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92–673 PDF 2016

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION REAUTHORIZATION: REFORMING AND STREAMLINING THE 

FAA’S REGULATORY CERTIFICATION PROCESSES 

(114–1) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JANUARY 21, 2015 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ 

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, 

Vice Chair 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

CRESENT HARDY, Nevada 

RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

CARLOS CURBELO, Florida 

DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JANICE HAHN, California 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

JARED HUFFMAN, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... iv 

WITNESSES 

PANEL 1 

Ray Conner, President and Chief Executive Officer, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, The Boeing Company: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 51 

Responses to questions for the record from Hon. Bill Shuster, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania .......................... 56 

Aaron Hilkemann, President and Chief Executive Officer, Duncan Aviation: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60 

PANEL 2 

Gerald L. Dillingham, Ph.D., Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 66 

Responses to questions for the record from the following Representatives: 

Hon. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania ........................................................... 102 

Hon. Daniel Lipinski of Illinois ................................................................ 104 

Hon. Richard L. Hanna of New York ...................................................... 107 

Hon. Todd Rokita of Indiana .................................................................... 109 

Hon. Christopher A. Hart, Acting Chairman, National Transportation Safety 

Board: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 110 

Responses to questions for the record from Hon. Daniel Lipinski, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois ..................................... 122 

Dorenda Baker, Director, Aircraft Certification Service, Federal Aviation Administration: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 123 

Responses to questions for the record from the following Representatives: 

Hon. Todd Rokita of Indiana .................................................................... 131 

Hon. Elizabeth H. Esty of Connecticut .................................................... 134 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Hon. Peter A. DeFazio, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, request to submit to the record the written testimony of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) .......................................................... 135 

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD 

Aeronautical Repair Station Association, statement for the record .................... 143 

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(1) 

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION REAUTHORIZATION: REFORMING AND STREAMLINING THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION’S REGULATORY CERTIFICATION 

PROCESSES 

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Shuster (Chairman 

of the committee) presiding. 

Mr. SHUSTER. The committee will come to order. Good morning. 

Happy New Year to everybody. The committee has not formally organized, so we have to start off in asking for unanimous consent 

to conduct today’s hearing under the rules of the committee under 

the 113th Congress, and without objection, so ordered. Hopefully 

our colleagues, Mr. DeFazio and others will in the next week or so, 

be ready to come together and—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Better organized on the day. 

Mr. SHUSTER. OK. Great. And I know we have some new members on the committee, and you know what, I need a list of our 

members because we have got quite a few. I see many of them here 

today. Do you have your—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. We have one new member here today. That will be 

it. You would like me to—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Yeah, please. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. 

Mr. NOLAN. Jared. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, Jared is not here. 

Mr. NOLAN. He is new on the committee. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I know, but he is not here, so we aren’t going to 

recognize him. Those who show up get rewarded, and those who 

don’t. 

Mr. Chairman, we have actually two new members, at the insistence of Mr. Nolan. Jared Huffman who is not here, so I won’t go 

on about him, but I served with him on the Resources Committee, 

and he is very solid and will be a great contributor to the committee, and Julia Brownley who represents the smaller port of 

southern California, but yet a very important area and represents 

Ventura and that area around there and was also formally in the 

State assembly for was it—— 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Six years. 

2 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Six years. And so we are looking forward to her 

contribution, and a major focus for her will be intermodal and port 

activities. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, thank you, and welcome to the committee. 

Also, I will introduce our new members to the committee starting 

with the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Rouzer, who has 

been on Capitol Hill before, so he has seen a couple of tours of duty 

here and other jobs on the Hill in other capacities, so I would like 

to welcome him. Mrs. Walters is not here today. She is from southern California. Mrs. Comstock, Barbara Comstock is from northern 

Virginia. Mr. Curbelo, and you know I know his first name but go 

and refresh me. What is his first name? 

Carlos. Yes, I knew it began with a ‘‘C,’’ but—Carlos Curbelo 

from the Miami area. Our senior new member is Mr. Woodall, Rob 

Woodall from Georgia, suburbs of Atlanta and the hinterlands of 

Georgia who have got some water issues. Mr. Rokita from Indiana, 

Mr. Katko from New York, upstate New York, I believe the Syracuse area. Mr. Babin, Brian Babin—— 

Dr. BABIN. Babin. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Babin, I am sorry. Doc is easier. From Texas, what 

part of Texas exactly? 

Dr. BABIN. Woodville, Texas. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Woodville, Texas. 

Dr. BABIN. Just northeast of Houston. 

Mr. SHUSTER. OK. Cresent Hardy, who is from the entire State, 

I think, of Nevada, or 80 percent of it. That is correct, isn’t it, Mr. 

Hardy? 

Mr. HARDY. About 70 percent, yeah. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Who is next to you? I can’t see the name. 

Mr. HARDY. Costello. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I should know that, Ryan Costello. He is from the 

Philadelphia Eagles part of the fan base of Pennsylvania. I am 

from the Pittsburgh side, so hopefully we can come together on the 

committee here. 

Mr. Garret Graves from Louisiana. What part of Louisiana? 

Mr. GRAVES OF LOUISIANA. Baton Rouge. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Baton Rouge, that is what I thought. And I believe 

that is it. So we got a big new lineup here. I am looking forward 

to working with all of you. 

And today again, I want to welcome our witnesses for being here 

today. Mr. Conner, Mr.—how do you pronounce that, Hilkemann? 

Did I get it right? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Hilkemann. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Hilkemann. OK. I can see the ‘‘L’’ there. I don’t 

have my glasses on, so. 

Again, welcome today. I am glad you are here with us today, and 

today’s hearing is on ‘‘Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization: Reforming and Streamlining the FAA’s Regulatory Certification Processes,’’ which I know you two have a lot to say about 

that. 

The current FAA authorization is set to expire at the end of September, and passing a new bill that helps lay the groundwork for 

the future of U.S. aviation is a top priority for this committee. 

3 

I look forward to hearing about the progress the FAA has made 

to streamline the certification process since the last FAA bill was 

signed into law as well as areas that witnesses believe are in need 

of additional reform. 

I think everyone here today understands the important role that 

aviation plays in our Nation’s economy. Aviation manufacturing is 

at the heart of American leadership in aviation and high technology. This vital industry contributes billions of dollars and supports millions of jobs in our country’s economy and is our leading 

export sector. 

