Thank you, Paula. I’m glad to be here. Let me also offer my personal congratulations to the award winners. Their work is contributing to the kinds of innovations that are taking aviation to new heights, maybe even revolutionizing it altogether. In doing so, they’re helping us go beyond our limits, which is the very idea expressed in this year’s AEA conference theme – New Horizons Await.
Speaking of innovation, I was attending the World Aviation Training Symposium last week. In my speech, I talked about the old Link Trainer, an early generation flight simulator developed back in the 1930’s.
These things were kind of like soapbox derby racers, or maybe a trash can with stubby wings, a door and a control stick. Of course, simulators have come a long way since then.
And so have aircraft electronics. You remember the old radios that were so heavy and complicated that they needed a third person in the cockpit to work those things.
Who would have thought back then that the radios would now be as light as 10-15 pounds, or that they would be touch screen?
For the most part, the plane itself is the same as when the Wright Brothers started. It has wings, propulsion, and a method to control it. But the advances have been with the on-board instruments that augment the pilot’s ability – like TCAS, enhanced ground proximity warnings, Mode S transponders, and now ADS-B.
Thanks to advances like these, and others in the electronics industry, airplanes are some of the most connected, information-driven pieces of equipment on the planet.
A pilot today can have as much, maybe even more, situational awareness as the controller on the ground.
We would like to see the industry equip with ADS-B Out as soon as possible. Let me be clear that the deadline for the mandate is set at January 1, 2020. It will not change. That’s only 44 months away!
The air carriers have all committed to being equipped on time, and we expect that the GA community will be as well.
We know it's human nature for people to wait until they absolutely have to do something. There’s a sense that if owners wait longer to equip, they’ll get better deals. Or maybe owners still have a lot of questions about the kind of product they need.
But on the flip side, if they don’t get their appointments scheduled, they might not get their installations in time, and they might be grounded. We’re also concerned that you’ll end up with too much demand and not enough time to get the installations done.
We encourage you to be creative marketers. A great example is Custom Avionics in Bartow, Florida. In December, they launched a new campaign called Early Register, where they guarantee ADS-B installations before the 2020 deadline.
They will assign the customer a position and guarantee their spot. And if owners register now, they lock in the price, even if costs go up as we approach the deadline.
Through Early Register, owners can also preorder equipment and pay for it over time, like a layaway program.
Custom Avionics is just one good example of marketing creativity. I’m sure there are other good ones.
We know prices on equipment have fallen considerably – some units can be found for as low as $1,500. But we’re finding that a lot GA pilots are willing to pay more for a better product. It’s not just about being compliant. There’s value in getting things that make flying more fun and safe – things like ADS-B In.
So while it’s important for your customers to get their installations scheduled, it’s also very important that the installations be properly configured. We’re seeing issues where people are getting their installations, but if it’s not configured correctly, it’s showing up as a problem.
As of April 15, we have about 9,800 good installations and about 1,900 bad installations. Some of these bad ones indicate they are intended to be compliant installations, but something is wrong in the transmitted data. The good news is that the “1,900” seems to be holding constant. So the problem isn’t getting worse.
We’ve made it easier for repair stations and pilots to check if their installation is correct. They can go to the FAA website and click on the “Equip ADS-B” link on the homepage.
Just as ADS-B is enabling us to see new horizons, so is the proliferation of unmanned aircraft. Over the last several months, the FAA has worked to reach a new and different generation of aviators – in venues that are new and different to us, as well.
In early March, our senior advisor on UAS integration and I attended the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.
During one panel, a man in the audience stood up and addressed a representative of one of the major drone manufacturers. He said he had bought one of their early generation drones, but it was already obsolete.
He asked if they would give him a retrofit, and even hinted that they should slow down their innovation. The manufacturer thanked the man for being an early adopter. He then assured the man that his company plans to keep innovating, making drones that are ever lighter and more capable.
It reminds me of Moore’s law from the 1960’s. You might remember this – the rule of thumb that computer memory doubles about every two years, and that’s when you come out with a new product. With UAS, they’re thinking the product life cycle might be 4-6 months. That’s how fast things are changing.
