Username Protected wrote:
Interesting. When I was at Cessna, I participated in both DOA (predecessor to ODA) projects for Part 23 airplanes and was a Part 25 DER. The representatives did do design work, typically at the Group Leader level, and the administrative group was about five people.
Representatives (UMs) are not prohibited from doing design work, but in all practicality, they have no time to do so. They may have input into a design, in fact, that's encouraged, but younger engineers typically do the grunt work. They can do work and sign as company rather than UM. There are UMs that do their own analysis, sign, and approve their own compliance reports, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Typically the company engineers are supposed to show compliance, and the UM is exclusively finding the compliance. There are already barely enough UMs available for the number of projects in work, so that's why they don't have much time for anything else.
The ODA office has definitely grown. There is an administrator, 2 deputy administrators, regulatory compliance leaders for each discipline, then a bunch of certification program managers and certification engineers. To think that people wonder why airplanes cost so much.