FAA trails EASA in drone certification

Drone technology is advancing rapidly but governmental regulations are lagging, said panelists on a drone development session at Air Cargo Tech Summit 2023 Tuesday in Brussels. [caption id="attachment_57138240" align="alignright" width="300"] Air Cargo Next Associate Editor Courtney Blackann, left, moderates the Air Cargo Tech Summit 2023 panel "Key advancements in drone development and deployment," featuring panelists, from left, Kenneth Chircop, Matthew George and Ed de Reyes. (Photo/Air Cargo Next)[/caption] This delay is especially apparent when it comes to autonomous flight, said panelist Kenneth Chircop , general manager of Dronamics , a European drone maker based in Malta. However, he said, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency ’s (EASA) path to certification is clearer than the FAA ’s in the United States. “I think there are significant differences in the approach,” Chircop said. Due to EASA’s clearer path, he said, Dronamics became the first cargo drone airline to be assigned designator codes by IATA and the International Civil Aviation Organization . “It means that [we] can actually fly and we are flying,” Chircop said. “We haven’t started commercial flights, but we are midway in that flight test program. But, of course, in order to do that, we have a various-phased approach. And that is what we have in Europe — a regulatory pathway that we can follow. It is a stepped approach.” New faces, further delays The FAA does not have a clear path to certification, panelist Ed de Reyes , chair and chief executive of Camarillo, Calif.-based Sabrewing Aircraft Co. , said. “The real issue between the FAA and EASA, more than anything else, actually, is continuity,” he said. “Since COVID, the FAA has found it harder and harder to keep the same group of people. EASA not so much.” Sabrewing has meetings with the FAA and EASA once every two weeks, de Reyes said. “From meeting to meeting, from every other week to every other week, in those meetings [with the FAA], we see different faces, and that’s a problem,” he said. “The difference is that, every two weeks with EASA, I see the same faces. So, what fundamentally is the problem here is that you get new people that are not up to speed in the FAA.” De Reyes said there have been times that FAA employees have given him incorrect information, showing a lack of institutional knowledge. He blamed the issue on the FAA hiring employees right out of college who are only there for a short time to be able to put the FAA on their CVs. “We’ve made more progress with EASA in the last three years than we have ever made with the FAA in six years,” he said. Safety first While EASA’s certification requirements have been performance-based consistently, deReyes criticized the FAA for switching between performance-based certification and regulation-based certification. But panelist Matthew George , chief executive of Boston-based Merlin Labs , defended the FAA, saying the delays are due to an abundance of caution. “We can tell you with some certainty … that the FAA is slow, but ultimately it is focused on safety,” George said. “Those regulations are written in blood, because those regulations are there because of accidents, and to ensure safety of both the people flying an aircraft but also walking around.” Merlin is working to certify the first civilian takeoff-to-touchdown autonomous system, George said, something the company has been doing for a long time with the military. “But there’s never been a certified civilian assistant to be able to go do that,” George said. “We’ve got to certify the basics first.” De Reyes said that, while safety is important, he still believes the delays are due to “bad communication.” “You’re right, there’s never been a civilian-certified system for autonomy,” he said. “However, the core of all these systems have been around for many years.”

FAA trails EASA in drone certification

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