Redefining Business As Usual

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for having me.

It’s always a pleasure to be back at the Aero Club of Washington.

This was one of my first stops after getting confirmed as FAA Administrator in 2013. In fact, I was sworn in here. And I get the same feeling today as I did then.

It’s an honor to address a forum that has hosted so many of the giants from our nation’s rich aviation history.

Late last month, we lost one of those giants.

Joe Sutter, the “Father of the Boeing 747” and a recipient of the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, passed away at the age of 95.

Joe was an inspiration and mentor for three generations of engineers.

Although he was officially retired, he maintained an office at Boeing and frequently met with potential customers. Nobody knew more about “his” airplane than Joe.

With its wide body and distinctive upper deck, the 747 is one of the world’s most recognizable aircraft. But that almost wasn’t the case.

When the 747 first came out in 1968, Boeing anticipated selling no more than 400 planes. It was supposed to be a stopgap aircraft that would soon be eclipsed by supersonic transport.

Obviously that didn’t happen.

Joe and his colleagues at Boeing learned a valuable lesson that’s just as true today as it was then: when it comes to aviation, our world is constantly changing. The winners are those who adapt.

Some of this change is cause for celebration. Thanks to the work we’ve done in conjunction with industry, flying in the United States is safer than it’s ever been.

We’ve all but eliminated the traditional causes of commercial airline accidents.

The low-hanging fruit is gone – but that doesn’t mean our job is done.

Now more than ever, aviation is an international – and interconnected – industry. When an airplane crashes, our entire community feels it. These tragedies don’t just happen in one country, or to one airline. They happen to all of us, and we share collectively in the loss.

How do we prevent these incidents from occurring? How do we improve our processes and procedures? How do we make the world’s safest form of transportation even safer?

When you get down to it, that’s the true underlying product of our worldwide industry: safety.

And if we’re going to continue raising the bar on safety, we have to get creative.

Creativity has always kept aviation moving forward – pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

The same spirit that inspired Wilbur Wright to fill notebook after notebook with drawings of birds drove the imaginations of modern-day engineers to design the GE9X – a jet engine wider than the fuselage of a Boeing 737.

So how does an industry that’s always changing intersect with an agency whose mission of safety and efficiency remains the same?

That’s the question people want me to answer anytime I speak to groups like this one. And it’s one we talk about on a daily basis at the FAA.

When I started thinking about what I wanted to say today, I went back and read some of my previous Aero Club speeches.

It was interesting to see how much our industry – and the FAA – have changed in just that short period of time.

Three years ago, drones were – pardon the expression – barely a blip on our radar. Today, hardly a day goes by that I don’t deal with them.

I’d even say there’s no better parallel for what’s happening in aviation as a whole than what’s happening with drones.

Unmanned aircraft have gone from being a niche interest to an actual segment of aviation that’s growing at an unprecedented pace.

They’re transforming industries like filmmaking and agriculture.

They’re improving the safety of our transportation infrastructure by inspecting miles of rail tracks and pipelines.

And they’re tackling jobs that can be dangerous for people or other aircraft to do, such as search-and-rescue operations.

With all of these options, unmanned aircraft usage has soared in recent years – but not without its share of growing pains.

Safely integrating drones into a system that already includes everything from commercial airliners and business jets to helicopters and general aviation airplanes is one of our industry’s top priorities.

Last summer, we saw numerous reports about unmanned aircraft interfering with wildfire operations. Some were spotted too close to airplanes and airports. One even crashed into Arthur Ashe Stadium during the U.S. Open.

The FAA needed to take action – to educate operators about airspace rules so they could fly safely, and to help law enforcement identify people who weren’t obeying the rules.

We decided to create an online registration system for unmanned aircraft last October. And since we were looking ahead to a holiday season where drones were at the top of thousands of wish lists, it would have to be launched before Christmas – less than two months away.

When we announced this ambitious schedule, I heard from a number of people – some in this room – who thought we’d made a promise we couldn’t keep.

After all, government isn’t supposed to be able to work on that kind of timeline.

Getting it done required some outside-the-box thinking within the FAA. We didn’t let well-worn internal processes dictate how we’d achieve our goal. Instead, we charted new paths.

We solicited advice from a task force of heavy-hitters from the aviation and technology industries. Daily meetings between employees at every level of the agency improved coordination and allowed for real-time troubleshooting.

And it turned out that a bit of chaos and uncertainty, coupled with an immovable deadline, was a pretty powerful focusing mechanism.

Our drone registration system was up and running before Santa could start his annual flight. Nine months later, more than 550,000 users have registered.

To put that in perspective, we only have 320,000 registered manned aircraft – and it took us 100 years to get there.

This success is a testament to how much can be achieved when government and industry work together.

Last week, we took a step to formalize that partnership with the first meeting of our Drone Advisory Committee.

The DAC is chaired by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and includes representatives from the technology and aviation industries, labor organizations, and state and local governments.

I’ve asked this committee to help us prioritize our unmanned aircraft integration activities, including the development of future regulations and policies.

Now we didn’t start from scratch when we came up with the idea for the DAC. It’s closely modeled after our NextGen Advisory Committee – another collaboration with industry that has been essential to the FAA’s work modernizing our air traffic system.

The United States has always been a global aviation leader. And that’s because we haven’t shied away from making the big investments – the kind that can transform the way we move people and goods, not for a few years, but for generations.

When we first started thinking about what it would take to modernize our air traffic system for the 21^st century, we knew that “going small” wasn’t an option.

NextGen is nothing less than the reinvention of the way we manage air traffic. It touches every phase of flight – from takeoff, to navigation, to landing.

But the thing about a transformative project like NextGen is: it’s not easy. One of my predecessors compared it to changing the tire on a moving car.

I’d amend that slightly. It’s like changing the engine on a moving jetliner. At altitude.

If you want to get a big project right, you need time and you need resources. But just as important, you need buy-in from a wide variety of stakeholders.

These foundational pieces are now in place.

We upgraded the computer platform that had its roots in the 1960s.

We installed ground infrastructure nationwide to support satellite-based aircraft tracking, and we launched a $10 million rebate program this week that will make it easier for general aviation pilots to equip their planes to take advantage of it.

The good news is that we’re on track to meet our NextGen objectives by 2025. But NextGen is delivering real, measurable benefits today – for airlines, for businesses, and for the American people.

And it’s happening at an accelerated pace that’s being driven by industry needs.

Let me give you an example. Data Communications, or Data Comm, is a NextGen technology that allows air traffic controllers and pilots to transmit flight plans and other essential safety messages by text instead of time-consuming radio transmissions.

Now that seems pretty simple – and even a little boring – at first glance. But Data Comm’s true potential is obvious as soon as you see it in action.

Airlines stay on schedule, packages get delivered on time, and passengers get off the ground and to their destinations more quickly.

In fact, we estimate that Data Comm will save operators more than $10 billion over the next 30 years – along with saving the FAA about $1 billion.

We started working on Data Comm about four years ago. Engaging with stakeholders – and getting them on board with the technology and its benefits – was one of our first priorities.

We launched trials at Newark and Memphis International Airports to test equipment and develop flight deck and tower procedures. And we worked closely with partners like United Airlines, FedEx, and UPS to measure the fuel and time savings Data Comm could provide.

The results were quite impressive.

It wasn’t long before we heard from our airline partners on the NextGen Advisory Committee. They asked us to prioritize Data Comm so they could take advantage of its capabilities more quickly and in more locations.

We had originally created a plan that would widely deploy Data Comm at airports over the course of three years. Instead we used the lessons learned in Newark and Memphis to condense it to one.

At the beginning of this year, Data Comm was operational at five airports.

Today, it’s up and running at 44 air traffic control towers nationwide, including major markets like New York, Los Angeles, and right here in Washington, DC.

We plan to have it in more than 50 towers by the end of 2016. That’s nearly two years ahead of schedule.

NextGen technologies like Data Comm are game-changers. They’re making us more efficient, saving millions of dollars in fuel costs, and reducing the creation of greenhouse gases.

But as with any major effort, there are challenges.

Over the last two decades, we’ve made significant progress in reducing aircraft noise for people living around airports. Advances in aircraft technology, operational procedures, and programs with airports all work together to mitigate noise.

But as individual aircraft noise levels have decreased, we’ve seen increases in the number of operations, particularly at night, and in the number of people living around airports.

Using NextGen procedures also sometimes results in changes in flight patterns and noise for communities around airports.

As a result, we’ve seen an increasing level of public debate, political interest, and even litigation related to aircraft noise.

The FAA has stepped up its public engagement efforts across the United States in response to these trends. Most recently, we held meetings in Cleveland and Detroit, as well as here in the DC metro area.

But the FAA can’t solve this problem alone. All aviation stakeholders, from local airport authorities to the airlines, must take an ownership stake on noise issues.

Some of you already have, and I thank you for that.

Now we need to do more.

We need to work together to engage communities early and often – and that means meeting them where they live.

We need to listen to people’s concerns and make an earnest effort to find solutions that work for everyone.

There’s no question that NextGen advancements are revolutionizing the way the FAA manages air traffic. But technology isn’t just changing the way we do business.

Manufacturers are taking tremendous strides forward in aircraft design and production. To keep pace with these innovations, the FAA is redefining its role as a regulator.

For a long time, the FAA told manufacturers how to build a safe airplane. We required specific technologies with precise design elements.

But this system became strained as the industry evolved. Manufacturers kept coming to us with new ideas, and our certification processes struggled to keep up.

We made some improvements around the edges over the years, but they were often incremental and independent from one another.

It became obvious that we needed to overhaul our approach to certifying aircraft if we wanted to increase safety and to help products get to market faster.

We currently have a final rule in executive review that would rewrite our small airplane certification standards – better known as Part 23.

There’s a simple idea at the heart of it: The FAA doesn’t want to tell manufacturers how to build things.

We’re not in the engineering business, and we can’t assume we have all the answers about the best way to develop an aircraft.

Our business is safety – and the new Part 23 recognizes that. Instead of requiring certain technologies or designs, it will define the performance objectives we want to achieve.

This is a fundamental shift for our agency.

We’re not waiting around to find the best way to respond to a specific innovation. We’re creating an organization that can respond nimbly and flexibly to any innovation.

Most importantly, this approach lets the dreamers and innovators do what they do best. 

We don’t want bureaucratic red tape to hamper their progress. On the contrary: we want to support it. And that’s a message I’ve been taking to every office – at every level – of the FAA.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been attending the agency’s annual award ceremonies to celebrate the work we’re doing across our lines of business. We recognize individuals who go above and beyond in times of crisis, and teams that band together to achieve extraordinary things.

While we’re obviously proud of these efforts, I often hear that this intensity and focus isn’t sustainable in the long-term for the FAA as a whole.

It’s like we’re a rubber band. In the right circumstances, we can really stretch far and do incredible things. But like a lot of other large organizations, as soon as we’re done, we snap back to the old way of doing business.

I’ve even had some people tell me they can’t wait for certain initiatives to be over so they can get back to their “real jobs.”

But this is our “real job.” This is the new normal.

I’ve heard that same sentiment from some of our traditional constituents as we’ve been redefining how we interact with industry on a number of fronts.

The fact is, aviation has never stood still. And the pace of change is only going to keep accelerating. That means we need to get comfortable with always being a little uncomfortable.

As you can imagine, this can be a tough thing to sell to an industry filled with engineering-minded people who thrive on certainty.

But as I’ve challenged our teams at the FAA to think differently, I’ve seen some promising results.

Take our Aeronautical Information Services division, which is responsible for collecting and publishing aviation data.

This is an office with roots that go all the way back to 1926 – when navigational charts had to be drawn by hand. And some of the processes they relied on weren’t much newer.

Now it would have been very easy for this group to dig in and insist that the core function of their office was to print paper charts.

But instead, they’ve done something I believe is essential for any organization that wants to evolve. They stepped back and said, “Are we asking the right questions about what we do?”

They quickly realized that their core function isn’t actually printing charts. It’s delivering high-quality, accurate aviation data.

So the Aeronautical Information Services team, working with our Office of Information and Technology, started asking employees about ways to deliver that data more efficiently.

Now, to be honest, there was some resistance at first. But as employees were encouraged to bring any and all ideas to the table, the fear of the unknown was replaced with excitement – to tear up the rule book and to innovate.

The team knew that manufacturers and developers could build new flight management tools to improve safety and performance if they had better access to information.

