USA: Federal Aviation Administration releases framework for electric air taxis to take off, news welcomed by industry

The Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion has released a Spe­cial Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Reg­u­la­tion (SFAR) to estab­lish require­ments for the safe, effi­cient inte­gra­tion of eVTOL air­craft into the USA’s avi­a­tion sys­tem. 

In doing so, it lays the ground­work nec­es­sary for com­pa­nies such as Joby Avi­a­tion and Archer to launch com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger ser­vices in the coun­try, once type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of their respec­tive air­craft has been grant­ed.

FAA Admin­is­tra­tor Mike Whitak­er unveiled the SFAR dur­ing the keynote at NBAA’s 2024 Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Con­ven­tion & Exhi­bi­tion (NBAA-BACE) in Las Vegas yes­ter­day (Tues­day).

He said: “The FAA will con­tin­ue to pri­or­i­tize the safe­ty of our sys­tem as we work to seam­less­ly inte­grate inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy and oper­a­tions. This final rule pro­vides the nec­es­sary frame­work to allow pow­ered lift air­craft to safe­ly oper­ate in our air­space.

“Pow­ered lift air­craft are the first new cat­e­go­ry of air­craft in near­ly 80 years and this his­toric rule will pave the way for accom­mo­dat­ing wide-scale Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) oper­a­tions in the future.” 

Additional Details

The FAA pre­vi­ous­ly deter­mined it could cer­ti­fy pow­ered-lift using exist­ing reg­u­la­tions and updat­ed oth­er reg­u­la­tions so air taxis could be used com­mer­cial­ly. Last year the agency released a blue­print for how Urban Air Mobil­i­ty vehi­cles will oper­ate, which is a key ele­ment in matur­ing the over­all AAM con­cept.   

A new pilot-train­ing and qual­i­fi­ca­tions rule was need­ed because exist­ing reg­u­la­tions did not address this new cat­e­go­ry of air­craft, which can take off and land ver­ti­cal­ly like a heli­copter and fly like an air­plane dur­ing cruise flight. The rule pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive frame­work for cer­ti­fy­ing the ini­tial cadre of pow­ered-lift instruc­tors and pilots.  

The rule: 

• Makes changes to numer­ous exist­ing reg­u­la­tions and estab­lish­es a Spe­cial Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Reg­u­la­tion (SFAR) with new require­ments to facil­i­tate instruc­tor and pilot cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and train­ing
• Applies heli­copter oper­at­ing require­ments to some phas­es of flight and adopts a per­for­mance-based approach to cer­tain oper­at­ing rules
• Allows pilots to train in pow­ered-lift with a sin­gle set of flight con­trols; lega­cy rules require two flight con­trols – one for the stu­dent and one for the instruc­tor

The rule also address­es their oper­a­tional require­ments, includ­ing min­i­mum safe alti­tudes and required vis­i­bil­i­ty.

News Welcomed by industry players

It is the final piece in the puz­zle for safe­ly intro­duc­ing these air­craft in the near term, and the news was wel­comed by the likes of Joby, Archer and BETA Tech­nolo­gies, as well as trade asso­ci­a­tions such as the Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (GAMA) and the Nation­al Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (NBAA). 

JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby, said: “The reg­u­la­tion pub­lished today will ensure the U.S. con­tin­ues to play a glob­al lead­er­ship role in the devel­op­ment and adop­tion of clean flight. Deliv­er­ing ahead of sched­ule is a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion, coor­di­na­tion and hard work of the rule­mak­ing team.”

Ear­ly last year, BETA Tech­nolo­gies shared that a few FAA test pilots went through ground school aca­d­e­mics to learn how to fly ALIA, then flew its air­craft along­side a BETA test pilot in qual­i­ta­tive eval­u­a­tion flights.

Kris­ten Costel­lo, BETA Tech­nolo­gies’ Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs Lead, added: “We applaud the FAA for their time­ly deliv­ery of a safe path for­ward for pilot cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and oper­a­tions of pow­ered lift air­craft. It’s an impor­tant and encour­ag­ing step for the indus­try. We look for­ward to review­ing it in depth and work­ing along­side our cus­tomers to oper­a­tional­ize it.”

Ed Bolen, NBAA’s CEO and Pres­i­dent also wel­comed this lat­est announce­ment from the FAA. He said: “Advanced air mobil­i­ty promis­es to change the very def­i­n­i­tion of on-demand avi­a­tion world­wide.

“Giv­en the speed at which the tech­nol­o­gy is devel­op­ing, it is crit­i­cal that all stake­hold­ers have clear, offi­cial guid­ance for AAM oper­a­tions. We com­mend the FAA for pro­vid­ing that guid­ance with the pub­li­ca­tion of this new rule.” 

Com­ment­ing on the announce­ment via its LinkedIn page, a post from Archer read: “We appre­ci­ate the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion’s con­tin­ued part­ner­ship and proac­tive approach to advanc­ing the eVTOL indus­try with today’s release of the final pow­ered-lift Spe­cial Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Reg­u­la­tion (SFAR).

“This comes ahead of sched­ule, incor­po­rates key feed­back from across the indus­try and is yet anoth­er foun­da­tion­al ele­ment toward our goal of the U.S. lead­ing the way in com­mer­cial­iz­ing UAM. We’ll con­tin­ue to for­mu­late our oper­a­tional plans to align to this final rule.”

You can read more details about this announce­ment, by click­ing here to read a Medi­um blog by the FAA and Mr Whitak­er. Alter­na­tive­ly, you can vis­it the FAA’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty page.

Main image cred­it: Joby Avi­a­tion