Here are some more details about @theaircurrent’s #eVTOL scoop for those of you who haven’t made it behind the paywall yet. Two key points: 1) This is not about safety, and 2) Yes, the FAA is serious about this. 🧵 theaircurrent.com/aircraft-devel…
2/ Basically the FAA’s approach of using new performance-based Part 23 rules to certify eVTOLs was working fine. But Part 23 has historically been for airplanes, which begged a question: would eVTOLs operate like airplanes or helicopters or something in between?
3/ The FARs already have a definition for something in between: “powered-lift”. Maybe that could apply to eVTOLs? Powered-lift was added to the FARs to cover conventional tiltrotor pilot certification, but there are no operational rules for tiltrotors.
4/ Well, someone at the FAA really liked this eVTOLs = powered-lift idea, but perceived a conflict with powered-lift pilots flying Part 23 “airplanes”. So the agency decided to change the certification basis for the *aircraft* to match the pilot certification. 🙃
5/ This is a massive change with many unknowns. For example, now there need to be completely new rules for powered-lift operations, vs. using the existing framework for airplanes. FAA says this won’t impact certification timelines, but… we’ll see.
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