So we created Got Data – a campaign to help the private sector better access our existing aeronautical information, and to identify additional data resources we might be able to provide.

We got a lot of great feedback from the general aviation community and app developers when Mike Whitaker, our former Deputy Administrator, launched Got Data at Sun ‘n Fun in April.

And by the time I went to Oshkosh in July, our team had already used the recommendations to create a Data Innovation Center as a central location for all of our aeronautical data.

They also launched automated digital product downloads that make it easier for users to take advantage of the most up-to-date information.

This is only the beginning for Got Data – and for the transformation of our Aeronautical Information Services division.

I couldn’t be prouder – not only of what they’re accomplishing, but how they’re doing it. They represent a more innovative – and a more responsive – FAA.

We have an amazing pool of talent at our agency – and our achievements rely on it. Every improvement that an individual makes strengthens our foundation – and gives us more capacity to tackle our mission with ingenuity and urgency.

More than any one program or initiative, that’s what will determine the success of the FAA in the 21^st century.

We’re creating a culture that doesn’t just look for answers, but makes sure we’re asking the right questions. A culture that’s willing to move forward, even when we don’t have everything figured out just yet.

We’re making progress – and people are noticing.

This job has taken me to a lot of interesting places – from air traffic control towers and aircraft manufacturing plants, to right here at the Aero Club. But it’s also taken me where you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find the head of the FAA.

I spoke at the Peres Center for Peace in Israel about the importance of keeping aviation safe in conflict zones.

While talking with insurance underwriters at Lloyd’s of London about their expanded role in aviation, I saw the storied Lutine Bell. Over the decades it rang to signal claims resulting from ships lost at sea.

I even attended the Consumer Electronics Show and participated in a panel at South by Southwest as we engaged with stakeholders on how to integrate drones into our airspace.

At so many of these events, across the country and around the world, people stop to tell me how excited they are about something the FAA is working on. And there’s this note of shock they can’t quite keep out of their voices.

What I end up hearing is something like, “Who are you, and what have you done with the FAA?”

It always gets a smile out of me. But it also motivates me to do more.

I want to keep striving for a day when the transformative work that we’re doing – whether it’s integrating unmanned aircraft, or delivering NextGen benefits, or overhauling certification and data sharing – isn’t considered extraordinary.

When it’s just business as usual at the FAA.

Thank you for being here today.

Air Transportation Information Exchange

Thank you, Abby. I’m so happy to be here. It’s good to see so many colleagues from the FAA, industry, and our international partners all together in one room.

As you can probably imagine, I do a lot of speaking as FAA Administrator, to a wide variety of groups. I’m particularly happy to be here at the Air Transportation Information Exchange Conference.  And that’s because I believe that the free and open exchange of information is one of the most important things that we can do as an aviation and aerospace industry if we want to improve aviation safety.

Today, no matter where you look, we as a society are awash in a sea of data. Whether it’s from a smart phone app or a triple-redundant fly-by-wire flight control system on a modern jetliner, almost every move we make generates a stream of ones and zeroes.

It’s been said that we’re living in the age of “Big Data,” but it wasn’t always like that.

In the early 1950s, the aviation industry was baffled by a string of crashes involving the DeHavilland Comet, the world’s first production jetliner. David Warren, an Australian researcher, believed investigators would be better able to determine the probable cause of crashes if the pilots’ voices could be captured, along with a few key instrument readings.

Warren developed the first “black box” for commercial airliners – which he called a Flight Memory Unit – in 1957. And even back then, the black box wasn’t black; it was red. Go figure.

During the first couple of decades, flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders remained fairly primitive due to limitations with the technology at the time.

Even into the 1980s, they recorded only a handful of parameters that were etched into aluminum foil or recorded on a 30-minute loop of magnetic tape.

This data was extremely helpful for accident investigations, considering that before that, there was nothing.    

Today, a flight data recorder on a modern jet can record hours of data including several hundred parameters on solid-state memory.

And although accidents involving commercial aircraft are exceedingly rare, flight recorders are still one of the most valuable safety tools we have to ensure safety in aviation.

In fact, in many ways, we’ve entered a new frontier when it comes to aviation data. Because we have so much information, we no longer have to wait for an incident to occur before we identify a safety problem.

For example, today we can use data from a recorder on a jet engine to potentially predict an imminent failure that first manifests itself as something as innocuous as a high oil temperature reading.

In recent years, aviation safety has evolved from a discipline dominated by aerospace engineers to one in which Information Technology professionals are helping us spot the problems that might have been in the system all along.

So we have to find ways to share information, and to share data, more freely and also find new ways to figure out what the data can tell us.  For instance, safety data could lead to smarter designs of aircraft or better pilot training.

Let me share an example that I think speaks volumes about what we can accomplish when we have an open exchange of data.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a conversation that began about how we can drive down the commercial fatal accident risk rate. 

In that time period, we experienced a series of crashes that raised questions in the public and in Congress that basically boiled down to this: Was aviation safe? Or was it even possible to make it safe? 

A White House Commission recommended that we set a goal to reduce the fatal accident rate by 80 percent in 10 years. Then a Congressional Commission recommended that the government and the aviation industry, together, develop a joint safety agenda to meet this goal. 

So the FAA and industry made this commitment. We set up the Commercial Aviation Safety Team.  We agreed that we would share data between the industry and government, we would analyze that data together, and we would develop an agenda to mitigate risk.

Ten years later, in 2008, we achieved our goal. We had reduced the commercial fatality risk not just by 80 percent, but by 84 percent in that 10-year period.

This is held up, not just in aviation, but across the entire transportation spectrum as being one of the most profound successes we’ve ever had. Aviation is far safer than it’s ever been. And lessons are being applied to other modes of transportation. 

Building on this progress, we then shifted from a forensic approach to managing safety to a more prognostic approach. This shift recognized that we could rely on safety data from across the industry, not just to solve the last accident, but to prevent an accident from happening in the first place. 

This proactive, data-driven approach is now at the center of all of the FAA’s safety efforts. 

Whether we’re working to mitigate safety risk, maximize air traffic efficiency, or any other goal in aviation, one thing is clear – information sharing, broadly across the industry, between industry and governments, between governments throughout the world,is the key to our success.

The more we can find ways of getting accurate, timely, secure data in the hands of the people who need it, the better off we will all be in the aviation industry. 

We’re really only scratching the surface today. There is a lot of data out there and it’s going to require creativity to find new ways to harness the full extent of what that data is telling us.

This is true in every segment of society, not just the aviation industry. In fact, President Obama issued a White House directive calling for an Open Data Policy in May of 2013.

The idea is that by making information resources easy to find, making them more accessible, and making them more usable, we can fuel entrepreneurship, innovation and scientific discovery that can improve the lives of all Americans and spur job creation here in the United States.

We want to get data into the hands of those that can make great use of it. It’s especially important when you consider that in our industry, aviation, things are moving at the speed of innovation. We can’t be moving at the speed of government. 

So at the FAA, we’re doing our part to support the President’s Open Data Policy.

Earlier this year, we started the “Got Data?” initiative.  It’s an effort to engage with our external stakeholders to better understand the kind of data they find useful and how we can get it to them in a quick and efficient manner. 

Avionics manufacturers turn the navigational charts and instrument approaches the FAA produces into a wide variety of electronic products. These feed into the aircraft’s flight management systems, iPads, and other mobile devices.

The biggest advantage of these new products is that they enable pilots to have greater situational awareness about where they are, and what lies ahead, than ever before. And it all fits in the space of a silicon chip.

Now imagine what could be possible if we opened up more of our data to more partners. That’s the idea behind Got Data.

We want to find better ways to help the private sector access aeronautical data currently offered by the FAA. We also want to identify additional data resources that we could potentially provide.

Our goal is to help industry be in a position to create innovative products and technologies that can improve safety and efficiency in the aviation industry.

We’ve created a Data Innovation Center that serves as a new central location for all of the FAA’s aeronautical information.

We also launched automated digital product downloads that will make it easier for users to ensure they’re using the most up-to-date data.

We’re seeing that app developers can use the underlying data to build charts. They can change the color of airports based on whether they have part-time or full-time control tower service. They’re developing ways to display Temporary Flight Restrictions visually for pilots.

We’ve made this progress in only two and a half months, and we’re just getting started.

We’re going to continue working closely with aircraft owners, application developers, and manufacturers to provide new and better data that will improve the products that pilots use in the cockpit for the safety and efficiency of our airspace.

I want to see these kinds of benefits across the globe as well. After all, the need for accurate, timely air traffic information doesn’t stop at our FIR boundary. Passengers expect one level of safety, whether they’re flying at home or abroad. 

Ensuring that level of safety requires the sharing of data between nations. And while we want global aviation to be safer, we also want it to be more efficient and greener. 

Over the past 10 years, the FAA and EUROCONTROL have worked together to improve the global exchange of several types of air transportation information.

Until recently, our information was still based on the ability for the human to read and verbalize the concept.  This led to many different formats and lots of time and money spent adapting to one another’s rules, definitions and formats.

In an environment in which automation is now supporting our decisions, we have come together to develop standard models for the exchange of flight, weather and aeronautical information.

To support aeronautical information exchange, the FAA implemented a Digital Notices to Airmen system in 2013.

Under the digital system, authorized persons can submit NOTAMS directly into the system. Airspace users can more easily filter and sort the NOTAMs, which enables better flight planning and greater situational awareness for users of the system.  With the legacy system, it took about 15 minutes to originate a NOTAM. By going digital, it takes about five seconds. Clearly, that is a huge improvement in getting timely information to users.  

We’re using similar tools to digitize flight planning and the exchange of weather information.

I want to thank everyone here for the great job that’s been done in making this possible. 

This work now continues into the newly-formed ICAO Information Management Panel, where we are supporting the development of overall global information management standards and practices that impact all of the information domains.

All of these efforts have laid the groundwork for a more global structure for information access. We’ll be able to exchange greater amounts of relevant information in a timelier and less costly way. As we do these things, we’ll make international aviation more seamless.  We’ll make it more efficient.  We’re also going to make it safer, and we never want to lose sight of that.

The FAA and EUROCONTROL have hosted separate demonstrations showing that a global structure can work very well. These demonstrations have used simulated and live flight data to support things like flight plan submission, boundary coordination, dangerous goods transport, and fleet prioritization. 

Through these demonstrations and a lot of other work, the FAA and EUROCONTROL have demonstrated global leadership on this issue, which is helping to support the Global Air Navigation Service Plan and helping to support individual participants in the system. 

We’re big supporters of ICAO’s Information Management Panel, which is doing the foundational work to make these international exchange models work for all nations. We want to exchange timely, secure, and relevant information to users in a way that is flexible, adaptable and scalable.

I’ve mentioned a few ways that data is changing aviation, but really, it would be difficult to make a comprehensive list.

The FAA realizes that the real key to making real progress in harnessing the power of data lies in forming collaborative relationships with those who understand it best.

The good news is that we are headed in the right direction.

As we move further into this age of Big Data, the world aviation community needs to rise to the challenge of using this information in the best possible way. In doing so, something extremely important happens. We make a system that is already the gold standard for safety and transportation, and we make it even safer. 

It’s all in the data. How we use it. How we leverage it. How we share it and how we collaborate as organizations.

Thank you for participating in this conference, and I hope you have a productive exchange of information and ideas. Best of luck to you.   

It’s All New

Good morning, and thank you, Dr. Greaves, for that kind introduction.  Let me start out by saying what an honor it is for me to share the stage with Dr. Greaves.  I started my career a long time ago with Boeing as a junior engineer, so I’ve been dealing with engines and commercial aircraft for quite some time.  Dr. Greaves, your resume speaks for itself.  You have made a difference in aviation … in aerospace.  So, thank you for that.

I’d also be remiss not to tip my hat to SAE itself.  More than half of the standards out there come from SAE.  When the need arises for a standard, we at the FAA know that we can count on SAE to develop the standard, and do so quickly.  You’re working on a dozen things for us at any given time.  That’s what we need.  I think SAE standards are mentioned in upwards of 200 TSO standards and policy guidance.  That tells you something right there.

So if you’re sitting here in the audience and you’re looking for a takeaway, here it is:  your SAE work matters.  We need your help in developing technical standards which we can use in our regulatory process to improve aviation safety.  It’s a team effort.  We want your help in developing technical standards in more and more evolving areas.  You are relevant.  You’re working on things we need.

