PODCAST: Inside The eVTOL Certification Challenge with Dr. John Maris of Cert Center Canada & Marivent Corporation

Our lat­est pod­cast episode is now! This week, we were delight­ed to be joined by Dr. John Maris, Pres­i­dent of Marivent Cor­po­ra­tion and Cert Cen­ter Cana­da (3C).

He shares a wealth of insight drawn from decades of expe­ri­ence in air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, flight test­ing, and aero­space inno­va­tion.

The con­ver­sa­tion explores how 3C helps emerg­ing aero­space com­pa­nies nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion — from devel­op­ing ear­ly-stage roadmaps to guid­ing OEMs through com­pli­ance and test­ing.

Dr. Maris explains why cer­ti­fi­ca­tion isn’t an end-of-project task but a con­tin­u­ous process, com­par­ing it to the long and rig­or­ous test­ing cycles of new phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

He also high­lights the unique tech­ni­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry hur­dles fac­ing eVTOL devel­op­ers, such as the lim­i­ta­tions of cur­rent bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy, the evolv­ing frame­works from EASA and the FAA, and the crit­i­cal role of human fac­tors and sim­u­la­tion in ensur­ing safe­ty.

Look­ing to the future, Dr. Maris pre­dicts that eVTOL cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will become more struc­tured and har­mo­nized glob­al­ly, with grow­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion between reg­u­la­tors and inno­va­tors. He believes Cana­da is well posi­tioned to play a lead­ing role in this emerg­ing ecosys­tem — par­tic­u­lar­ly for region­al and first respon­der appli­ca­tions.

Clos­ing the episode, Dr. Maris empha­sizes the impor­tance of clear, fac­tu­al report­ing to edu­cate the wider pub­lic, reg­u­la­tors, and indus­try stake­hold­ers about this “sea change” moment in avi­a­tion.

Click on the Play but­ton to lis­ten to the episode, which is also avail­able on whichev­er pod­cast plat­form you use.