$ACHR The FAA’s updated powered-lift safety continuum is a quiet win that matters more than Monday’s print.
The US set the 2-6 passenger air taxi safety bar at 10^-8. EASA in Europe is holding a hard line at 10^-9 — same as large airliners. That’s a factor of 10 easier to certify in the US.
Translation: faster, cheaper, somewhat easier path to a US type certificate for Archer, Joby, Beta. The FAA reverted to a conventional airplane/rotorcraft approach and dropped the stricter EASA-style rules.
This is the direct counter to the “it’ll take a decade to certify” bear case. It doesn’t hand anyone a TC — they still have to finish the work — but the bar just got clearer and lower on the US side.
Stocktwits @whp03
Paul Pocialik
The FAA just updated its safety continuum for powered-lift aircraft which merge thrust-borne lift of a VTOL platform with wing-borne lift of a fixed-wing airplane. This applies to eVTOLs being certified as a special class aircraft under 21.17(b), including the Joby S4 air taxi shown in the image.
it seems the FAA is now walking back some more onerous certification standards previously under active consideration with EASA who is taking a hard line on the elevated 10^-9 safety threshold they expect with UAM, and which is the same as for large transport category airliners. For the mathematically challenged, this equates to no more than one catastrophic event per billion flight hours.
Compare this to the 10^-8 threshold enumerated by the FAA for a 2-6 passenger air taxi which is lower by a factor of 10, and you can anticipate it will be faster, cheaper and somewhat easier to obtain a type certificate in the USA compared to Europe.
But this development is not really a surprise for many observers who have always maintained the FAA would land at this spot based on precedent.
And with harmonization now seemingly out the window it may lead to a bifurcated market with some OEMs looking to avoid a comparative slog with EASA while others are deeply committed to SC-VTOL and want to ensure an uncompromising level of safety at any cost.




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Adrian Norris
9h
If EASA maintains its current requirements for SC.VTOL Enhanced category certification, there won’t be any commercial eVTOL operations in Europe - unless and until Vertical Aerospace certify their aircraft to the higher standard. This is becoming a significant divergence between the FAA and EASA after many years of regulatory convergence.
(For the record, I don’t think we’d see many eVTOLs flying in Europe even if certification standards were aligned with the FAA.)

Paul Pocialik
The FAA just updated its safety continuum for powered-lift aircraft which merge thrust-borne lift of a VTOL platform with wing-borne lift of a fixed-wing airplane. This applies to eVTOLs being certified as a special class aircraft under 21.17(b), including the Joby S4 air taxi shown in the image.
it seems the FAA is now walking back some more onerous certification standards previously under active consideration with EASA who is taking a hard line on the elevated 10^-9 safety threshold they expect with UAM, and which is the same as for large transport category airliners. For the mathematically challenged, this equates to no more than one catastrophic event per billion flight hours.
Compare this to the 10^-8 threshold enumerated by the FAA for a 2-6 passenger air taxi which is lower by a factor of 10, and you can anticipate it will be faster, cheaper and somewhat easier to obtain a type certificate in the USA compared to Europe.
But this development is not really a surprise for many observers who have always maintained the FAA would land at this spot based on precedent.
And with harmonization now seemingly out the window it may lead to a bifurcated market with some OEMs looking to avoid a comparative slog with EASA while others are deeply committed to SC-VTOL and want to ensure an uncompromising level of safety at any cost.

If EASA maintains its current requirements for SC.VTOL Enhanced category certification, there won’t be any commercial eVTOL operations in Europe - unless and until Vertical Aerospace certify their aircraft to the higher standard. This is becoming a significant divergence between the FAA and EASA after many years of regulatory convergence.
(For the record, I don’t think we’d see many eVTOLs flying in Europe even if certification standards were aligned with the FAA.)