No doubt about it, the FAA depends on you.  There’s a lot of brainpower in this room, and we rely on it.  The “A” in SAE may have started out as “automotive,” but ask around at 800 Independence Avenue.  We think that A in SAE now stands for aviation.  I think we’re right. 

Now that I’ve set the stage, let’s talk about for a moment about how much the scope of our work is changing.  I mentioned a moment ago about being a junior engineer at Boeing.  In college, you’re an expert, and you already know everything.  For example, commercial aircraft are gigantic, and back in the day, guys like Joe Sutter were pushing the envelope into something everyone now calls the jumbo jet. 

And that was my frame of reference for a lot of years. 

Now, the paradigm has shifted.  We’re dealing with a new entrant in the NAS … an aircraft that the kid who lives next door to you is probably going to open on Christmas Day.

It surprised me at how quickly unmanned aircraft came along. I have to admit when I was in college and working on aerodynamics I knew I’d be dealing with the Boeing, the McDonnell-Douglas, the Uniteds of the world. Little did I know that I’d be dealing with K-Mart and Amazon. The UAS is a very different animal. When you think of the relatively slow growth that commercial aviation experienced over 113 years, in relative terms, UAS is coming in lightning speed.  Part of the struggle has been the difficulty in maintaining our traditional FAA responsibilities for the NAS while keeping up with the demand of new commercial interests.

There was an “aha” moment when UAS really started to come into play two, three, or four years ago.  The business community had to recognize that anything that can leave the ground on its own power is considered aircraft.  Therefore, these aircraft then fall within FAA’s domain since we are the organization that approves anyone or anything flying in the NAS.

As the idea caught on, business quickly saw immediate applications—like real estate, surveying, news gathering.  Those type of activities fall within our jurisdiction, and we were shaping the parameters for operation as quickly as we could.  That said, companies wanted to petition for an exemption to commercially operate these drones, and some petitions started coming in. Legislation was then passed by Congress that outlined an exemption process, which opened the floodgates.

More applications were coming in than we could have handled using our normal exemption process.  We had to come up with creative ways to pump that up from a few each week to well over 100 a week. We’re well past 15,000 exemptions. The good news is we finalized a rule which obviates the need for an exemption in most cases.  This rule limits operations to UAS less than 55 pounds, flown in visual line of sight, and below 400 ft.  As a result, it frees up many of the commercial uses for UAS for real estate photography, precision agriculture, and other applications that were in high demand

So … where do we stand?  FAA clarified appropriate use of hobbyist UAS on where you can and can’t fly; including clarifications on how to fly safely and not endanger manned aviation.  There’s actually an app—B4UFLY.  When I was in school, “apps” were a slide rule.

We’ve set a baseline to understand the types of small UAS being used through our registration process.  To date, more than 500,000 small UAS users have registered.  Think about this for a moment:  There are more drones than there are traditional aircraft. 

We continue to evaluate and revise current regulations to allow the safe introduction and integration of UAS into the NAS by processing waivers and exemptions to accommodate future operations.  We’re working with colleges, universities, state and local governments, law enforcement, railroads—and CNN—to sharpen our understanding of what constitutes safe operation for unmanned systems; including learning the unique aspects of this new/novel technology.

So … where are we?  This is not your father’s NAS.  Not anymore. 

The definition of what’s flying is changing.  So is what powers what’s flying.  We’ve used gas and Jet A for a long time.  Before that, guys like Icarus used wax, and that didn’t end well.  

But there is a bright spot, and SAE has been instrumental in bringing this from a good idea to what I think will be a terrific innovation.  I’m talking about the development of standards for the ground based electric vehicle market.  As you know, this isn’t just airplanes, but cars, trains and boats as well. 

We initiated the efforts in working on electric propulsion for manned and unmanned aircraft.  We’ve had experimental aircraft flying with electric propulsion systems for many years.  The bottom line here is that we’re waiting for Industry to develop a mature type of battery and motor technology so the usable flight time could be achieved to meet its intended application.

We don’t have any specific tasking at this time with SAE.  Looking into the future, we may be able to utilize SAE’s experience from other electric transportation standards to identify requirements for airborne systems.

So far, we’ve talked about the changing scope of what defines an aircraft and what powers an aircraft. What’s inside the cabin is changing as well.

For those of you who haven’t had the chance, you should familiarize yourselves with the FAA’s Technical Center in Atlantic City.  There are labs where full scale aircraft are set on fire, where smoke evacuation tests are run, where runway braking is tested.  There’s also a facility specifically used for crashworthiness. 

The traditional aircraft seat is designed to transfer the dynamic energy of a crash away from the occupant and into the seat itself.  The legs of the seat are meant to crumple, they’re meant to take the shock.

We’re well into the age of composite materials, and composites don’t crumple—certainly not the way traditional metal would.  So the big question becomes:  where does that energy go? 

The use of composite materials in seats is expected to increase significantly in the future due to significant weight savings over traditional metallic materials. 

The current standards for aircraft seats do not specifically address the unique technical challenges in the certification of composite seats.  To address these challenges, the FAA is developing a specific Issue Paper for a given certification project.  As a point of reference, EASA is undertaking a similar review on the European side.

To standardize and streamline composite seat certification, the FAA and EASA are actively engaged with SAE to develop an Aerospace Recommended Practice for Composite Seats. This recommended practice will address several key areas where composites differ from traditional metallic structure certification … things like material qualification, fabrication, environmental conditions, and non-visual damage from in service use.  

The recommended practice for composite seats may serve as the basis for design, test, and related requirements that support an update to the FAA TSO for seats qualification.  We hope to achieve a harmonized position between the authorities to support the FAA/EASA TCCA streamlining certification process.

With respect to composite seats:  stay tuned.  

Before I close, I’d be remiss not to mention additive manufacturing.  I’m not going to get into a discussion of powder bed fusion or directed energy deposition, but I will tell you what I do know.

I find the concept of 3D printing to be mind-blowing.  There was a time when Chuck Yeager and Scott Crossfield didn’t know if they would break apart when aircraft first broke the sound barrier.  But we did it.

I think 3D printing is going to be the same kind of leap.  We’re thinking, “How the hell do they do that?”  But there will be a day where we look back and think, “Of course, they could do that.”

In aviation, this refers to a range of manufacturing methods where the purchased feedstock material like powder or wire is consolidated by an energy source into a near-finished part.

We’ve already certified metal AM parts in aircraft engines and approved AM parts in a TSO, which were fabricated using the additive manufacturing technology.  The FAA is currently working the first certification project using this technology.  The FAA also certified additive manufacturing parts that made from powder and polymers as installed on aircraft cabin interior, galley carts, air-condition ducts, and related areas.

I’m glad to see that SAE has created a Data Management subcommittee for additive manufacturing.  This committee will develop guidance for data collection and analysis unique to AM.  For our part, we actively support the development of four additive manufacturing specifications and the Additive Manufacturing Data Management subcommittee.

In closing, as you are all well aware, standardization is one of the most critical aspects of aviation. We depend on organizations like SAE to provide the technical specifications that promote this standardization throughout the entire system. As our national airspace system becomes more and more interconnected with the international aviation system, this standardization becomes even more critical. 

In all of these examples, we’re focusing our efforts on achieving standardization.  We must ensure that our direction incorporates the international perspective.

All of us rely on ICAO to promote harmonization worldwide.  As the scope of this worldwide standardization becomes increasingly complex, it is important to consider where it may be appropriate to include ICAO direction into our standards-making efforts.

I say this because we’re actually at a very delicate spot in the history of aviation.  We haven’t had a commercial passenger fatality on a U.S. air carrier. since February 12, 2009.  That’s quite a streak, but the danger in a streak like that is complacency.  Now is the very specific and direct moment in time where we must redouble our efforts for safety.

Everything is clicking.  We’re making advances like we never have before.  The accident rate is so low that we track accidents that didn’t happen.  SAE needs to be a part of that focus.  Our system has never been safer. And there’s never been a time where we’ve needed to make sure that we raise the safety bar even higher.  We can’t do that without you. 

Utah Drone Symposium

Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. The last time I had the opportunity to come to Utah was during the 2002 Winter Olympics when I was an FAA intelligence analyst working in the FBI’s Olympic Intelligence Watch Center. I appreciate the chance to come back to your beautiful state.

When I was here in 2002, Unmanned Aircraft Systems–at least of the size, variety and capability that we see today–were not on our radar in domestic civil aviation safety and security.

Today, however, highly automated unmanned aircraft come in all shapes and sizes. Unmanned aircraft can range in weight from a few grams to thousands of pounds, and can operate at altitudes from near surface to the edge of space. Some can remain aloft for only a few minutes, and others for days.

As varied as these designs are, their potential uses are even greater.

Once the domain of either the Department of Defense or remote control model aircraft enthusiasts, unmanned aircraft today spark excitement among hobbyists, businesses, critical infrastructure owners, and public sector entities such as law enforcement and firefighters.

Unmanned aircraft are transforming industries – providing filmmakers with a fresh angle on the world, and giving first responders a new tool for search-and-rescue operations.

They’re improving the safety of our transportation infrastructure – inspecting miles of rail tracks and pipelines that crisscross our country.

And they’re tackling jobs that can be dangerous for people or other aircraft to do, such as smokestack and power line inspections.

As with any new technology, unmanned aircraft bring both opportunities and risks—both in safety and security.

We need to incorporate unmanned aircraft and their users into a shared culture of safety, security and responsible operation.

We’ve found that the best way to accomplish this is to partner with a wide range of government, aviation, and technology stakeholders, which is one reason I am here today.

America has the most complex airspace in the world – and it’s the FAA’s job to ensure the safety and efficiency of the National Airspace System for the flying public and everyone who wants to use it. We also have a duty to protect national and homeland security, and we must work closely with our security and law enforcement partners at the federal, state, and local levels.

Today, I would like to talk about what the FAA is doing–along with our partners in industry, government, and user communities–to address safety and security concerns associated with increasing unmanned aircraft activity in the National Airspace System, and indeed around the world.

The array of safety and security risks ranges from users who do not understand the obligations of safe and compliant operations in the National Airspace System to those who do not care for FAA constraints and restrictions to the actual bad actors, such as criminals and terrorists, who seek to use unmanned aircraft as a means to do harm to people or property. 

Similarly, there is a broad range of mitigation techniques that can be used to address these risks. These range from education and public awareness efforts, to grounding manned aircraft or vectoring them away from unmanned aircraft operating in the area, to using technologies that assist law enforcement in locating the non-compliant operator or removing the unmanned aircraft from specific operating areas.

In all of our efforts, our partnerships are key. We’re receiving valuable input on regulations, and building consensus around public education campaigns. And it’s helping us make substantial progress on safely integrating unmanned aircraft into our airspace.

We saw this firsthand when an industry task force developed recommendations that helped the FAA create a drone registration system in just a matter of weeks last fall. And in the eight months since the system went live, more than 500,000 hobbyists have registered their unmanned aircraft.

To put that in perspective, we only have 320,000 registered manned aircraft – and it took us 100 years to get there.

Registration of unmanned aircraft, whether operated commercially or for hobby, gives us a direct connection to these unmanned aircraft owners both initially and on a recurring basis. It allows us to educate users about rules, accountability and responsibility for safe operation. It encourages unmanned aircraft owners to become part of the safety culture that has been deeply embedded in traditional manned aviation for more than a century.

Registration also can assist us with enforcement by allowing us to connect a drone with its operator in cases where people aren’t following the rules.

To identify new ways to make the registration process easier, we are working to support potential third-party applications, such as smart phone apps, that could enable manufacturers or retailers to scan a code on a drone and automatically register it.

We’re also encouraging operators to download our free smartphone app, B4UFLY, which lets you know where it’s safe and legal to fly a drone. It’s available for both Apple and Android devices, and it’s already been downloaded more than 85,000 times.

We continue to expand our ongoing “No Drone Zone” campaign to remind people to leave their unmanned aircraft at home during major public events like the Super Bowl and most recently the political conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia.

In addition to educating hobbyists, we’re putting a regulatory framework in place to address the commercial use of drones.

On August 29^th, our first regulation to enable routine commercial use of small unmanned aircraft takes effect.