Today we are discussing FAA regulation, regulatory certification 

processes which have significant impacts on our Nation’s ability to 

innovate, manufacture, export, operate, and maintain the very 

safest products in an increasingly competitive global market. The 

FAA is responsible for ensuring every aircraft in our skies is safe, 

and that those that maintain and fly those aircraft are well-qualified and well-trained. 

Besides assuring the safety of aircraft, our certification system 

must be efficient, rational, and must be applied in a consistent and 

fair and transparent manner. Too often we are seeing unnecessary 

regulatory burdens that do not serve to improve actual aircraft 

safety. It seems to be a process simply for the sake of process. 

We are seeing inconsistent interpretations of applications for a 

number of FAA policies and regulations. In fact, I have heard cases 

where from region to region it is different, from office to office it 

is different, and within even offices, inspectors see things in a different way. We have got to make sure that doesn’t happen. 

Products and technology that can actually enhance aircraft safety 

are often caught in a bureaucratic maze substantially delaying 

their implementation and the realization of safety benefits. I have 

heard concerns that our certification processes are much slower 

than in other countries, resulting in American companies being 

placed at a disadvantage to their foreign competitors who have a 

more streamlined process to get their products certified in the market. 

While U.S. commercial aviation is the safest in the world, we 

must also ensure that our safety regulations and the processes they 

go through are effective, consistent, and keep pace with the modern 

marketplace. The FAA is the gold standard for aviation safety. It 

is a big part of what makes this country the global leader in aviation. We cannot let American leadership slip away or be squandered away because of regulatory processes that are overly burdensome, unnecessarily cumbersome, and inconsistently applied and 

out of sync with a changing world. 

As aviation stakeholders innovate and seek to compete in a fastpaced marketplace, it is important that the FAA’s standards keep 

pace. Instead of being the unquestioned global leader in bringing 

innovative products to market, the United States sometimes lags 

behind the rest of the world in the introduction of new technology. 

Given the concerns we have heard about the FAA’s certification 

processes, we are looking to our witnesses to hear if there are additional reforms and streamlining efforts needed in the next FAA reauthorization and to ensure that our certification processes guarantee the safety of our system while not inhibiting aviation growth. 

4 

With that, I now yield to the ranking member, Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am 

pleased to be here today and begin the focus of this committee for 

FAA reauthorization on the certification process. Twenty-eight 

years on this committee and I have seen a lot of changes. One, I 

just like to recall, because it points to the balance in the certification process, and that is, when I was early on the committee, I 

always thought that the old rule is basically going back to the CAB 

days where the FAA was charged with both promoting and regulating the industry in the interest of public safety were in conflict, 

and I was assured time and time again they weren’t. In fact, in the 

1996 FAA reauthorization, my amendment to strip them of the promotional authority was defeated. 

A little later that year, a ValuJet went down, and we found that 

because this was essentially a lack of oversight and accountability 

with a contractor to a subcontractor, that people had died, and 

oddly enough, in those days we followed the rules, but somehow 

they found, even though my amendment had been defeated and 

was in neither the Senate nor the House bill, I got a call saying 

where can we put it in the bill. And we put it in the bill, and we 

stripped virtually all of the promotional, you know, rules and regulations pertaining to the FAA from the bill to make it clear that 

they are an agency that regulates in the interest of the public and 

public safety, and that brings us here today. 

Certification. It is critical. We have been, as the chairman said, 

and should and hope to continue to be the gold standard in terms 

of the safety in the industry. We have been the world leader in 

terms of innovation, and we need to balance these things as well 

and as best as we can. You know, I have very little patience for 

repetitive work, bureaucracy. We need a system that is risk-based, 

that sets proper prioritization, but it has to also be robust and 

faultless, and I don’t think we are quite at that point on either 

side. 

You know, I am going to ask unanimous consent to put in the 

record, and I would actually recommend it to members because of 

the testimony, I read all of it today, it is the most meaningful, it 

is from PASS [Professional Aviation Safety Specialists], and they 

talk about problems with staffing. We can’t pretend that we don’t 

need to oversee the process even when we delegate, but more and 

more that is becoming the virtual reality. On the other hand, we 

can certainly do better on the agency level in terms of not going 

through repetitive processes. 

Again, just ancient history, and I am sure this doesn’t go on anymore, but many years ago I was visiting a manufacturer who made 

the film that goes inside the hull, essentially of the wallpaper in 

the airplane, and it had passed the flammability standards, and I 

said that is great, and they said, yeah, but, you know, we have to 

do it for every type. And I said, what do you mean for every type, 

and they said, well, you know, like 737–200, 737–300, 737–400. I 

said it is all the same hull, it is all the same interior, it is all the 

same flammability standard. They said, yeah, I know, but that is 

not the way the FAA does it. 

I hope that doesn’t go on today. That is nonsensical. We need to 

focus on new technologies. We need to focus on things that aren’t 

5 

repetitive, things that are risk-based, that, you know, that promote 

real, you know, potential threats to the integrity and the airworthiness of our aircraft. 

I also note in the testimony, and I will get into it with GAO, that 

I believe that there are some barriers being artificially created by 

our friends in the EU and elsewhere where they use their processes 

to disadvantage American manufacturers and advantage their own, 

or in the case of the Chinese, where they basically ask you to give 

them every single technical detail and proprietary bit of information on how something was produced but don’t worry, they won’t 

copy it before they will certify it, and I don’t believe that the FAA 

has pushed back hard enough against some of these other, you 

know, foreign civil aviation authorities in the EU and elsewhere to 

give us a level playing field, and that is something else that warrants examining. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. And with that, I want to 

introduce our two witnesses today: Mr. Ray Conner, who is the 

president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, The Boeing 

Company; and Mr. Aaron Hilkemann, I got it right that time, who 

is the president and CEO of Duncan Aviation. With that, Mr. 

Conner, I want you to go ahead and start off with your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF RAY CONNER, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BOEING COMMERCIAL AIRPLANES, THE BOEING COMPANY; AND AARON HILKEMANN, PRESIDENT AND 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DUNCAN AVIATION 

Mr. CONNER. Thank you, Chairman Shuster. Chairman Shuster, 

Ranking Member DeFazio, members of the committee, thank you 

for this opportunity to provide Boeing’s perspective as you begin 

the process of developing legislation to reauthorize the Federal 

Aviation Administration. I am Ray Conner, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It is an honor to be 

here to represent 80,000 Boeing Commercial Airplane employees 

and the world’s largest commercial airplane manufacturer. 

