After nearly a decade in the making, the U.S. FAA on December 16 issued its comprehensive rewrite of Part 23, setting in motion an entirely new approach to certifying small airplanes and products. FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, flanked by the heads of three general aviation manufacturers, announced the release of the new rule during a press conference at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C., saying it will “usher in a new era of safety and a new era of innovation in general aviation in the U.S.”
The rule, which takes effect in eight months, moves the FAA away from its long history of establishing detailed prescriptive standards for new products to a performance-based approach under which the agency establishes the performance objectives for new products and gives the manufacturer flexibility on how it meets those objectives.
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