https://cessna.txtav.com/en/lp/skycourier-splash-lp

Pretty big deal this morning. FAA granted TC to the 408.

A huge shout out to the Textron team and everyone who worked on the Sky Courier project!

Most people have no idea the amount of work it takes to get a new airplane certified!

Congratulations!!

I would be curious how many brand new, clean sheet, aircraft have been certified in recent years.

Did it use to be easier to get a new TC? It just feels like we had so many more types back in the days. Just looking at the Cessna 1xx, 2xx, 3xx, 4xx lines....

Actually pretty cool plane if you have a mission for it. I like it.

A lot of those types are piggybacked onto existing types

They had simpler aircraft systems (mostly), simpler construction methods, and sold enough planes to recoup the certification costs quickly. They were also independent companies who were less beholden to someone else's bottom line.

My friend’s daughter graduated from college last May and got hired by Textron as a budding young engineer (my son graduates in May - excited about that!). She works on a variety of projects but she also worked on the SkyCourier and is in the team pic that Tecnam posted recently. Can’t find an image to copy but here’s a link. She’s on the left side near the back with the green hair. Seriously lol. Great young person - super smart. She’s out of the blue decided to get her PPL because Textron heavily subsidizes the employee flying club. Pretty cool first job!

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... iceability

very cool. there is lots of opportunity in Aerospace. that is the way to stick out in a crowd. My daughter is an aerospace composites engineer and there is a real need for the new young talented engineers.

I think Textron is an ODA, so can certify in-house, so to speak (the way Boeing used to be able to do). I'm sure this speeds up the process somewhat, as smaller producers can't get stuff to market as fast. That's why Garmin gets stuff done so fast - they're an ODA too, whereas Avidyne has to go through a much more lengthy process directly with the FAA.

Congrats! I love the aircraft, but if in fact, bigger more established producers are allowed to speed up the process by self-certification, then my fairness meter starts pegging to the red. It should be equal for all, no matter what size or pedigree you have.

TxtAv is an ODA.

Typically this means that once a certification plan is approved by all the company Unit Members (UMs) it goes over to the ACO for approval, and we typically get those back within about 30 days. Any FAA concerns must be addressed before the cert plan is approved. Bear in mind that for a clean sheet project like this, there will be dozens of cert plans that need to be reviewed and approved, divided up by systems. Drafting a cert plan and getting the internal approvals can take on the order of 6 months or so before it ever goes to the FAA.

The FAA may retain some findings to themselves. Typically we're seeing that on acoustics right now. FAA will likely request flight test participation as well. FAA still reviews maintenance documents and flight manuals through their Aircraft Evaluation Group, and this can add a lot of time right at the end of a project.

The TxtAv Unit Members act on behalf of the FAA for making the compliance findings for the rules that have not been retained by the FAA. UM and DER is pretty much equivalent if you're familiar with the standard cert process.

The new complication thrown in, after what Boeing did, is that formerly the UMs were appointed by the ODA internally and submitted to the FAA who had the right of refusal. Now, new UM appointments must be done with direct ACO involvement. This should be a fun learning process since I'm supposed to submit my application for Systems and Equipment - Electrical later this year.

Even though the ODA significantly speeds certification time, there is a significant cost for duplicating FAA bureaucracy in house, at least 30 highly compensated engineers in the ODA office, and then maybe 150 Unit Members who no longer do design work.

Matt - do you know why the FAA is fixated (my opinion) on acoustics?

To me that would be very low on the 'safety' list, and it's in the manufacturer's own interests to lessen noise to the pax anyway.

Internal noise, oh no, that's not it at all.

FAA Safety Briefing, July 2021:
https://medium.com/faa/cutting-through-all-the-noise-4f99910f918c

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.