It allows unmanned aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds to fly within visual line of sight, up to 400 feet high, and up to 100 miles per hour during daylight hours. This rule is designed to allow commercial and other non-hobby drone operations while minimizing safety risks to other aircraft, as well as people and property on the ground. And it will provide an important regulatory foundation for allowing additional operations in the future.

However, you still can’t fly a small unmanned aircraft over anyone who is not directly participating in the operation or under a covered structure or stationary vehicle. But we’re working on that, and toward that end, we hope to propose a rule on unmanned aircraft operations over people by the end of this year.

Despite our progress on integration, we know our work has just begun.

So we established a Drone Advisory Committee that will be chaired by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. This Committee will help us prioritize our unmanned aircraft integration activities, including the development of future regulations and policies. It will include representatives from across the aviation spectrum, and we’ll be announcing the members soon.

We’re also chartering an Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team that will include a wide variety of stakeholders from the drone and aviation industries. Similar to the highly successful Commercial Aviation Safety Team, this group will analyze safety data to identify emerging threats that drones may pose to aircraft, people, and property. It will also develop mitigation strategies to address these threats and prevent future accidents.

The creation of the Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team and the Drone Advisory Committee reflects the importance of this issue to our agency, and the value of our collaboration with stakeholders.

One ongoing trend that is particularly troubling to the FAA and our stakeholder partners is the number of unmanned aircraft sightings reported near or around airports and manned aircraft. Despite our collaborative efforts to educate unmanned aircraft users on responsible operations, the number of these sightings continues to rise each year. 

To date, we have received more than 1,100 reports in Fiscal Year 2016, which exceeds 100 per month. We are on pace to surpass last year’s numbers, and this really drives home  the need for careful and safe integration. 

The FAA wants to send a clear message that such operations are dangerous and illegal. We are working closely with the law enforcement community to identify and investigate unauthorized unmanned aircraft operations. The FAA has levied civil penalties for a number of unauthorized flights in various parts of the country, and we have many open enforcement cases.

We also have received a disturbing number of reports about unmanned aircraft interfering with wildfire fighting operations, including just last week here in Utah, over the Corner Canyon Fire. Wildfire suppression requires extensive support from and coordination with aircraft that deliver water and chemicals, and transport firefighters.  These aircraft conduct high risk operations that have been slowed or stopped on multiple occasions due to unmanned aircraft flying in the area without coordination. 

These reckless activities endanger lives in the air and lives and property on the ground when minutes can count.

Utah’s recent adoption of a state law that increases the criminal penalties for such activity is a clear effort to try to mitigate this risk. 

Similarly, in the FAA’s recently signed reauthorization extension legislation, Congress gave us authority to levy a civil penalty of up to $20,000 against any unmanned aircraft operator who interferes with wildfire suppression, law enforcement activity, or emergency response efforts.

Although unmanned aircraft can sometimes hinder such operations, they also can be great tools to support firefighting and other beneficial operations. Indeed, in two sections of our 2016 Reauthorization act, Congress directed the FAA to take actions to enable expeditious approval of unmanned aircraft operations in support of firefighting operations, emergency response efforts, and restoration of utilities.

As we work to identify and mitigate safety concerns, we recognize that unmanned aircraft operations also have implications for privacy and security.

The FAA is mindful of privacy concerns and has been actively engaged with our interagency partners to address this issue. We have provided support to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's multi-stakeholder process directed by Presidential Memorandum to develop and communicate best practices for privacy, accountability, and transparency for both commercial and private unmanned aircraft use. This initiative recently resulted in the publication of voluntary best practices, which is an important step forward in addressing an issue that affects us all.

As part of a privacy education campaign, the FAA will provide all drone users with the NTIA’s recommended privacy guidelines as part of the unmanned aircraft registration process and through the FAA’s B4UFly mobile app. The FAA also will educate all commercial unmanned aircraft pilots on privacy during their pilot certification process; and we will issue new guidance to state and local governments on drone privacy issues as well.

Apart from privacy concerns, unmanned aircraft can also present security risks.

Several high profile events in 2015, including an unmanned aircraft landing on the White House lawn, highlighted the potential security risks and the challenges in countering them.

The US Government has a well-established policy and capability to react to traditional aviation threats. However, the nature of unmanned aircraft operations means we currently lack the technical capability to easily identify, track and respond to these threats using traditional means.

The Department of Homeland Security was designated as the lead federal agency for focusing federal partners, including the FAA, Department of Defense and others, on this thorny problem.  We and other agencies are also working with industry stakeholders on possible technologies to help detect and track unmanned aircraft movement through the National Airspace System, as well as options for mitigating threats. 

This group has engaged law enforcement agencies and state and local governments in and around the National Capital Region as part of this effort, but we need to expand that engagement to other state and local government partners as well.

There are three main focus areas of this work currently underway:

• Rules of engagement and common operating procedures for law enforcement, since they and security forces will be the last line of defense for most security risks presented by unmanned aircraft.
• Technology research, development and evaluation, and
• Legal issues, which can affect the use of possible detection and mitigation options to address safety and security risks.

Law enforcement agencies in the National Capitol Region are developing training and education guidance that will help ensure that all the local, state and federal partners are working from the same information and have a coordinated response.

This information will be pushed out to the broader state and local law enforcement community.

The FAA also has a Law Enforcement Assistance Program, with special agents located across the country and responsible for providing support nationwide.  Just as we do with drug-related and other criminal matters associated with aviation, our agents can provide support to law enforcement and other government agencies by providing training, confirming unmanned aircraft registration, and identifying if the unmanned aircraft was conducting approved operations.

Toward this end, we published a law enforcement assistance guide that is available on the FAA website and is being updated to reflect the Part 107 rule. It provides some basic guidance about what type of information to collect and whom to contact at the FAA if you have an unmanned aircraft incident at your site or facility.

If anyone is interested in learning more about our LEAP program, I am happy to talk during a break.

The FAA and the Department of Homeland Security also are co-leading an Interagency UAS Detection at Airports Strategy Working Group.  This group includes the Department of Defense, FBI, U.S. Secret Service, the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior, NASA and the Federal Communications Commission.

The group is focusing on the safety and security needs of airports against errant or hostile unmanned aircraft by creating a safe, efficient, and flexible framework to assess the integration of unmanned aircraft detection technologies. Results of these assessments will also help inform partner agencies and stakeholders that are responsible for safeguarding critical infrastructure.

The FAA’s focus is on evaluating technology that can help us detect and track unmanned aircraft movement in the National Airspace System, which will enable us to mitigate the safety risks of unmanned aircraft flying near manned aircraft and airports. We evaluated one vendor's product at Atlantic City airport this winter and worked with the FBI on deploying a system at JFK earlier this spring. We are currently working with several other manufacturers and airports to coordinate additional equipment evaluations over the next six to nine months.

Although some of these technologies have been used successfully by DOD overseas, the FAA and other agencies are evaluating whether these technologies can effectively operate in a civil environment, such as an airport or around other critical infrastructure.  

We are looking at UAS detection as a whole of government exercise, which was reinforced by Congress in our 2016 Reauthorization, directing FAA to work with DOD and Homeland Security, as well as other relevant federal partners, to establish a pilot program focused on airspace hazard mitigation in and around airports and critical infrastructure.

We must ensure we understand the impacts these technologies could have on aircraft, airports, and air navigation systems.  We don’t want deployment of unmanned aircraft detection and mitigation systems to introduce safety risks for manned aircraft.

One important consideration with these efforts is that current law may impose barriers to the evaluation and deployment of certain unmanned aircraft threat detection and mitigation systems by most federal agencies, as well as state and local entities and private individuals.

There are a number of federal laws to consider, including those that:

• Prohibit destruction or endangerment of aircraft;
• And prohibit electronic surveillance or recording of electronic signals and regulate electronic communications.

The Department of Justice is leading a federal interagency group that is analyzing how these and other laws apply to the evaluation and deployment of certain unmanned aircraft detection and mitigation technologies. 

Further complicating the issue is the desire of some state and local governments, as well as critical infrastructure owners, to take action on their own to mitigate unmanned aircraft safety, security, and privacy risks.

Here are a few factors to consider:

• Unmanned aircraft are “aircraft” subject to regulation by the FAA to ensure safety of flight and safety of people and property on the ground.
• Congress has vested the FAA with exclusive authority to regulate areas including airspace use, management and efficiency, air traffic control, safety and navigational facilities. This requires a delicate balance between safety and efficiency, and the protection of people on the ground. 
• Substantial air safety issues are raised when state or local governments attempt to regulate the operation or flight of aircraft.

In December 2015, the FAA issued important guidance to states and municipalities that are considering their own unmanned aircraft laws or regulations. Our guidance explains that any local laws should be consistent with the extensive federal regulatory framework for aircraft and airspace use. It also explains that a consistent regulatory system ensures the highest level of safety for all aviation operations.

Several federal agencies, along with state and local governments and private sector infrastructure and venue owners, have asked or are considering asking the FAA for additional airspace restrictions or prohibitions in and around high-value facilities and assets. Currently, there are only 12 Prohibited Areas, which were established in the interest of national security and welfare.

In evaluating requests for additional prohibited areas, the FAA must also consider impacts to other users’ access to the National Airspace System, the system’s operational safety and efficiency, and our statutory mandates.

Congress addressed the intense interest in this issue in our Reauthorization legislation. The legislation, which became law on July 15, directs the FAA to establish a process by which government and private entities can request airspace restrictions over fixed sites.

We are analyzing that language and evaluating how best to proceed. In the interim, we have issued a Notice to Airmen that strongly advises pilots and unmanned aircraft operators to avoid the airspace above or in close proximity to military facilities, power plants, and other critical infrastructure or sensitive locations unless specifically authorized.

A number of federal, state, and local government and private sector entities are also thinking about the broad range of mitigation techniques that could be used to address risks posed by unmanned aircraft. 

We encourage government entities concerned about unmanned aircraft safety and security issues to review your existing authorities to see how they could be used to develop appropriate regulations, guidance, and concepts of operations.  Once you have that developed, please contact us, and we will be happy to review and coordinate with you.  We can work collaboratively to discuss the operational and airspace safety considerations as you’re developing those plans.

Some have called the birth of the unmanned aircraft industry the “Wright Brothers moment” of our time – and that may be so.

Safely and securely integrating drones into our airspace is one of the FAA’s top priorities, and we’re determined to get it right. It’s essential for our economy, and our role as a global aviation leader.

I’m confident that we will do so by working closely and collaboratively with our public and private sector stakeholders, like many of you in the room today.

Again, I want to thank you for inviting me to this forum, and I look forward to the rest of today's program and panel discussion.  Thank you.

White House Drone Day

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you for that introduction, Megan.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here today.

American ingenuity has fueled our nation since its earliest days. It’s created businesses, improved lives, and cemented our place on the world’s stage.

Ingenuity has defined aviation, as well.

It all started with a pair of brothers who owned a bicycle shop and solved a riddle that had baffled man for centuries – how to take to the air.

It continues to this day, where one of the most exciting sectors of the aviation industry doesn’t even require a pilot to be physically present in the cockpit.

Highly automated unmanned aircraft come in all shapes and sizes. Some can fit in the palm of your hand. Others can deliver packages. I even saw one concept at the Consumer Electronics Show this year that proposed using drones as taxis.

As varied as these designs are, their potential uses are even vaster.

Unmanned aircraft are transforming industries – providing filmmakers with a fresh angle on the world, and giving first responders a new tool for search-and-rescue operations.

They’re improving the safety of our transportation infrastructure – inspecting miles of rail tracks and pipelines that crisscross our country.

And they’re tackling jobs that can be dangerous for people or other aircraft to do.

Just last week, two people were killed in two different accidents involving crop dusters – exactly the type of job a small unmanned aircraft could do with much less risk to people and property on the ground.

These are just a few examples of the potential drones have to change our world for the better. There are countless others.

Unmanned aircraft have sparked excitement among hobbyists and businesses alike – and manufacturers are stepping up to meet this interest.

The unmanned aircraft industry is moving at the speed of Silicon Valley. And the FAA knows we can’t respond at the speed of government.

America has the most complex airspace in the world – and it’s the FAA’s job to ensure the safety of it for the public and everyone who wants to use it.

We need to incorporate unmanned aircraft and their users into our culture of safety and responsibility. But we need to do it in a way that doesn’t stifle the enthusiasm for this growing industry.

We’ve found that the best way to accomplish this is to partner with a wide range of government, aviation, and technology stakeholders.