Mr. Chairman, I have longer remarks that, with your permission, 

I would like to submit for the record. My remarks this morning 

focus on the FAA’s ongoing effort with the support of Congress to 

modernize the airplane certification process. They also address the 

importance of continuing this effort to both aviation safety and 

American aerospace competitiveness. Before I address that important topic, I want to make a couple general observations about the 

industry’s shared commitment to safety. 

Any discussion of U.S. aviation regulation should begin with this 

very important fact: Travel on a large commercial jet is the safest 

form of transportation in human history. More than 8 million people board airplanes daily and arrive safely at their destinations. 

While there have been some high-profile air tragedies of late, flying 

today is several orders of magnitude safer than it was 50 years ago. 

In the U.S.A. today, a fatal accident occurs less than 1 out of 

every 45 million flights. This is an extraordinary safety record. It 

is a great accomplishment for the aviation industry and its regulators, and we have a shared commitment, one that is deeply embedded in the culture of our company to continue to improve. The 

6 

FAA’s regulatory system and oversight efforts have, of course, been 

critical pillars of modern aviation’s extraordinary safety record. The 

FAA certifies all Boeing’s airplane designs, our production system, 

and each airplane that comes off our production lines in Washington State and South Carolina. 

The FAA’s regulatory approach has necessarily adapted over 

time in an effort to ensure that its resources are deployed where 

they can most effectively contribute to safety in a rapidly growing 

and technologically complex industry. The FAA will need to draw 

upon this tradition of robust and efficient risk-based oversight in 

the decades ahead as air travel continues to grow. 

The last 5 years have been a great example of how Boeing and 

our industry are expanding. Since 2010, we have increased our production in our factories by 56 percent to meet the strong demand 

for our products. In 2014, we delivered 723 airplanes to our customers, and we have announced further rate increases in our production, and we expect growth in our industry will continue due to 

rising demand here and abroad. 

To stay ahead of the competition, Boeing will bring several new 

products to market in the next few years. They include the 787– 

10, the 737 MAX family, and the 777X. Each of these new airplanes will further improve fuel efficiency and provide other benefits to our customers and the flying public. 

The introduction of each airplane will also improve aviation safety as newer and safer airplanes, with enhanced safety technologies, 

replace older airplanes in the fleet. Of course, each airplane will 

have to be certified by the FAA, and the large volume of this work 

poses a significant challenge for the agency. To meet the challenge, 

the FAA will need to continue its work to modernize its certification process. This will ensure it is making optimal risk-based decisions to deploy its resources in a way that maximize safety benefit and that simultaneously enable industry to efficiently introduce 

new, safe, and compliant products. 

One of the important tools that the FAA has at its disposal is 

Organization Designation Authorization, or ODA. My written statement includes detailed information about ODA. The point I want 

to stress here is that ODA has served the FAA, our industry, and 

most importantly, the flying public very well. 

Mr. Chairman, it was gratifying to see the committee recognize 

the value and the importance of ODA in section 312 in the last 

FAA reauthorization bill. As you know, this provision directed the 

FAA to consult with the industry to determine ways to enhance the 

effective use of delegation, and to consider process reforms and improvements to the certification process. The FAA has made 

progress since the last reauthorization, and I am grateful for the 

agency’s leadership in driving those improvements. 

As I mentioned in my written testimony, there are three areas 

where Congress could continue to support these efforts: Accelerating the full use of ODA authority, developing and training the 

FAA workforce, and increasing international harmonization and 

certification standards. 

Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate the committee’s support of the 

FAA’s efforts to modernize the certification activities, and with the 

leadership of Administrator Huerta and the Members of Congress, 

7 

I am confident that together we will tackle the challenges I have 

described, and I want to just thank everyone for the opportunity 

to be here today, and I am glad to answer any questions that you 

might have. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Conner. 

And with that, we will turn to Mr. Hilkemann so you can proceed 

with your testimony. 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member DeFazio, 

Aviation Subcommittee Ranking Member LoBiondo—excuse me, 

Larsen is the ranking member. Aviation Subcommittee Chairman 

LoBiondo, distinguished members of the committee, I would like to 

just talk a little bit about Duncan Aviation. We are a family-owned 

business. We began in 1956. We are based in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Can you pull your mic closer to you? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Sure. We have over 2,000 employees, including 

over 500 veterans. We have three major facilities, Lincoln, Nebraska, Battle Creek, Michigan, and Provo, Utah. We have 18 satellite facilities around the country. Approximately 25 percent of our 

business is from the international foreign registered aircraft. I am 

currently vice chairman of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s board of directors, and I also chair our Airworthiness 

and Maintenance Policy Committee. 

I want to begin by commending the FAA for selecting, conducting, and coordinating the Aviation Rulemaking Committee, 

ARC. This panel was established under the FAA Modernization 

and Reform Act of 2012. The ARC developed six recommendations 

that Duncan Aviation supports. I would like to highlight two which 

I believe are key to assist both the FAA and industry. 

The primary recommendation of the ARC was to establish a master electronic database for the agency and industry use. By including internal directives, policy memos, legal interpretations, the 

FAA and industry could consistently interpret regulations. The second key recommendation of the ARC that I believe is significant is 

the establishment of the RCCB, the Regulatory Consistency Communication Board. This would enable the FAA and industry to 

have an arbiter to settle different interpretations of the rules, both 

within each party and between the parties. 

These two initiatives could significantly impact issues that Duncan Aviation and others in our industry encounter. These issues 

currently involve inconsistent interpretation and application of the 

regulation, and a lack of effective communication and dialogue during dispute resolution. 

Duncan has encountered these issues for our mobile maintenance 

units in the past 21⁄2 years. It was a process that directly impacted 

our ability to open additional units on a timely basis while also 

costing time and resources to resolve. Establishing the RCCB could 

have resolved this issue in a much more timely fashion. I want to 

point out that the FAA has recognized the need for more guidance 

on mobile maintenance units and is drafting additional guidance at 

this time. 

Other improvements in oversight, including reducing redundant 

audits and moving to a more centralized risk-based approach to 

safety, the FAA is in agreement and recently issued a paper to 

ICAO. The upcoming FAA reauthorization offers the FAA policyVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:58 Feb 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\FULL\2015\1-21-1~1\92673.TXT JEAN
8 

makers and industry the opportunity to work together to promote 

safety and do so in an effective and efficient manner. 

Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member DeFazio, Aviation Subcommittee Chairman LoBiondo, and Aviation Subcommittee Ranking Member Larsen, on behalf of Duncan Aviation, I want to thank 

you for your leadership and the opportunity to provide this perspective. I will be glad to answer any questions that you have. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Hilkemann, and 

I will begin the questioning. 

Again, it is my concern and if anybody has been in the room with 

me over the last 2 years you have heard me say this over and over, 

I am very concerned that if we don’t do something in this reauthorization to streamline, to make this work for us, we will lose leadership in the world, whether it is manufacturing aircraft parts, technology or—with the airline industry, I think we are already under 

attack from our opponents out there in the industry. 

The Chinese have said they are going to want to build a commercial aircraft here in the next decade or so, so I think now is the 

time to really move forward. 

Mr. Conner, you mentioned the ODA. Can you talk a little bit 

more in depth? I know it is in your testimony, but can you talk a 

little bit more about that and what is going on, and what you see 

as things we can do to change it? 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. Well, delegation has been around for quite 

some time, as you know; we have been granted full delegation authority, and what we are trying to do now is just to continue to use 

it to the largest extent possible. I think, for the most part, we have 

made great strides in that respect. We have a tremendous number 

of people that are qualified now by the FAA to do this. We are 

making strides, but still there are places where we should be moving to more of the risk-based, systems-type approach to these kinds 

of things where we are focusing our efforts on those areas of true 

safety concern and technology improvements where the FAA can 

use those resources and those talents to be able to do that. A little 

bit too often we are spending more time on areas where we could 

be the ones that are doing that kind of work. 

Mr. SHUSTER. For some of our newer members here, can you explain exactly who works for you and how you train them and the 

FAA certifies them? 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah, we have a—we have an organization that 

is—a delegated organization that really is, in essence, the arm of 

the FAA within The Boeing Company. They are—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. They work for you? 

Mr. CONNER. They work for us. 

Mr. SHUSTER. But they are certified, and—— 

Mr. CONNER. They are certified. 

Mr. SHUSTER [continuing]. They are responsible for everything? 

Mr. CONNER. They are certified and they are approved by the 

FAA to basically take on that effort, and they take that job very, 

very seriously, and so we have a large organization that does that 

already today on areas that are maybe of lesser, you know, safety 

issues, and you know, interiors and those kinds of things, we spend 

a lot of time with that. 

9 

What we would like to do is move more to the risk-based systems 

approach, or systems engineering is really the larger piece of this 

where the FAA spends its time so we can then spend our time with 

our resources that are highly technically capable and are approved 

by the FAA. Each individual is approved by the FAA to do that 

kind of work. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And you pay those folks? It is on your dime? You 

are training them—— 

Mr. CONNER. It is completely—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. By Boeing? 

Mr. CONNER. It is completely under The Boeing Company’s responsibility—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. 

Mr. CONNER [continuing]. In terms of pay and those kinds of 

things, but they are viewed as—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. 

Mr. CONNER [continuing]. Essentially within our company, as an 

arm of the FAA. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. And Mr. Hilkemann, can you talk 

some about the inconsistencies that you have seen out there, actual 

cases that help to highlight what we are talking about here, because I travel around the country, hear a lot of different things— 

so if you can give us some concrete examples that will be very helpful. 

Mr. HILKEMANN. You know, on the mobile repair station unit we 

had been—there is a couple of different ways—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. And mobile repair station is something that goes 

out to the airplane and actually—— 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Right. 

Mr. SHUSTER [continuing]. Fixes it, rebuilds it? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Exactly. They may have a truck or a van that 

they use to take the equipment out to. We had approximately 20 

of those in place that we had been authorized as a work-away for, 

oh, probably a 10- or 15-year period. There was a change. They requested us to make a change to that. We wanted to discuss it. We 

asked for an extension, and normally you have 10 days to respond. 

We asked for an extension. The net of the story is we ultimately 

put in the applications at their request. About 6 months later we 

did start to receive letters of fines for operating in the interim period under that old way. Ultimately, it has been resolved, and 

today, after 21⁄2 years of a process, we are putting the application 

back into—change them back to the original process. 

So there was clearly a—you know, an indecision on what the correct manner. Neither changed what we were doing. It was really 

simply a matter of how they would be—under what compliance we 

were under and what rule. 

Mr. SHUSTER. So after 21⁄2 years, you were virtually doing the 

same thing as you were doing before? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Right. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And that is why the RCCB is—is that in place 

now? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. No. No, it is not in place now, but I do think, 

I feel strongly if that would have been in place and we could have 

brought that to that committee, it could have been resolved. I think 

10 

what happens, and I understand the process, once it becomes a 

legal matter, then it eliminates our ability to have further discussions, whether it is in Washington or in the region. It makes it a 

difficult process to get resolved. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, thank you very much. Yield to Mr. DeFazio 

for questions. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Conner, you referred to international harmonization, and I 

would probably kind of like to have you expand on that, although 

I know there are oftentimes sensitivities since you do have to deal 

with some of these foreign entities on an ongoing basis, but you 

know, the FAA is, you know, say they are working with the European agency on a so-called mutual acceptance model. Do you have 

any thoughts on that, whether—you know, what sort of a priority 

that should be, what sorts of problems that could solve? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. Thank you. I think from the standpoint of harmonization with respect to the regulations, I think that there has 

been a lot of work, really solid work that has been done, where the 

tendency to be a little bit different is maybe in interpretation of 

those, of those regulations. And clearly, the Europeans and EASA 

have taken a far greater approach to delegation than maybe what 

we have been able to do here with the—in the United States. 

But I do believe that the FAA has done a very solid job of harmonizing, particularly with Europeans, around harmonization. Now, 

as the Chinese start to come into this world, then that is going to 

be another area that we have got to continue to focus on and are 

continuing around the entire world as we move forward. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. Well, I won’t ask you here but perhaps you 

might opine to me privately on how you see sometimes the regulatory structure being used on competitive or anticompetitive basis, 

and I would be interested in thoughts on that, but I won’t ask you 

to do that publicly. 

Mr. CONNER. OK. I would love to spend some time with you on 

that. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yeah, I would love that. 

