­ty by enabling con­tin­u­ous autopi­lot engage­ment through all phas­es of air­craft oper­a­tion, includ­ing taxi, take­off, cruise, land­ing, brak­ing and roll­out, with a sin­gle pilot on board for abnor­mal pro­ce­dures.

Reli­able Robot­ics direc­tor of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Mark Mondt said: “We are very appre­cia­tive of the FAA’s note­wor­thy atten­tion to detail and ongo­ing sup­port.

“This cer­ti­fi­ca­tion basis is the cul­mi­na­tion of years of work with the FAA and rep­re­sents a key step towards bring­ing advanced nav­i­ga­tion and aut­oflight sys­tems to nor­mal cat­e­go­ry air­craft.

“We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our work togeth­er as we move into the next phase of the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process.”

The FAA issues papers to pro­vide a struc­tured means of describ­ing and track­ing the res­o­lu­tion of sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry issues that occur dur­ing a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion project.

The signed G‑1 issue paper rep­re­sents for­mal agree­ment between Reli­able Robot­ics and the FAA on the applic­a­ble air­wor­thi­ness and envi­ron­men­tal require­ments for the company’s advanced automa­tion sys­tem.

Today, con­trolled flight into ter­rain and loss of con­trol are the first and sec­ond caus­es of fatal acci­dents in small air­craft. Advanced automa­tion sys­tems will reduce the occur­rence of these acci­dents and bring an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of safe­ty to com­mer­cial avi­a­tion through pre­ci­sion nav­i­ga­tion, sophis­ti­cat­ed flight plan­ning and robust flight con­trols.

In May, Joby Avi­a­tion acquired Avionyx to sup­port its air­craft type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram with the FAA.

In July last year, 13 com­pa­nies and one uni­ver­si­ty signed agree­ments with NASA’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty project’s Nation­al Cam­paign, with flight part­ners for demon­stra­tions that includ­ed Reli­able Robot­ics.

Avatar photo

Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

eVTOL Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769