We’re receiving valuable input on regulations, and building consensus around public education campaigns. And it’s helping us make substantial progress on integrating unmanned aircraft into our airspace.

Now we’re taking the next step, and formalizing this partnership.

The FAA is chartering an Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team that will include a wide variety of stakeholders from the drone and aviation industries. Similar to the highly successful Commercial Aviation Safety Team, this group will analyze safety data to identify emerging threats that drones may pose to aircraft, people, and property. They will also develop mitigation strategies to address these threats and prevent future accidents.

We’re also establishing a Drone Advisory Committee that will be chaired by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, who’s here with us today. This Committee will help us prioritize our unmanned aircraft integration activities, including the development of future regulations and policies. It will include representatives from across the aviation spectrum, and we’ll be announcing the members soon.

The creation of the Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team and the Drone Advisory Committee reflects the importance of this issue to our agency, and the value of our collaboration with stakeholders.

We saw this firsthand when an industry task force developed recommendations that helped the FAA create a drone registration system in just a matter of weeks.

That’s not a timeline that’s supposed to be possible in government. But by working together, we got it done – and we’ve registered more than 500,000 hobbyists in eight months.

To put that in perspective, we only have 320,000 registered manned aircraft – and it took us 100 years to get there.

Registration helps us connect a drone with its operator in cases where people aren’t following the rules – an important step forward for our enforcement efforts.

It also gives us a valuable opportunity to educate users about how to fly their unmanned aircraft safely.

We’re encouraging operators to download our free smartphone app, B4UFLY, which lets you know where it’s safe and legal to fly a drone. It’s available for both Apple and Android devices, and it’s already been downloaded more than 85,000 times.

We also use our ongoing “No Drone Zone” campaign to remind people to leave their unmanned aircraft at home during major public events like the recent conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia.

In addition to educating hobbyists, we’re putting a regulatory framework in place to address the commercial use of drones as well.

On August 29^th, our first regulation for the routine commercial use of small unmanned aircraft takes effect.

It allows unmanned aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds to fly in sparsely occupied areas, up to 400 feet high, and up to 100 miles per hour during the day.

This rule is designed to allow commercial drone operations while minimizing risks to other aircraft, as well as people and property on the ground. And it will provide an important regulatory foundation for allowing additional operations in the future.

We’re partnering with private industry through our Pathfinder Program to research activities that aren’t covered under our current rule.

Companies including CNN, PrecisionHawk, and BNSF Railroad have committed extensive resources to studying urban operations over people, and flights beyond visual line of sight – and they’re sharing the data with us.

The information received from Pathfinder, along with our work at the FAA’s drone test sites, will help us draft our next round of regulations.

We hope to propose a rule on unmanned aircraft operations over people by the end of this year.

Some have called the birth of the unmanned aircraft industry the “Wright Brothers moment” of our time – and that may be so.

But if there’s one thing I am sure of, it’s that the only limit to this technology is imagination – and our nation has no shortage of that.

Safely integrating drones into our airspace is one of the FAA’s top priorities, and we’re determined to get it right. It’s essential for our economy, and our role as a global aviation leader.

I’m confident that by working closely with our partners in the aviation industry and the unmanned aircraft community, we will succeed – and continue being a model for the rest of the world.

Thank you.

EAA AirVenture

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you for that introduction, Jack.

Before I get started, I want to take a moment to recognize the winners of this year’s FAA General Aviation Awards. These awards celebrate aviation professionals for their contributions in the fields of flight instruction, aviation maintenance, and safety.

Please join me in congratulating:

• Robert James Hepp, of Fairfax Station, Virginia – Certificated Flight Instructor of the Year;
• Adrian Allen Eichhorn of McLean, Virginia – Aviation Technician of the Year; and
• Richard Lawrence Martindell of San Diego, California – FAA Safety Team Representative of the Year.

Thank you for the work you do every day to promote excellence and safety in the general aviation community.

It’s great to be back here at AirVenture. It’s one of my favorite events of the year.

And I knew I was truly at Oshkosh earlier today when I had a chance to catch up with Art Schwedler.

Now for those of you who don’t know, Art has been volunteering at this show for 30 years. He’s on the EAA Government Host team, and he’s greeted nine different FAA Administrators at Oshkosh over the years.

He’s an AirVenture institution. And his commitment embodies so much of what makes this event special.

One of my favorite parts of coming to Oshkosh is getting to see the wide variety of aircraft that make their way here.

It’s one thing to look at an aircraft in a museum.

But who agrees with me that it’s impossible to fully appreciate an old warbird until you’ve heard those big radial engines rumbling overhead?

That happens every day at Oshkosh.

Of course, AirVenture isn’t just about vintage Piper Cubs and rare biplanes. It’s also a place to glimpse our industry’s future.

Manufacturers from around the world come here to show off their latest creations. Their planes are made from the newest composite materials. And even the most basic instrument panels are packed with technology that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could only have dreamed of when they made the first moon landing.

The passion that drives all of you to fly here, year after year, is the same passion that guided Orville and Wilbur Wright… that inspired Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.

And it’s the passion that fuels so much of the work we do every day at the FAA.

We’re committed to making general aviation safer and more efficient – not only for you, but for the next generation of GA pilots. And we’re making a lot of progress.

As you may know, President Obama recently signed a bill extending the FAA’s operating authority until September 30, 2017. But for many of you, I know the real takeaway from this piece of legislation is language about third-class medical certification reform.

Over the last several years, countless general aviation pilots and stakeholders have urged the FAA to reconsider our medical certification requirements for private pilots. I’ve heard about it many times myself, right here at Oshkosh.

We took this feedback seriously, especially since it’s in keeping with our shift toward more risk-based decision-making.

Getting this done is a priority for our agency, and Congress agreed.

They’ve given us 180 days to draft a rule that will generally allow pilots to fly without a medical certificate if they have:

• A driver’s license,
• Held a medical certificate within the past ten years;
• Completed a medical education course; and
• Been physically examined by a state-licensed physician.

I’ve assembled a dedicated team that’s in charge of drafting the necessary regulatory text and moving it through our rulemaking process on the timeline Congress has laid out.

We know you’re eager to see this new rule in place. And both the FAA and the Department of Transportation are committed to getting it done as soon as possible.

That’s not the only piece of good news I came here to share.

For the last several years, I’ve spent a lot of my time at these sessions talking about the benefits of equipping your planes with ADS-B. It’s a key NextGen technology that uses GPS to take the “search” out of search-and-rescue if you run into trouble. It also provides free weather and traffic updates to help you make better-informed decisions in the cockpit.

Despite these benefits, there’s been some hesitation when it comes to adopting this technology. One of the main reasons we’ve heard about is cost.

Today, I’m here to tell you that there is no better time to get off the sidelines and start enjoying all that ADS-B has to offer.

Last month, the FAA announced a new incentive program that offers eligible aircraft owners $500 to help offset the cost of purchasing ADS-B Out equipment, or an integrated system that also includes ADS-B In.

We’ll be issuing 20,000 incentives on a first-come, first-served basis for one year, or until all 20,000 are claimed – whichever comes first.

It’s going to be available this fall to owners of U.S. registered, fixed-wing, single-engine piston aircraft.

But you don’t have to wait. We’re thrilled that several manufacturers have stepped up to offer “bridge rebates” of $500 to encourage owners to equip between now and when the FAA incentive launches.

You can also place orders for your equipment right here at Oshkosh and delay delivery until our program is available.

These incentives – along with the fact that some ADS-B units can be found for as little as $2,000 – are already starting to move the needle. We’ve heard from a number of pilots who had planned to wait a few years to install ADS-B, but who are instead equipping now.

This is a smart move. The January 1, 2020 equipage deadline isn’t moving.

As many as 160,000 GA aircraft must have ADS-B installed by that time. As you can imagine, we’re likely to see capacity issues at repair stations around the country as we get closer to the deadline.

I recently heard about a Texas repair shop owner who is telling customers to get on his calendar for ADS-B installations now – because he’s already booked five years out.

No one wants their aircraft to become a hangar queen. So check out all of the ADS-B equipment available here at Oshkosh.

Stop by the FAA booth to get more information on our incentive program. And get ahead of the crowds and schedule an installation appointment at your local repair station.

The time to equip is now.

I don’t have to tell you how exciting it is to be a general aviation pilot today.

Technologies like ADS-B are ushering in a new era for safety. And with these advances, the FAA’s role as a regulator is shifting.

Aviation has always attracted some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the world. And they’ve got big ideas.

What will the planes of tomorrow look like? Has our quest for lighter materials like carbon fiber and nanotubes put us on the verge of game-changing designs? What new tools will make their way into the cockpit thanks to advances in computing power?

These are exciting questions – and they’re being answered right now in research and development labs around the world.

The FAA is committed to meeting these innovations head on as regulators.

Over the past several years, we’ve taken a long, hard look at how we certify aircraft and parts.

In the past, we’ve made improvements. But these changes were incremental, and often independent from each other.

Now, we’re setting out to transform the way we do business in the name of increasing our efficiency and effectiveness.

Earlier this year, we released a proposed rule that would rewrite the FAA’s small airplane certification standards – better known as Part 23.

Instead of requiring certain design elements on specific technologies, the new Part 23 will define the safety outcomes we want to achieve.

This approach recognizes there’s more than one way to deliver on safety – and it provides room for flexibility and innovation in the marketplace.

Our Part 23 rewrite overhauls how we certify aircraft in the future. But we also recognize how important it is to modernize the existing general aviation fleet.

We want to reduce unnecessary regulatory barriers that make it costly and time-consuming to develop and install safety technologies in GA aircraft.

Many of these technologies aren’t required by regulation, but they still provide a number of valuable safety benefits – and we want to make sure you can easily take advantage of them.

Let’s talk real-world examples of how we’re doing this.

A recent policy statement helped the FAA approve a supplemental type certificate process for installing a new electronic flight information system in GA aircraft – much like what you can find on a jetliner’s flight deck.

This potentially life-saving technology, which can help prevent loss of control accidents, was previously only available for use in the experimental fleet.

But we kept hearing from the general aviation community – you wanted the opportunity to put these devices in your cockpits.

So we worked closely with Dynon Avionics and our friends here at EAA to find a way to make it easier to get these kinds of non-traditional technologies into certificated aircraft.

The results speak for themselves: more than a thousand owners have already contacted Dynon and EAA to find out how they can install this technology in their aircraft.

Since that groundbreaking approval, several other companies have applied to bring similar technologies that were previously unavailable into the certified marketplace.

In fact, just last week we approved a similar process that will make it easier to install the Garmin G5 Electronic Flight Instrument in a significant number of GA aircraft.

This collaboration between the FAA and industry allows the GA community to benefit from upgraded technology, lower costs, and higher levels of safety. As we look to the future, we’ll be pursuing these types of partnerships even more.

We also published a new policy to encourage general aviation aircraft owners to voluntarily install non-required safety enhancing equipment on airplanes and helicopters. This will improve safety, reduce costs, and make it easier to install equipment like traffic advisory systems, terrain awareness and warning systems, attitude indicators, fire extinguishing systems, and autopilot or stability augmentation systems.

And we’re not limiting our certification improvements to aircraft and technologies. We’re also updating the way we certify pilots.

For years, we’ve heard from pilots about problems with the knowledge, or “written” test. I even heard from my own former Deputy, Mike Whitaker, when he was getting his certificate.

The knowledge test focused too much on memorizing things you didn’t need to know to be a safe pilot.

And it didn’t ask anything about risk management, which every pilot has to use in real-world operations.

That’s changing. Last month, we started the rollout of the new Airman Certification Standards, which were developed during a five-year collaboration between FAA and industry experts.

By integrating knowledge and risk management with practical skills, these standards define what a pilot needs to know, consider, and do to fly safely in America’s complex airspace.

This is good news, whether you’re planning to get a new certificate or you’ve had your pilot’s license for decades.

By keeping knowledge questions current and incorporating risk management into pilot training and testing, we will make our airspace safer for everyone.

While I’m on the subject of streamlining for greater efficiency and effectiveness, let me also give you a quick overview of some changes we’re making inside the FAA.

I recently approved a plan for what we’re calling the Future of Flight Standards. Among other things, it includes restructuring our organization over the next twelve months according to function – rather than geography.

You’ll still work with the same FSDOs and other FAA facilities, but eliminating the outdated geography-based model will promote greater agility, efficiency, and consistency for the people we serve.