And to follow up on your statements, Mr. Hilkemann, is, you 

know, one of the parts of the PASS testimony, since I know you are 

not here representing GAMA, but you know, you do—you are involved with them, and they are saying because—and you know, 

part of this is, you know, part of this is sometimes a bureaucratic 

problem, but sometimes it is a resource problem in terms of expertise or actual just people to staff these issues, and they are saying 

that what is happening is because of the demands on the oversight 

in other areas and new problems that are having to be dealt with 

such as unmanned aerial vehicles, that, you know, smaller businesses, manufacturers in avionics and other areas who can’t afford 

to, you know, go to an ODA are getting into a longer and longer 

and longer line for certification, and do you have any thoughts on 

that? How we can address that? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Duncan Aviation has an ODA. We have for a 

number of years. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Get a little closer to the mic. 

Mr. HILKEMANN. I am sorry. Duncan Aviation does have an 

ODA, and we have for a number of years. 

11 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. 

Mr. HILKEMANN. It has been very successful for us as well. There 

is a lot of work. We had a lot of staff. 

In our case, what we are able to do is also hire unit members 

that we don’t have on staff full-time. Because of the variety of the 

airplanes that we work on, we don’t have dedicated unit members 

for each of the applications that we use, so we hire them as we 

do—as we need. So that is how some of the smaller companies go 

about doing it. 

I would say there are members on my committee of GAMA, the 

Airworthiness and Maintenance Policy Committee, that do not 

have ODAs. And I think it depends on the region on how quickly, 

you know, they—they could be sequenced or they could not be. You 

know, I would say in our region, that has never been an issue to 

my knowledge, but I can’t comment about all the other regions, but 

clearly it can be a challenge in certain smaller companies who don’t 

have or can afford to invest in the ODA. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. All right. Do you think prioritization is an issue? 

I mean, you know, I mean, they pretty much work, at least in my 

experience in dealing with problems with certification, pretty good 

as it relates to fire fighting has been a perennial issue in my part 

of the country. There doesn’t seem to be a prioritization process 

like, OK, fire season is coming, we really need to certify it. Well, 

there are 15 people who applied for this, this, and this which are 

not so time sensitive. I mean, do you think the process needs to set 

some levels of prioritization better or it sounds like your region 

works pretty well, but—— 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Yeah, it is difficult for me to answer that question since I am not part of that process at this point. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yeah. OK. And just from the perspective of Boeing, 

you know, to me, I mean, part of the solution here is a risk-based 

system which, you know, where we are looking, you know, not 

spending much time on routine things, but we are spending time 

on critical components, do you think the FAA is doing a good job 

of that or could they do a better job of that? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, excuse me. Obviously, I think that we are— 

we are moving in the right direction. Are we moving fast enough? 

I think we could do a better the job on some of the things that we 

are currently involved with. You know, we have 1,000 people that 

are part of our ODA organization, and we have a tremendous 

amount of capability. I think it is time that we move to really riskbased approach to this systems engineering, allow us to do the detail engineering and those kinds of things. 

Where we sometimes come apart is a little bit on the interpretation of some of the requirements, and we should have a vehicle in 

which we can deal with that, but, you know, we are—we are working towards it. Are we working fast enough? It is about speed. It 

is about efficiency and those kinds of things. And with the level of 

certification that we are going to have coming towards us, in addition to the amount of work that we are having with delivering 723 

airplanes, we are going to be doing 4 million hours of engineering 

over the course of the next few years just on existing programs. 

That is not to say on these new development programs. 

12 

So there is a tremendous amount of work in order for us to continue to deliver airplanes that I think that we could do more of 

the—of the work that maybe that the FAA is doing today. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. And Mr. DeFazio, you asked for a UC. 

I didn’t respond to the UC request to submit a PASS statement 

into the record. And without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears on pages 135–142.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. And now go to Mr. LoBiondo. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to 

thank the chairman for elevating this issue to the full committee 

level because of its critical importance. And Mr. Conner, Mr. 

Hilkemann, thank you for being here. This certification process is 

critically important on our country’s aviation sector, and I know 

you have touched on this, but for the new members, could you each 

elaborate on the impact of the FAA’s certification process that that 

has on your company’s ability to compete and to innovate, Mr. 

Conner? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, the certification process is one of the key 

pieces of what we do in terms of getting a new—particularly new 

products to market. The 787 went through the most extensive certification and approval process in the history of aviation. Tremendous amount of work there. Where I think that we can spend and 

be better equipped to compete is again around this delegation piece 

of this thing. 

The EASA is more—is working more towards delegation, allowing the manufacturer to do some more of the nonrisk type of items. 

Going towards a risk-based approach where the FAA is truly involved in the oversight of those highly critical systems, going to a 

systems engineering approach, maybe changing the workforce in 

little ways in terms of the—having systems engineering as part of 

that is, I think, more of the critical pieces here so we can—we can 

take on some of the more standard things that are common to 

every one of our airplanes, and they can be focused on those new 

technologies where—where the risk-based approach can be really 

utilized to the high—its fullest extent. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Yes. Mr. Hilkemann. 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Sure. You know, the two areas that we interface with the FAA is on the repair station and then on the design 

and modification system, part 21. In both of those areas, you know, 

I would say we had—our interface with the FAA has been very 

positive. I think on the ODA side, for what we do, with a lot of insulation, they can range all the way from a complete new cockpit 

to a cabin management system to a WiFi system to just additional 

item in the cockpit. Most of those we are able to do under the ODA, 

almost all those. At some times, the FAA picks and choose to have 

oversight on some of those, but I would say the majority are done 

by the—through our ODA, and we approve those in the same manner that Boeing does on their authority. So in our case, I would say 

the ODA is working and it allows us to innovate and install a lot 

of new equipment. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Conner, do you feel that in any way, the 

FAA’s certification process is hampering you with global competiVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:58 Feb 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\FULL\2015\1-21-1~1\92673.TXT JEAN
13 

tion that is under—dealing with some different standards than you 

may be? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I think it is dealing with—not standards. It 

is dealing with different interpretations at times. I think that, we 

need to be clear. I think the FAA has done a very good job of harmonizing those requirements with the international regulatory authorities. 

The area where I think that we can be more effective is in terms 

of utilizing the delegation that has already been approved to the 

extent possible. We spend a lot of time in an effort in some of these 

areas where I think that our delegation could be utilized to a greater extent, and then the utilization of the FAA resources on those 

more critical areas. 

