FAA Reauthorisation Act to Speed Up U.S BVLOS and AAM Authorisations, “Enthusiastically Welcomed by Industry”

Last week the U.S House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) Reau­tho­ri­sa­tion Act of 2024 by a vote of 387 to 26, reports a press release.

This Bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion reau­tho­ris­es the FAA dur­ing the next five years, to issue a notice of pro­posed rule-mak­ing for Unmanned Air­craft Sys­tem (UAS) oper­a­tions beyond Visu­al Line of Sight (BVLOS) with­in four months. The bill also includes a man­date for the FAA to pub­lish a final spe­cial rule for the use of pow­ered lift air­craft with­in sev­en months, which will help to speed up the devel­op­ment of the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) Indus­try. 

Infra­struc­ture is an impor­tant pri­or­i­ty includ­ing new guid­ance for a per­for­mance-based ver­ti­port design advi­so­ry cir­cu­lar (AC) by the end of next year and an updat­ed process for envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments.

The leg­is­la­tion also includes key mea­sures sup­port­ed by The Asso­ci­a­tion for Uncrewed Vehi­cle Sys­tems Inter­na­tion­al (AUVSI), for exam­ple, regard­ing grant pro­grams, cyber secu­ri­ty, work­force train­ing and auton­o­my, along­side many oth­er pri­or­i­ties for its mem­bers.

Pas­sage of the 2024 FAA Reau­tho­riza­tion Act is the result of close col­lab­o­ra­tion across the avi­a­tion indus­try. Apart from AUVSI, these include oth­er trade organ­i­sa­tions like the Nation­al Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NBAA); the Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (GAMA); the Aero­space Indus­tries Asso­ci­a­tion (AIA); Nation­al Air Trans­porta­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NATA); the Ver­ti­cal Avi­a­tion Inter­na­tion­al (VAI); and the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety (VFS). 

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, the AAM indus­try is cock-a-hoop with this news lead­ing to com­pa­nies and asso­ci­at­ed organ­i­sa­tions prais­ing the leg­is­la­tion.

Matt Broff­man, Lilium’s Head of Pub­lic Affairs and Part­ner­ships for the Amer­i­c­as, enthused, “We com­mend the U.S Con­gress for their ded­i­ca­tion to elec­tri­fy­ing avi­a­tion and for recog­nis­ing the vital role that our indus­try will play in the future of trans­porta­tion.” 

Michael Rob­bins, Pres­i­dent and CEO of AUVSI, com­ment­ed, “We look for­ward to work­ing with the FAA and Admin­is­tra­tor Whitak­er on the imple­men­ta­tion of Con­gres­sion­al man­dates on key issues for our indus­tries, includ­ing a Part 108 BVLOS rule and a spe­cial final rule for pow­ered lift air­craft oper­a­tions, which will safe­ly unlock scal­a­bil­i­ty and new, high-val­ue com­mer­cial drone and AAM oper­a­tions.”

And Joby Avi­a­tion post­ed on its web­site, “We believe the Reau­tho­ri­sa­tion Act is a moment of cel­e­bra­tion for the U.S. avi­a­tion indus­try that harkens back to the cre­ation of the agency in the 1950s. By direct­ing the FAA to pri­ori­tise the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of AAM, this Con­gress has imple­ment­ed foun­da­tion­al leg­is­la­tion that sets the stage for U.S lead­er­ship in the next hun­dred years of avi­a­tion.”

FAA Admin­is­tra­tor Michael Whitak­er fly­ing Joby’s sim­u­la­tor at Vaughn Col­lege in New York City

Con­gress has direct­ed the FAA to devel­op a safe, clear and effi­cient route to com­mer­cial­is­ing AAM air­craft. This includes:-

: Pri­ori­tis­ing the ded­i­ca­tion of resources to the type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of nov­el air­craft and propul­sion sys­tems.

: Fin­ish­ing devel­op­ment of the Spe­cial Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Reg­u­la­tion (SFAR) that cov­ers the pilot train­ing and oper­a­tions of pow­ered-lift air­craft.

: Mod­ernising and elec­tri­fy­ing exist­ing avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture, with an eye towards the cre­ation of the next gen­er­a­tion of infra­struc­ture, called ‘ver­ti­ports’.

: Updat­ing the FAA’s exist­ing bilat­er­al avi­a­tion safe­ty agree­ments with civ­il avi­a­tion author­i­ties around the globe to ensure air­craft cer­ti­fied in the U.S. can be expe­di­ent­ly intro­duced into for­eign mar­kets.

“This land­mark leg­is­la­tion is a recog­ni­tion of the progress that dozens of Amer­i­can com­pa­nies, includ­ing Joby, have made to mature elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems and new types of air­craft,” con­tin­ues Joby’s post. “By man­dat­ing the FAA to lean into AAM, Con­gress aims to ensure that the FAA will serve as a dri­ving force for inno­va­tion and con­tin­ued U.S lead­er­ship while keep­ing safe­ty at the heart of its mis­sion.”

An over­rid­ing view is that this leg­is­la­tion now places the U.S at the fore­front of the elec­tric age of avi­a­tion, which will low­er noise and emis­sions for com­mu­ni­ties, while cre­at­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing and avi­a­tion jobs. 

Over the long term, the best solu­tion is to tran­si­tion the indus­try to emis­sions-free fuel and propul­sion sys­tems. While a great deal of tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion must be car­ried out to achieve that goal, the foun­da­tion­al poli­cies and pri­or­i­ties are now in place to make it hap­pen.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.congress.gov

https://www.faa.gov

(Top image cred­it: fl360aero.com)

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