If there’s one common thread to everything I’ve mentioned so far today, it’s this: when the general aviation community speaks, the FAA is listening.

You’re on the front lines of the aviation industry, and your insights are invaluable.

A few months ago, I sent Mike Whitaker down to Sun ‘n Fun to kick off the FAA’s new “Got Data?” initiative with a listening session.

I know what you’re thinking. Got Data? Sounds riveting.

But data is the foundation for everything we do at the FAA. And our data often makes its way into the tools you rely on in the cockpit every time you fly.

Avionics manufacturers turn the navigational charts and instrument approaches the FAA produces into a wide variety of electronic products. These feed into your flight management systems, iPads, and other mobile devices.

The biggest advantage of these new products is that they enable pilots to have greater awareness about where they are, and what lies ahead, than ever before. And it all fits in the space of a silicon chip.

Now imagine what could be possible if we opened up more of our data to more partners in more formats. That’s the idea behind Got Data.

We want to find better ways to help the private sector access aeronautical data currently offered by the FAA. We also want to identify additional data resources we could provide.

Our goal is to help industry be in a position to create innovative products and technologies that can improve safety and efficiency in the aviation industry.

We got great feedback at our Sun ‘n Fun listening session – and we’ve already implemented some of the ideas we received.

We created a Data Innovation Center that serves as a new central location for all of the FAA’s aeronautical information.

We also launched automated digital product downloads that will make it easier for users to ensure they’re using the most up-to-date data.

This is only the beginning of our work on Got Data. We’re going to continue working closely with aircraft owners, application developers, and manufacturers to provide new and better data that will improve the products you use in the cockpit and the safety and efficiency of our airspace.

This kind of collaboration is essential to advancing safety, as well.

Safety is the common goal that unites the FAA with every level and every sector of the aviation industry.

The FAA has been proud to partner with a number of GA stakeholders to raise awareness about safety issues like Loss of Control – the number one cause of fatal general aviation accidents.

Just two days ago, EAA awarded its first Founder’s Innovation Prize, which recognizes creative solutions to loss of control in flight.

EAA and groups like AOPA and GAMA have also been a valuable contributor to the Fly Safe campaign.

I hope you’ll all consider checking out Fly Safe, which launched last year on FAA.gov to help prevent Loss of Control accidents.

We have a lot of terrific resources available for you to take advantage of.

As all of you know, being a pilot isn’t a right – it’s a responsibility. There’s a great old saying: “You don’t have to take off, but you do have to land.”

Everybody here knows there’s a lot more to flying than just knowing the rules and pushing buttons. It takes good judgment. It requires discipline. And it demands a true sense of professionalism that’s rooted in a deep, unwavering commitment to doing the right thing.

Everyone here today shares that commitment.

And I know that because, if you flew in to Oshkosh, you had to be at the top of your game.

With all of the planes coming and going, this is one of the most challenging sites in the world to navigate around.

So on behalf of the air traffic control staff working this year’s event – thank you for doing your part to make this a safe and successful show.

Now it’s time for my favorite part of the day: hearing from you.

But first, let me introduce you to a few of my colleagues from the FAA, who are going to help me answer some of your questions.

Office of Airports Safety Management System Efforts

Before the Before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Aviation, concerning Federal Aviation Administration Oversight of Commercial Space Transportation

Chairman LoBiondo, Ranking Member Larsen, Members of the Subcommittee: 

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this morning about the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) oversight of commercial space transportation.  In my testimony today, I will provide a brief background on FAA responsibilities, discuss recent developments in the commercial space transportation industry, identify some of the key challenges associated with this dynamic industry, and describe how we work with our stakeholders, including the Congress.

Background
The FAA has exercised oversight responsibility of commercial space transportation activities since 1995, when the Secretary of Transportation delegated authority over the activities to the FAA Administrator, and the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) was established at the FAA.  The FAA, through AST, licenses and permits the launch and reentry of commercial space vehicles consistent with public health and safety, safety of property, and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch or reentry activities.  The mission AST carries out is unique within the FAA in that it also includes the responsibility to encourage, facilitate, and promote U.S. commercial space transportation. This dual mission is an important part of our culture at FAA AST.  These complementary mission objectives together provide an oversight framework that has proven to be very beneficial both to the industry and to the American people.  Our track record bears this out; while the FAA has licensed or permitted over 280 launches, there have never been any fatalities, serious injuries, or significant property damage to members of the public.

FAA policy for commercial space transportation is primarily guided by the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA), the National Space Transportation Policy, and the National Space Policy.  The CSLA provides the FAA the authority to oversee public safety and to issue regulations.  The National Space Transportation Policy offers direction for how the FAA provides safety oversight for non-federal launch and reentry operations and how the FAA interacts with other federal agencies with interests in space.  Finally, the National Space Policy directs federal agencies to, among other things, “minimize, as much as possible, the regulatory burden for commercial space activities and ensure that the regulatory environment for licensing space activities is timely and responsive.”  In exercising authority delegated by the CSLA, the FAA issues launch and reentry licenses, experimental permits, launch site operator licenses, safety approvals, and payload reviews.  To date, the FAA has licensed or permitted more than 280 launches and 10 reentries.  Additionally, we oversee 10 active launch or reentry sites, or “spaceports,” as they are often called, and eight active safety approvals.

Our responsibilities are not limited to protecting the public on the ground or in the air.  In 2004 Congress granted the Secretary of Transportation authority to oversee the operations and safety of the emerging commercial human space flight industry.  We think this industry segment holds great potential and promise.  In order to ensure that the industry has an ample “learning period” to develop, Congress prohibited us from promulgating any regulations governing the design or operation of a launch vehicle intended to protect the health and safety of crew and spaceflight participants until the year 2023, absent death, serious injury, or close call.  However, Congress did encourage us to continue to work with industry on ways to improve human space flight safety.  In August of 2014, we released a set of “Recommended Practices for Human Space Flight Occupant Safety.”  This 62-page document covered three major areas: design, manufacturing, and operations.  While the practices are voluntary, and do not constitute regulations, we believe that the document gives industry a great start in understanding the various areas of concern that future safety frameworks may address.

The FAA also funds the Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation, which provides grants to a consortium of universities for the purpose of conducting research important to the continued safety, growth, and expansion of U.S. commercial space transportation.  Areas of research include: Space Traffic Management & Operations, Space Transportation Operations, Technologies & Payloads, Human Spaceflight, and Space Transportation Industry Viability.

It is important to note that we are working hard with our colleagues within the FAA in the air traffic organization and in the aviation safety, airports, NextGen, and security and hazardous materials safety offices to ensure commercial space transportation is effectively and efficiently integrated in the National Airspace System (NAS).  We are extremely focused on working closely together to protect the safety of the traveling public and persons and property on the ground.

Recent Development in the Industry
Advances in commercial space transportation technology development and investment have been dramatic to say the least.  According to a recent report by the Tauri Group, the year 2015 was a record-setting one for space ventures. The investment and debt financing in these enterprises totaled $2.7 billion, with more venture capital invested in space in 2015 than in the prior 15 years combined.  Nearly two-thirds of the investment in space ventures and startups since 2000 has been in the last five years.

These investments have been augmented by recent actions in government contracting and a strategic vision to advance the development of the industry.  NASA recently announced an expansion of its commercial resupply services program (CRS) to include three launch providers that are charged to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX were all awarded contracts through this program in January of 2016.  Additionally, the Boeing Company and SpaceX have been awarded contracts by NASA to take American astronauts to the International Space Station beginning as early as 2017 under the Commercial Crew program.  Although these are NASA contracts, the FAA is a critical partner in the programs.  Just as it has been the case for the Commercial Cargo missions to date, every future Commercial Cargo and post-certification Commercial Crew flight will be licensed by the FAA, and we are already working with the companies, NASA, and other stakeholders to ensure smooth processes for conducting these important flights.

As the industry has matured, we have observed significant advances in space transportation technology.  This is evident in the recent reusability technology demonstrations from two companies, Blue Origin and SpaceX.  Blue Origin has demonstrated that it can launch and land the same rocket multiple times, and SpaceX has demonstrated it can deliver heavy telecommunications satellites to geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above the surface of the Earth and land the first stage of its rocket safely, both on land and on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.  If the ability to reuse rockets becomes more common across launch service providers, and the companies with this capability can successfully and regularly reuse rockets on missions with customer payloads, the price of reaching orbit likely will drop significantly.  These are incredible advancements that demonstrate an ongoing and ever-increasing technological evolution and the competitive nature of the industry.

An emerging segment of the suborbital space flight industry is space tourism.  Several companies are working on plans for future operations that will take people to the edge of space, where they can observe the curvature of the Earth, peer into the blackness of space, and experience several minutes of weightlessness.  Systems under development include launch vehicles that carry capsules that will land under a parachute, hybrid launch vehicles that take off and land on a runway, and high altitude balloons.  The end game for these companies continues to evolve as they push the envelope on what is possible.  Some of these companies would like to offer point-to-point travel that enables someone to take off from New York in the morning and land in Tokyo just a few hours later; some want to offer the opportunity to experience space as a thrill of a lifetime that tourists can remember forever; others want to open up suborbital space to researchers and scientists.

Although there are many types of operations and many different motives, one thing remains the same for all of them: they need a regulatory structure that allows them to be innovative while ensuring the safety of the public.  Through our work with other stakeholders and our partners inside and outside the FAA, we are determined to provide this structure for all who want to be involved in this new commercial space race.

While there are many companies focused on low-Earth orbit and suborbital space, the FAA is working with others that want to push the envelope even further.  Moon Express has recently announced its plan to send a payload to the Moon, and SpaceX has announced its intention to launch a spacecraft in 2018 to land on Mars.  These ambitious plans require new ways of thinking about regulations and about what constitutes government authorization and supervision.  The challenges associated with these emerging space operations and their impacts on the agency are discussed in greater detail below.

Key Challenges

The FAA’s strategic initiatives plan recognizes that great technological advancements require the FAA to safely integrate new types of user technologies, such as unmanned aircraft systems and commercial space vehicles, into the NAS.  This is crucial as we anticipate increasing launch rates and complex operations.  It is imperative that every FAA line of business has the tools, relationships, and infrastructure necessary to address the challenges associated with integration into the NAS.

In 2014, the NAS saw a dramatic rise in commercial space activity with 21 successfully completed space operations (18 launches and 3 reentries).  The following year saw Blue Origin and SpaceX demonstrate successful flyback and landing of reusable launch vehicle stages.

To keep pace with the industry’s growing launch rate and the increasing complexity of operations in the NAS, the FAA will continue working to improve the facilitation and integration of space operations into NAS planning.  This effort includes evaluating safety technologies such as the Space Data Integrator, or SDI. AST is working in partnership with the Air Traffic Organization on SDI, which will enable us to track space mission progress as the vehicles fly through the NAS.  SDI uses an automated process to take a space vehicle’s real-time position and velocity and convert it into a format that the FAA’s existing Flight Management System can interpret and display. 

Perhaps most importantly, SDI provides near-real time error detection, giving the FAA early notification of abnormal activity that could affect air traffic.  In the event of a failure, the FAA can identify contingency Aircraft Hazard Areas and coordinate with air traffic facilities to mitigate the impact.  We anticipate a demonstration of this tool as part of a partnership with SpaceX later this year.

Another interesting challenge relates to new and non-traditional space operations.  Today, FAA licenses the launch and reentry of commercial space launch vehicles, but does not license their activity in Earth orbit or beyond.  For example, if a company planned to launch a payload to the Moon, the FAA would license the launch of the payload, but not the activity the payload engages in after successful delivery to Earth orbit.  However, Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty requires the U.S. government to authorize and continually supervise the activities of non-governmental entities in outer space.

Section 108 of the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA), which Congress passed last year, directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop an authorization and supervision approach that “would prioritize safety, utilize existing authorities, minimize burdens to the industry, promote the U.S. commercial space sector, and meet the United States obligations under international treaties.”  This recommendation was forwarded to Congress on April 4^th of this year and includes legislative text that fulfills this reporting requirement. In these situations, the FAA Administrator, through the delegation in authority from the Secretary of Transportation, would “grant such authorizations to the extent consistent with the international obligations, foreign policy and national security interests of the United States, and United States Government uses of outer space.”  We support this approach.