So does it inhibit our ability? It makes things more complicated 

sometimes. At the very last minute when we are trying to deliver 

an aircraft, that can become an issue for us. It becomes an issue 

for us with our customer, can become an issue with us in terms of 

having to churn our production system a bit to make that happen. 

I just—I think that this is a place where we can move to the more 

risk-based approach, and I think that would be in the best interest 

of the industry, it is in the best interest of the utilization of the 

resources that the FAA has in their arsenal there. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. LoBiondo. With that, recognize 

Mr. Nolan. No questions for Mr. Nolan. 

Mrs. Kirkpatrick is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. I live in Arizona, and I spend about 10 hours 

a week in the air, so I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this 

hearing because I think a lot about airplane safety. But I have a 

really practical question. I mean, I am really concerned about certification, but you know, oftentimes—well, not too frequently, but 

sometimes I am on a plane and the pilot announces there is a mechanical problem and we sit on a tarmac for a couple of hours. 

What kind of oversight is there over that repair at that moment 

when we are sitting in the plane? What kind of oversight standards 

is there—does these certification standards apply to that? 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah, but typically the mechanics in the airlines 

have an authority of which to go fix those kinds of issues. They are 

not necessarily—I mean, that is within the framework of the airlines, and I probably am not in the best position to be able to answer that, but that is more of an airline maintenance-type of approach to things, and these are things that typically come up every 

time. They have their own certification process, too, for their mechanics and those kinds of things. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. So how may certification processes are we 

talking about here? 

Mr. CONNER. It is hard for me to say. I would—— 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. But you acknowledge there are different certification standards for different—— 

Mr. CONNER. Well, the airlines—— 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK [continuing]. Areas? 

Mr. CONNER. The airlines have theirs and then we have ours—— 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Right. 

Mr. CONNER [continuing]. As the manufacturer, yeah. 

14 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. So suppose we go to the risk-based certification process, how long does it take someone to get to that standard where they can do that? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I mean, that would be something that the 

FAA would probably be in a better position to be able to—but they 

have the people today that are able to do that. We are—we have 

people today that are delegated, trained, approved, like I said, 

1,000 people are delegated and approved within The Boeing Company’s ODA organization that can do—can approve design, approve 

installation on behalf of the FAA. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Here is my concern. We have data that shows 

that there is about 1,000 people shortage in the certification process, so you have 1,000 at the FAA. 

Mr. CONNER. At the FAA, yeah. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Right. What I am trying to get to is how can 

we streamline—what can this committee do—— 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK [continuing]. To streamline that hiring process? That is a lot of people. We still have a lot of people who need 

jobs. 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. Well, we have ours. I think utilizing it to the 

fullest extent we possibly can in the right areas where there is not 

the highest risk areas with respect to the airplane itself, that is 

where we can become—be utilized so they don’t have to use their 

resources unnecessarily. They can retrain or hire new people that 

are more systems engineering based that can be—provide oversight 

to those high-risk, you know, flight critical areas as opposed to 

maybe in some of the areas that we are more capable of and have 

more detail capabilities around. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you. And Mr. Hilkemann, I appreciate 

that you are hiring veterans. You know, we have very highly qualified veterans now who are back from Afghanistan and Iraq. Do you 

find that there could be a streamlining of the certification for veterans who may be already trained to do this kind of work but have 

to go through the whole recertification process? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. What we find, you know, we hire people from 

all walks of the services. In other words, if they were working on 

tanks, they were working on aircraft, or if they were working on 

helicopters, they have a certain amount of mechanical skills that 

they have learned, and so we are able to hire them directly into 

our facility. And then, depending on the experience that they receive and their own abilities, they are able to move up very quickly 

in our organization. 

So we don’t have a lot of transition. A lot of the bases have their 

own transition training back into the public sector, so they are 

coming directly to us. I would say half of those are referrals from 

existing veterans that have been in our company in the last year, 

the last few years. So I get to meet every individual we hire 

through an orientation process, and I always ask them how did you 

find out about us and why did you decide to join us. And I would 

say of 50 percent of those are referrals from existing individuals, 

and in the case of veterans, it is from other veterans. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Well, I appreciate that, and thank you for 

that. I yield back my time. 

15 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. And Mr. Hanna is now recognized for 5 minutes. And also, I want to apologize, Mr. Larsen. 

You were at the top of the list, Mr. Larsen. I overlooked your 

name. I apologize for that. 

With that, Mr. Hanna is recognized. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. Conner, maybe you could elaborate on exactly what a riskbased approach is, because it sounds as though there is some margin there that is different than absolute perfection. 

Mr. CONNER. Well, OK. First of all, I want to just drop back. You 

know, we talk about workforce training and development, and it is 

very important that we have the right skills not only within the 

FAA, but also within The Boeing Company to do these types of 

things. Systems engineering is very critical in this approach. Riskbased is about those flight critical pieces of the airplane, elements 

of the airplanes. Where maybe—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Excuse me, Mr. Conner. Can you pull those mics 

closer to you? It is better the closer you get. We can hear you better. 

Mr. CONNER. All right. Thank you. I didn’t want to shout. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I want to hear everything you have to say. 

Mr. CONNER. OK. Where we can probably spend more of our time 

is on interiors’ certifications, seats, lavatories, galleys, those kinds 

of things. We spend an awful lot of time in these areas, and this 

is where our customers, our airline customers want to differentiate 

themselves against their competition, and that is where we can 

spend more of our efforts whereby allowing us to take that—— 

Mr. HANNA. You want more responsibility over—— 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I want more responsibility—— 

Mr. HANNA [continuing]. Certain items? 

Mr. CONNER [continuing]. In the right areas. This is where I 

want to make sure that I make myself very clear. We are not looking to eliminate. We are looking to make sure that we are working 

with the FAA on the right things and we are taking the right approach to these things. 

Mr. HANNA. Let me ask you about Airbus for a minute. 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. 

Mr. HANNA. They have a different system over there. How do you 

feel that you have—do you have a competitive advantage or disadvantage, and how does the FAA play into that for your whole 

company? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, the FAA works with EASA, and then they 

come back and they validate the certification of which EASA has 

done on their—on the Airbus aircraft. What we do know is that the 

Airbus utilizes delegation to a further extent than probably we do. 