In fact, we expect there to be as many as 7 million drones sold by 2020. And we already have more than 430,000 registered drone users in the United States, more than the number of registered aircraft.
We know that electronic components are becoming more miniaturized to fit on these drones. Developers are coming up with algorithms and sensors that enable drones to fly in formation. If they encounter trees, they can split and fly around the trees. And they can count the peaches on the tree.
Everything is happening so quickly. We are only beginning to see some of the ingenious uses of new and miniaturized technologies developed for drones. We look forward to seeing how these innovations might be applicable to traditional aircraft. It’s certainly fun to be a part of it.
Your companies have been at the forefront when it comes to turning electronics into life-saving, life-changing tools.
You’re constantly looking to the next horizon. In this business, I think everyone ought to be paying attention to what’s happening with drones.
No doubt, industry is moving at the speed of imagination. At the FAA, we can’t afford to move at the old speed of government. We have to be willing to innovate the way we do our work, and we are.
For instance, we took steps to streamline the process of issuing exemptions for non-hobby UAS operations. We recently raised the “blanket” altitude authorization for exemption holders and government operators from 200 feet to 400 feet. This is another milestone in our effort to change the traditional speed of government.
We’re also working to be more flexible in our rules by reviewing our small airplane certification standards. And, based on months of collaboration with manufacturers and others in the industry, we released our proposed rule to rewrite Part 23 in March.
Instead of requiring certain design elements on specific technologies, the new Part 23 rule will enable manufacturers to develop aircraft and safety technologies according to performance-based standards that maintain the same level of safety.
This approach recognizes there’s more than one way to deliver on safety – and it provides room for flexibility and innovation in the marketplace.
We expect that this will reduce the time it takes to get safety-enhancing technologies for small airplanes into the marketplace while also reducing cost.
They might not be required by a rule, but these tools still provide a number of valuable safety benefits – and we want to make sure you can easily take advantage of them.
Our Part 23 rewrite will overhaul how we certify aircraft in the future. But we also recognize how important it is to modernize the existing general aviation fleet.
In 2014, we developed a streamlined process for installing angle of attack indicator systems. Last year, we clarified the process for installing electronic attitude indicators. We’re now building on this progress with a new policy that will make it easier to install other non-required safety-enhancing equipment in GA aircraft.
We think this approach will help us to drive down the GA fatality rate. We’re starting to see it move down some, but this has been a stubborn number.
We want to see the kind of improvement that we’ve had in commercial passenger aviation. There, we’ve reduced the fatal accident risk rate by 83% from 1998 to 2008. And we’re aiming to reduce it another 50% by 2025.
Much of the reduction has come from designing planes that are stronger and smarter.
We now collect a wealth of safety data, and exchange safety data with industry so that we can identify potential hazards and address them before they can give rise to an accident. We want to achieve similar results in General Aviation.
As FAA Administrator, I have to say one of the perks of the job is getting a chance to become a student of aviation history. The walls in the corridor outside my office are lined with black-and-white photographs that capture moments in time.
Some of them are of the aviation heroes and heroines you might expect to see, but a great number of them are of airplanes from a bygone era.
As you look at them, it’s hard to imagine that only a few short decades ago, passengers would climb aboard Ford Tri-motor aircraft with corrugated aluminum skin.
They would sit in wicker seats for flights that sometimes reached the staggeringly high altitude of 10,000 feet. At night, passengers could look out the window and see tongues of blue flames escaping from the un-muffled exhausts.
Today, our newest jetliners are made of materials these pioneers never would have imagined. They fly above the weather at altitudes so high that details of the countryside fade away to hues of brown, green blue.
I recently visited Spirit Aerosystems’ facility in Wichita, Kansas, where sections of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner were being built up by giant robots applying carbon-composite tape to a rotating jig. Who would have thought there would someday be an aircraft factory where the sound of riveting was completely absent?
Similar advances have been made in the world of avionics, and the changes we’re seeing are awe-inspiring.
The FAA is committed to supporting these innovations, while ensuring that all safety needs are met. As your conference them proclaims, we know that New Horizons Await, and I look forward to seeing how these changes will continue to transform aviation.