Finally, perhaps one of the most pressing challenges associated with future space operations is how we keep pace with the congestion of space and the growing problem of orbital debris.  To operate safely in space, operators must know where their systems are located and when their systems will approach any of the approximately 18,000 other tracked and cataloged objects also on orbit.  Safety-related space situational awareness data for these tracked objects provide space operators information necessary to safely plan maneuvers and mitigate collisions.  Currently, the Department of Defense collects space surveillance data and compiles it to create space situational awareness to provide orbital safety.  The CSLCA required the Secretary of Transportation in concurrence with the Department of Defense to provide a report on the feasibility of a civil agency processing and releasing this data and information.  We hope to provide this report to Congress soon.

The Role of Congress in Supporting the Industry
The commercial space transportation industry has seen significant change since the passage of the first Commercial Space Launch Act in 1984.  It is clear that the industry exists in large part because of the foresight of Congress in passing that important legislation.  Congress remains an active participant in this industry and the recent CSLCA demonstrates how critical that role is.

As we wrestle with how to answer some of the challenges associated with this dynamic industry, Congress has asked us and some of our other partners in the federal government to take a look at various issues related to the commercial space transportation industry.  We are working diligently to respond to those critical reporting requirements.  These reports will help to inform stakeholders, including federal agencies and the Congress, and provide necessary data to make needed progress on many of the issues discussed in this testimony.

In addition to the policy guidance Congress gives us, the FAA also relies on Congress for the resources necessary to keep pace with the industry.  Since 2006, the number of launch and reentry operations we oversee has increased by 200 percent, the number of licenses and permits we issue has increased by 450 percent, and the number of inspections we perform to ensure safety compliance has increased by 725 percent.  Over that same period, our staff has increased by only 42 percent and we have never missed one of our statutorily prescribed time limits for issuing a license or permit.

Our vision at FAA is to be recognized and respected as the world’s foremost authority on commercial space transportation.  Congress is critical in helping us realize that vision.  As the commercial space transportation industry continues to grow, we must ensure that we maintain our ability to keep pace.  The FAA appreciates that so far the appropriations committees have provided the full operations request for AST in fiscal year 2017.  This funding is critical to the work we are doing to support the industry that Congress laid the ground work for over three decades ago.  We cannot continue our efforts without your guidance and support.

In closing, I would like to quote my predecessor and a true visionary, the late Patti Grace Smith, who passed away just a few weeks ago.  Speaking at a conference at the University of California, San Diego, Patti told the audience, “Space is an attitude.  It’s a set of capabilities, an acceptance of risk-taking activities to uncover potential breakthroughs and endless possibilities.  That is precisely why we love it.”

What a great insight.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.  I would be happy to address any questions that you may have.

International Aviation Safety

Good morning, everyone. I know some of you traveled a long way to be here, and I want to thank you for joining us today.

Aviation is truly an international industry. Passengers can board a plane, watch a movie, and just a few hours later step out on the other side of the world. When they do this, they expect the same level of safety and service no matter where they’re traveling.

It’s our job – as regulators, as airlines, as manufacturers and suppliers – to not only deliver on these expectations, but exceed them. It’s on us to work together and ensure the safety of our global aviation system transcends any physical borders.

There’s no question that our community has been tested in almost every way possible over the past two years.

The crashes involving flights from Malaysia Airlines. Germanwings. Egypt Air. Tragedies like these don’t just happen to one country, or one airline. They happen to all of us. We grieve for the lives that are lost. And we turn inward to look at ourselves.

How do we prevent similar incidents from occurring again? How do we improve our processes and procedures? How do we make the world’s safest form of transportation even safer?

We all come from different nations. But we all have to answer these questions. So many of the challenges we face are the same.

Over the last several months, I’ve had the opportunity to travel abroad and visit a number of my international counterparts. In London, I spoke at Chatham House and Lloyd’s of London. In Israel, I visited the Peres Center for Peace. And in Paris, I delivered a speech at the Cercle Interalliee [Sehr-cluh Onter-al-yay], a historic club founded to welcome American pilots who volunteered to fly for the French Air Service as part of the Lafayette Escadrille flying squadron.

At all of these stops, one thing became clear. Aviation has become an international language all its own – and it’s imperative that we use it to advance our shared safety goals.

That’s the value of those trips, and of forums like this. They give us an opportunity to come together and share ideas and potential solutions.

Today, I’m going to talk about some of the issues we’re dealing with in the United States – and how we’re working with our international counterparts to ensure our efforts support a safe, harmonized global aviation system.

Aviation has been about pushing the limits of what’s possible from its earliest days. Our industry is constantly changing. And as new challenges and opportunities emerge, we have to find new ways to continue raising the bar on safety.

For decades, we analyzed accidents after they happened to determine what went wrong and prevent them from happening again.

Now we’re going a step further – proactively using data to assess risks, focus our attention where it’s needed most, and deliver safer outcomes on a system-wide level.

This approach has been working for us in the United States. Thanks to our collaboration with airlines, manufacturers, labor, and others under the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, we reduced the fatality risk for commercial accidents by 83 percent between 1998 and 2008. We’re now aiming to further reduce the risk by another 50 percent by 2025.

Based on our success in the United States, we believe this shift towards a collaborative, data-driven risk management philosophy is the best step forward for our safety culture, and I know many of you here today have adopted the same approach.

Of course, we’re not always going to agree about everything.

Pilot mental fitness is a topic all of us are grappling with. Our European counterparts recently took action, and the FAA issued our own findings last week.

Based on the recommendations of an Aviation Rulemaking Committee made up of aviation and medical experts, the FAA is not recommending the addition of psychological testing to either the pilot hiring process or to the periodic, routine pilot health evaluation.

Psychological tests generally provide insight into a person’s mindset at only a particular moment in time.

So the Aerospace Medical Association concluded that in-depth psychological testing for detecting serious mental illness as part of the routine periodic pilot aeromedical assessment is neither productive nor cost-effective.

Instead, the FAA is pursuing a continuous, holistic approach that seeks to remove the stigma surrounding mental illness in the aviation industry so pilots are more likely to self-report, get treated, and return to work.

To advance this goal, the FAA, the airlines, and the pilots unions have agreed to take a number of actions.

The FAA is improving and expanding training on mental health issues for Aviation Medical Examiners so they can better identify warning signs in pilots.

We’re working closely with the airlines to include pilot support programs in the safety management systems that guide their operations.

And we’ll be partnering with the airlines and pilots unions to raise awareness about mental health issues and the resources available to pilots who need help.

We don’t consider this to be a static issue. It’s one we’re going to continue looking at closely, because we know we don’t have all the answers.

We’ll continue working with aviation, medical, and international stakeholders to see if we need to make additional changes.

The FAA will be collaborating with the United Kingdom’s Civil Aviation Authority Chief Medical Officer in their study of the medical and psychiatric outcomes of pilots who underwent personality testing several decades ago. We’ll also be exploring early recognition of personality and behavioral traits that could pose issues in the future for pilots.

When it comes to managing risk, we’re not just looking at ways to improve our policies and procedures. We’re also using that mindset to integrate new technologies into our airspace.

Some have called the birth of the unmanned aircraft industry the Wright Brothers moment of our time – and that may be so.

But if there’s anything we’ve learned through our experience with unmanned aircraft so far, it’s that this industry moves at the speed of imagination.

The development cycle for an aircraft is usually measured in years. In the unmanned aircraft industry, products that substantially eclipse their predecessors can be developed and produced in mere months.

As a safety regulator, our primary job is to ensure the safety of the public and our skies. But we also recognize we need to do this in a way that doesn’t stifle this kind of innovation.

There’s a lot of excitement around unmanned aircraft right now – and for good reason. These devices have countless potential uses, on both the recreational and commercial sides.

Recently, a helicopter being used to conduct power line inspections made a hard landing on some railroad tracks near Baltimore, Maryland. This is exactly the type of job a small unmanned aircraft could do – with much less risk to people and property on the ground.

But as unmanned aircraft become more popular, they also pose unique challenges.

Across the United States, which includes our uniquely large general aviation community, we’ve seen an increase in reports about drones coming too close to manned aircraft and airports.

Some have interfered with wildfire fighting in California, and another crashed into a stadium during a U.S. Open tennis match.

This isn’t a problem that’s unique to America. We all heard about the scare at London Heathrow recently, where British authorities investigated a reported collision between an unmanned aircraft and a commercial jetliner.

It turned out the aircraft may have hit a plastic bag. But this incident was a reminder of what’s potentially at stake for passengers, regulators, and industry alike.

One thing is clear: we must incorporate drone users into the safety culture that defines our industry. Even if operators aren’t actually in their aircraft, they’re still aviators. And with that title comes a great deal of responsibility.

I know many of you are grappling with the best way to accomplish this goal.

I look forward to hearing about your experiences in the coming days – what you’ve tried, what’s working, and what you think the next best steps are. I know there’s a lot we can learn from each other.

At the FAA, we’ve made substantial progress by partnering with a wide range of government, aviation, and technology stakeholders to build consensus around a broad array of education and outreach initiatives.

Most notably, we set up a registration system for drones in just a matter of weeks with the help of an industry task force. So far, we’ve registered more than 464,000 hobbyists.

To put that in perspective, we only have 320,000 registered manned aircraft – and it took us 100 years to get there.

Each of these registrations represents one more person we’ve been able to reach with our safety message.

We’re also shifting our approach to regulation to match this nimble technology. We recognize that we have to move faster and think differently about how we do our jobs.

We’re in the process of creating a performance-based regulatory framework that addresses potential hazards, rather than a classification system that is based only on weight and speed.

This is a notable departure from how we traditionally approach safety. We can’t act at the speed of government. Being flexible and open-minded is key to successfully integrating new technologies into our busy, complex aviation system.

This flexibility is extending to other areas of our work as well. We don’t just need to integrate new technologies into our airspace – we need to integrate them into aircraft.

Aviation attracts some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the world. And they’ve got big ideas.

What will the planes of tomorrow look like? Has our quest for lighter materials like carbon fiber and nanotubes put us on the verge of game-changing designs?

These are exciting questions – and they’re being answered right now in research and development labs around the world.

As regulators, we need to be prepared to meet these innovations head on.

With the breakneck pace of technological change and the increasing complexity of the global supply chain, we can’t keep doing things the way we’ve always done them.

Over the past several years, the FAA has taken a long, hard look at how we certify aircraft and parts. In the past, we’ve made changes that were incremental, and often independent from each other.

Now, we’re setting out to make a comprehensive change in the way we do business in the name of increasing our efficiency and effectiveness.

We don’t want to wait for applicants to come to us with a completed aircraft design. We want to engage with designers and manufacturers early and often, so we can make sure our regulations support the new ideas and capabilities that are coming through the door.

Ultimately, we want to be more involved with industry – and we want to be involved at the right times.

In March, we proposed a rule that would overhaul the airworthiness standards for small general aviation airplanes. Instead of regulating certain design elements on specific technologies, the FAA is going to define the safety outcomes we want to achieve and let manufacturers figure out the best way to get there.

Our new approach means we won’t need to rewrite the rules every time something changes. Instead, manufacturers can focus on finding the most efficient and effective way to meet our performance standards.

This is just the beginning of the transformation of our certification process at the FAA.

We’re focusing more of our attention on areas of risk – such as an emerging aviation authority we haven’t worked with in the past, or a new technology that no one has ever seen.

We’re devoting fewer resources to authorities we have a high degree of confidence in, and designs we know are reliable. 

Last year, we signed an agreement with EASA that said parts falling under a Technical Standard Order Authorization would be accepted by both the United States and Europe.

This means U.S. suppliers no longer need to seek European approval if their part, such as a seatbelt, has been approved by the FAA – and vice versa.

This will result in an estimated savings of about 1.7 million Euros for the American aviation industry in 2016 because of fewer application fees to EASA. We expect these savings to be the same or even increase in the future.

We also streamlined our validation of basic Supplemental Type Certificates as part of our agreement with EASA, which means less technical involvement on very basic designs.

We established similar agreements with Canada and Brazil, as well.

These types of partnerships are essential to the work we do at the FAA. And that’s particularly true as we make progress implementing America’s Next Generation Air Transportation System – better known as NextGen.

In recent years, we’ve built much of the foundational infrastructure that supports NextGen, and consumers and aviation stakeholders from across the country are now receiving measurable benefits.