To what extent exactly, I couldn’t speak to that. I think maybe the 

FAA could have a better feel for that, but we do know that their 

delegation, they have taken advantage of a greater portion of the 

delegation in areas such as interiors, in areas such as the things 

I just spoke about. 

Mr. HANNA. So safe to say that you are at somewhat of a competitive disadvantage? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, if we have to spend a lot of time in redoing 

or if the FAA is coming back and redoing some of the things that 

16 

we have already done, then that—I think it is just not a great utilization of either one of our resources. 

Mr. HANNA. I understand. 

Mr. CONNER. That is probably better—it is not nearly as efficient 

as it could be, and that then causes disruption within our production system, it causes disruption into the value stream of our suppliers, and it causes disruption to our customers as well. 

Mr. HANNA. Uh-huh. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. With that, Mr. Larsen. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thanks. So just to get some perspective here. I visited a small manufacturer up in Anacortes in my district, and they 

make a variety of components for smaller airplanes, including 

things called vortex generators, which I am sure Mr. Hanna knows 

all about since he flies smaller airplanes, but you know, the smallest one no longer than probably my thumbnail, and that has to get 

certified, it goes on the airplane. 

For some perspective, except for the—except for the airplane 

itself on delivery, how many usual parts and components in a 737 

approximately have to have an FAA stamp, metaphorical stamp? 

Mr. CONNER. I mean, I don’t know. Well, that is—I mean, every 

one—— 

Mr. LARSEN. Every single piece. 

Mr. CONNER. Look, we go through a certification process of not 

only the production system, which includes the supply chain, but 

every part ultimately that is part of a design because the FAA certifies our design, and every single part then has to be certified. 

Mr. LARSEN. So when you talk about the existing plans as well 

as future plans you are going to be designing and building—— 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. 

Mr. LARSEN. Each of those come with the same or different production process? 

Mr. CONNER. It could, depending on what we do with technology. 

Mr. LARSEN. And so the process itself as well needs to be—— 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. If it is a new process, needs to go through a certification as well? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes, yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. So we are not just talking about parts and components? 

Mr. CONNER. No. 

Mr. LARSEN. We are talking about not what you make only, but 

how you make it? 

Mr. CONNER. What type of system have you—when I talk about 

the production system: Are the quality inspections appropriate? 

Have you followed the intent of the planning documents and the 

engineering intent of what we put into the design? Those are all 

the same things that are a part of this certification process. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yeah. So in all—again, it is not just the what you 

make, but it is how you make process as well. 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. So in terms of the how you make side of the production process, how much of that is currently ODA-related and how 

much of that is—— 

17 

Mr. CONNER. We do an awful lot of that work ourselves, and then 

the FAA comes in and certifies our production system, and they do 

audits to verify those types of things, and we do audits ourselves, 

and we are—and it is a constant—it is kind of a—the production 

system is constantly being evaluated and audited. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yeah. And in terms of the FAA inspectors that come 

in and do the auditing, you discuss, as your second point, the necessity of training—— 

Mr. CONNER. Uh-huh. 

Mr. LARSEN [continuing]. An FAA workforce. I mean, do you 

have an estimate of what numbers of people? Do you have an estimate of how to train? What FAA ought to be training in? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I think the one place I would want to emphasize is the systems engineering piece of this thing as being a critical part to start to move towards as opposed to detailed design 

type of activity. That is where we—that is where we can be very 

helpful in that respect because we have the detail design capability 

and analysis and those kinds of things. Where they can become at 

a higher level and be looking at it more from a systems approach 

to that. 

Systems engineering, I think, is one of the areas that will be an 

important piece of the workforce training for the FAA. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yeah. And it talks about the supply chain as well, 

which is extensive for you and your main competitor—— 

Mr. CONNER. Correct. 

Mr. LARSEN [continuing]. Throughout the country, around the 

world. 

Mr. CONNER. Uh-huh. 

Mr. LARSEN. How do you—how is that managed through ODA, 

and are there any changes that need to take place, or is that all— 

you don’t deal, or you don’t deal with that part? 

Mr. CONNER. No, no, we deal with that part as well. We go in 

and we establish the production system. The FAA comes in and— 

which includes our supply base, and they come in and validate that 

as well through their audit process. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that. 

Mr. Hilkemann, you mentioned that at least it has been your experience, I guess, that the ODA that you have, that you haven’t 

had many—how you described it, many problems with inconsistent 

interpretation, perhaps, at least in your region; is that right? Is 

that what I heard you say? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Implementation and use of the ODA has 

worked well for us in our region. 

Mr. LARSEN. OK. Have you had—do you have concerns or how 

should we address concerns that we hear about inconsistencies region by region? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Well, the inconsistencies have been more on the 

repair station interpretations as you get new inspectors and additional inspectors. I think if you look at the ODA, the more responsibilities, the more things that the ODA can do, because some 

ODAs are very limited. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yeah. 

Mr. HILKEMANN. The more things that the ODAs can train themselves, add staff to, and develop, in effect, you are decreasing that 

18 

thousand, you know, requirement jobs that you talked about that 

the FAA would need, or you make the resources available for those 

small companies that was suggested—you know, suggested is out 

there or concern for the smaller company. 

So I think, you know, if we can get all the ODAs operating at 

the highest level possible and additional delegation, in effect, that 

reduces the need for additional inspectors and creates capacity for 

the rest of the system. 

Mr. LARSEN. All right. Good. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. Mr. Rice is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, 

for being here today. And Mr. Conner, particularly thank you for 

American excellence in aviation, and for employing so many thousands of the people in South Carolina. I appreciate that very much. 

Aviation is certainly a shining light of American manufacturing 

and one area in which we maintain our leadership role in the 

world. I am focused very much on American competitiveness, and 

I have seen over and over and over again in my 2 years here in 

Congress how Government regulation too often, in the name of protecting the public, makes us less competitive and actually does very 

little to protect the public. That being said, if we sacrifice safety 

in American aviation, then we won’t be competitive in that area 

very long, so I am sure you guys have a vested interest in that and 

that you need to make sure that that record of safety is maintained, and you don’t want to do anything to compromise that. 

Now, from what I understand, Mr. Conner, you are saying that 

the FAA is now looking at areas that don’t necessarily deal with 

flight safety but more things within the plane that don’t deal with 

its flight, like the interior of the plane, the lavatories, and the 

kitchens. 

Mr. CONNER. Those are just examples, yes, yeah, correct. 