En Route Automation Modernization, or ERAM, is now installed and operational at all of our en route air traffic control centers. ERAM gives us a much bigger, richer picture of our nation’s air traffic – and allows controllers to better manage flights from gate to gate.

The benefits of ERAM can’t be understated – particularly since it enables many other critical NextGen systems.

ERAM links seamlessly with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast technologies – otherwise known as ADS-B – to provide more accurate, satellite-based aircraft positions.

The FAA finished the coast-to-coast installation of the ADS-B ground network in 2014. It’s also integrated at all of our en route centers, so the system is ready and already being used.

But the full benefits of this technology can only be realized if all aircraft are equipped with ADS-B Out transmitters, which broadcast aircraft position. So we’re working to ensure aircraft flying in controlled airspace are equipped in advance of the January 1, 2020 deadline we’ve set.

Last week, Secretary Foxx and I announced a new rebate program that’s designed to help make installing ADS-B equipment more affordable for general aviation aircraft owners.

We hope this incentive, coupled with the falling price of equipment, will encourage owners to get off the sidelines and take advantage of all the safety benefits ADS-B has to offer.

Data Communications is another technology we’re using increase safety and improve every phase of flight.

Data Comm gives air traffic controllers and pilots the ability to transmit flight plans and other essential messages by text instead of voice communications.

This switch from voice to text increases safety by reducing the chance of a read-back error while relaying information. It also allows controllers to send text instructions to several aircraft at once – a much more accurate and efficient process.

Following a series of successful trials at airports around the country, we’ve ramped up the rollout of Data Comm this year. Twenty-seven air traffic control towers are currently using Data Comm, and we plan to get that number up to more than fifty by the end of 2016.

As we make these infrastructure investments, we’re also aware that we don’t operate within a vacuum.

Civil aviation authorities around the world are taking advantage of new technologies to make upgrades as well.

The FAA is working closely with our international counterparts to promote the global harmonization of air traffic management systems, including more common standards, technologies, and information exchange platforms.

We have several efforts underway through our NextGen-SESAR collaboration in Europe, as well as in Asia and the Caribbean. We’re making inroads in Africa through our Safe Skies for Africa program. And we’ve been an integral part of developing ICAO’s Aviation System Block Upgrades, which provide countries with guidance on how, where, and when to implement the operational and technical improvements that have come out of programs like NextGen and SESAR.

These partnerships are ensuring we maintain the interoperability of our systems – and provide the level of safety and service passengers around the world expect.

After all, that’s the reason we come together for forums like this one. It’s why we hammer out compromises and agreements through ICAO.

Safety is the aviation industry’s most important product. Without it, airlines don’t sell seats, manufacturers don’t sell airplanes, and suppliers don’t sell parts.

We’ve all but eliminated the traditional causes of accidents – like controlled flight into terrain, weather, and wind shear.

But we still have more work to do. Our quest for a perfect record may never be realized – but we can never abandon it as our goal.

We need to work together, as regulators and industry stakeholders from around the world, to identify areas of risk and mitigate them before incidents occur.

In the coming days, we’ll be covering a number of important topics for the future of our industry: from unmanned aircraft and commercial space, to data sharing and cyber security, to certification and compliance.

I encourage all of you to speak up and speak often. Sharing your own unique vantage point is the best way to help lift the global aviation industry to a new level of safety.

Thank you.

NextGen, New Airspace Users in Colorado

Thank you, Louis. I’m glad to be here. First off, I want to congratulate Denver, and the State of Colorado, for winning the Super Bowl this past year. I’m envious. Here in D.C., our team does not win Super Bowls, at least not in the last two decades. 

When you say “Omaha!,” you’re talking about touchdowns. When we say “Omaha,” we might be talking about steak or life insurance.      

Like I said, I’m envious. 

Of course, your success is not limited to touchdowns and Super Bowls.  In many ways, Colorado is helping us modernize the nation’s airspace system, making it more efficient and greener, while ensuring that all safety needs are met.  As many of you know, the FAA’s plan to modernize the National Airspace System is called NextGen.

NextGen is very important to our stakeholders and to Colorado.  It is critical to move airplanes in and out of major airports like Denver, and smaller airports in Ski Country and other areas as efficiently as possible.

NextGen is the driver, but in order to complete this modernization, the FAA will need to continue to work with our stakeholders, including industry, labor, government and local communities. 

Colorado is a strong leader in these collaborative efforts.  For instance, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock is a member of the FAA’s Management Advisory Committee.  And Denver Airport director Kim Day is a former member of the FAA’s NextGen Advisory Committee. 

Of course, it’s a two-way street.  Washington D.C. has sent key players to Denver too……cornerback Champ Bailey comes to mind. 

But seriously, we’ve worked with Colorado in many ways to deliver NextGen benefits there, and we look forward to continuing that work.      

Today, I’d like to talk about some of our progress with NextGen.  I’d also like to tell you about our efforts to integrate drones and commercial space operations into the airspace system as well. 

So let me start with NextGen.  Over the past few years, we’ve been making real progress with NextGen.

In 2014, we completed the infrastructure for ADS-B, which is the core technology that moves us from a radar-based to a satellite-based system.  With ADS-B “Out,” as we call it, air traffic controllers can pinpoint exactly where an aircraft is at any given time. And with ADS-B “In,” pilots can look on a screen in the cockpit and see exactly where their plane is in relation to other aircraft nearby.

ADS-B is integrated at all of our en route air traffic control centers, so the system is ready and many users are already seeing benefits.

But the full benefits can only be realized if all aircraft are equipped with ADS-B Out transmitters, which broadcast aircraft position.

The FAA has set a January 1, 2020 deadline for aircraft operating within certain controlled airspace to equip for
ADS-B Out.

We’re working closely with the entire industry to ensure the January 2020 deadline is met – with a special focus on the general aviation community.

The FAA recently announced a new rebate program that’s designed to help general aviation aircraft owners meet the deadline and make installing ADS-B equipment more affordable.  We will be offering eligible aircraft owners a $500 rebate to help offset the cost of purchasing ADS-B Out equipment, or an integrated system that also includes ADS-B In.

We’ll be issuing 20,000 rebates on a first-come, first-serve basis for one year starting this fall, or until all 20,000 rebates are claimed – whichever comes first. 

In addition to ADS-B, we’ve completed automation upgrades in our en route centers where we control high altitude traffic.  And this year, we’re working on automation upgrades in our terminal facilities.

And while these programs will serve as NextGen’s long-term foundation, we’re also working on four near-term priorities:

• Increasing the availability and use of Performance Based (or satellite- based) Navigation,
• improving airport surface operations,
• making multiple runway operations more efficient, and
• implementing Data Communications.

I’ll give you some examples.  Last year, at Denver International, we implemented a more efficient satellite-based procedure called Established on Required Navigation Performance.  We call it EoR, and it enables pilots to fly shorter distances when simultaneously turning to land on parallel runways.  This results in less fuel burn and emissions by the aircraft.  After implementing EoR, Denver Airport was able to increase their use of these more fuel efficient procedures by 28%.

We’re looking to expand the use of these kinds of satellite-based procedures, both in Colorado and around the nation.  In fact, Denver is part of the FAA’s Metroplex initiative – an effort to target NextGen capabilities in metro areas to relieve air traffic congestion.  Our Denver Metroplex team is nearing the end of the Design Phase, where we’re working with industry to conduct simulator testing of new procedures. 

During the design phase, we also intend to reach out to the Denver community.  We want to ensure that the public is involved and that air traffic procedure designs don’t conflict with known community concerns.  We take public input very seriously and we strongly encourage people, agencies and officials to learn about, and weigh in on, our airspace procedure proposals. 

When the Design Phase is complete, we’ll move into the Evaluation Phase where we’ll start a formal environmental assessment, and this typically takes 12 months to complete.

We recently deployed another important NextGen innovation at Denver Airport on May 3^rd.  It’s called Data Communications.  

Data Comm, as we call it, enables controllers and pilots to communicate by sending and receiving digital data instructions, in addition to voice communications.  With this capability, controllers can issue a departure clearance to several aircraft at once, and issue revised clearances as might be necessary during bad weather.  We’ll be able to accomplish faster taxi out times and reduced delays, while reducing controller and pilot workload, congestion on the airwaves, and the likelihood of communication errors that can occur from voice exchange. 

Data Comm’s departure clearance service is now operational at 27 air traffic control towers around the country, and we’re 20 months ahead of schedule.  We’ll continue to deploy Data Comm at about 30 additional control towers around the country.  In 2019, we’ll start to deploy Data Comm in our en route air traffic control centers. 

Let me give you a third example of how we’re delivering benefits in Colorado.  In 2012, the FAA worked with the Colorado Department of Transportation to install a technology called Wide Area Multilateration, or WAM.  WAM improves access to Ski Country airports like Eagle, Telluride, Montrose and several others in bad weather. 

Since radars could not track the aircraft once they descended below the tops of the surrounding mountains, air traffic controllers had to keep planes farther apart in the air than usual in order to provide the appropriate safety margins.  They had to conduct “one in, one out” operations.  This resulted in a lot more delays and cancellations due to bad weather, resulting in a lot of unhappy passengers.  After putting these WAM systems in place, we’ve been able to reduce arrival delays during poor visibility by as much as 12 minutes per flight.

EoR, Data Communications and WAM are all winning plays.  And these are just a few of the innovations we have in mind. 

Once all planned programs are in place, the FAA expects NextGen to deliver $134 billion in direct airline, industry and passenger benefits through 2030.  This includes more than $50 billion in benefits to the airlines for reductions in future flight delays, which translates into reduced airline crew, maintenance and fuel costs. 

And while NextGen is helping us provide benefits for traditional aviation, the FAA is also committed to integrating new users – like unmanned aircraft and commercial space operations—into the airspace system.

We expect there to be as many as 7 million drones sold by 2020.  And we already have about 500,000 registered drone users in the United States, more than the number of registered aircraft.   

In the coming weeks, the FAA will publish a rule that will allow routine, civil operations for commercial purpose of small unmanned aircraft.  Currently, we are authorizing these types of operations on a case-by-case basis.  We have approved more than 6,000 exemptions for purposes like movie filming; inspections of pipelines, power lines, bridges and flare stacks; and conducting precision agriculture operations. 

We recently developed a UAS strategy to guide our integration efforts and better align our work with other lines of business in the agency.  And this summer, the FAA will establish a new Drone Advisory Committee to advise us on integration issues.  We believe this group will serve the same type of purpose as the NextGen Advisory Committee, in terms of helping us prioritize our efforts.  

Like unmanned aircraft, the commercial space industry is making a lot of progress.  Earlier this spring, we saw Space X make history by landing the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.  This marks a big step toward achieving reusability of these rockets.

This year, the FAA predicts a total of 25 launches, and we expect this number to climb as the industry matures.  One day, we may even see multiple launches per week as the space tourism industry grows.       

Currently, we accommodate these operations by blocking off airspace.  As they increase, we’ll have to move from accommodation to integration, meaning that we take into account the needs of all airspace users – just as we are doing with unmanned aircraft.

This fall, we expect to complete our Commercial Space Integration Roadmap that will define changes in airspace usage policy, regulation, procedures and automation capabilities, and determine the schedule by which these changes will be made.  

And this summer, the FAA plans to conduct a demonstration of a prototype technology – the Space Data Integrator or SDI—when Space X conducts one of its reentry missions.  The demo will help us determine how much airspace we have to block off in advance to ensure a safe operation, and how we can more efficiently release the blocked airspace so it’s available for other users.

We know that Front Range airport has submitted a license application to conduct commercial space operations.  The FAA wants to enable the growth and success of the commercial space industry.  The FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Office is working with our Airports office and the Air Traffic Organization to balance that goal with the need to ensure that traditional air traffic remains safe and efficient.    

To recap, the FAA is implementing NextGen into the airspace system every day.  And we’re working to bring in drones and commercial space craft. 

Stable funding remains a concern for the FAA.  We have another short-term extension of our authorization that runs until July 15^th.  The Senate passed their version of a long-term bill in April but it remains to be seen what will happen. 

In closing, Colorado is not just a leader in the National Football League.  You’re also a leader in aviation – whether it be with Wide Area Multilateration, using more efficient satellite-based navigation procedures, using Data Communications, or with commercial space operations.  I look forward to continuing our work together, and seeing the progress we’ll make in the coming years.    

Thank you.