Mr. RICE. Do they spend a significant amount of time dealing 

with these things that have nothing to do with the flight of the 

plane? 

Mr. CONNER. We spend a lot of time in these areas to certify the 

airplanes, particularly the airplanes that we are delivering today. 

Maybe not nearly—not as much on the new development projects, 

but particularly in the areas that we are delivering today, yes, we 

do spend a lot of time in that. 

Mr. RICE. Now, and you have certified FAA inspectors on your 

payroll? 

Mr. CONNER. And engineers, yes. 

Mr. RICE. Have you people or airplane manufacturers gone to the 

FAA and said, look, maybe you should be focused on areas that 

deal solely with the flight safety of the plane and not with what 

color the interior of the seats are and that kind of thing? 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. Well, yes, we have. 

Mr. RICE. And they still want to focus on these collateral matters? 

Mr. CONNER. Look, I think that—I want to make this clear is 

that we are working very closely with the FAA to move in this direction. What we would like to do is take advantage of the—or utilize the level of authorization that we do have from an ODA perVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:58 Feb 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\FULL\2015\1-21-1~1\92673.TXT JEAN
19 

spective so we can better utilize the resources that we have and 

better utilize the resources that the FAA has. 

Mr. RICE. Have you run any estimates of the cost in money and/ 

or time to deal with these collateral issues with the FAA? Not with 

flight safety but interiors and lavatories and—— 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I mean, we—for now, it is more anecdotal, 

but I can tell you that we spend an awful lot of time, so like we 

haven’t necessarily—I don’t have the data right in front of me, but 

it is something that we could probably compile over the course of 

time here, but I would just say that it is an inordinate amount of 

time spent sometimes on seat certifications, on interior certifications, on lavatory, galleys, these kinds of things, so I think that 

we have the capability to do a very good job. 

We are highly trained in these areas. These are things we deal 

with every single day, and we have a full ongoing commitment. 

Our reputation as a company, as an industry, is built on safety, 

and I can tell you it is the top priority of every single individual 

within our company, and we are constantly working to improve the 

safety of our products, and we get that feedback every day from operations, from our customers, from our suppliers, and we work to 

enhance that constantly. 

Mr. RICE. I don’t want you to disclose any trade secrets here, but 

it would be safe to say with commercial aircraft being a relatively 

expensive item, that the markup is probably pretty low on these 

things, isn’t it? The profit margin is not real high. 

Mr. CONNER. No, it is not, and it is getting more difficult all the 

time. Our competitor is extremely aggressive in the marketplace, 

and they are very much focused on being the number one manufacturer in the world, and that would be Airbus and then with the advent of the Chinese, they are going to be coming as well. 

Mr. RICE. And so with the ever expanding U.S. Government bureaucracy eating into that profit margin, it makes you a little less 

competitive in the world? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I think the most important thing here—— 

Mr. RICE. I know I am using terms that you wouldn’t use. 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. Well, the most important thing is to continue 

to drive efficiency, speed, in the areas that are appropriate without 

compromising safety at any single level. Sometimes I think we are 

duplicating efforts, and that is where we want to move away from 

and allow the FAA to really focus on those things that are most 

critical to the safety of flight of our aircraft. 

Mr. RICE. Thank you very much, sir, for being here, and again, 

thank you, both you gentlemen, for excellence in American aviation. 

Mr. CONNER. Thank you. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Rice. And with that, Mr. Huffman 

from California is recognized. Do you have a question? OK. And I 

just want to take this opportunity to welcome you to the committee, and I understand you are going to be joining us this Congress, so again, look forward to working with you. 

Mr. HUFFMAN. OK. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Ms. Norton. Ms. Norton is recognized for 5 minutes. 

20 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is an 

important hearing. 

Mr. Conner, I note—your pages aren’t numbered like my students in my law class, but it is under ‘‘Delegated Authority.’’ 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. You go to great lengths to commend FAA’s delegated authority. 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. 

Ms. NORTON. You say there are stringent FAA requirements. You 

say you are held to very high standards. 

Mr. CONNER. Correct. 

Ms. NORTON. You talk about rigorous and closely overseen ODA 

systems. I wonder how you reconcile this glowing report with what 

the DOT and IG and the GAO have said and how they have criticized. 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. 

Ms. NORTON. It seems to me it is fair to say sharply criticized 

both of them. These are independent overseers. Sharply criticized 

FAA oversight of certification programs. How do you reconcile your 

glowing report with these criticisms? 

Mr. CONNER. OK. Thank you. I appreciate the question. I can tell 

you, it is a very stringent process in which we go through to 

achieve delegated authority, both on a companywide basis and on 

an individual basis, and it is constantly evaluated over again and 

over again. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, let me just ask you about being constantly 

evaluated. There has been sequestration. There have been cuts. 

There have been furloughs. How often are you audited? 

Mr. CONNER. I would have to ask for help on that, but—— 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I wish you—— 

Mr. CONNER. I can tell you, we are audited on a production system and on a design basis at least once a year, and it goes to our 

supply base—it goes not only to us. It goes to the supply base. It 

goes to all our facilities. The FAA is—in terms of auditing, they are 

quite often. 

Ms. NORTON. So you see no shortage of personnel that had an effect or the cuts or the sequestration. You see none of that reflected? 

Mr. CONNER. No. We were impacted by sequestration. We were 

not able to deliver airplanes on time because we were not able to 

get appropriate FAA inspectors to come in at certain times. They 

were limited in terms of their overtime capabilities. They were limited in terms of their ability to support in terms of certain critical 

inspection processes that come with the delivery of an airplane. So 

there were impacts from the standpoint of being able to deliver airplanes. Now—— 

Ms. NORTON. I think it is fair to put it on the record because if 

there are deficiencies, the question is going to come forward, are 

the deficiencies on your part or were those charged with oversight 

not doing their job? And I think it is important to note that you 

have testified that sequestration and cuts have had an effect on the 

ability of FAA to do its audits. 

Could I ask you something about—— 

21 

Mr. CONNER. Well, the audits take place, detailed, formal audits 

take place every 2 years. And then we do constant informal audits 

as the years—as time—— 

Ms. NORTON. So they are meeting the minimum requirements? 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. Well, that is the requirement. 

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask you something about Boeing and noise 

or airplanes and noise? 

Mr. CONNER. Noise. 

Ms. NORTON. We are in a region—and this is typical of the 

United States, large cities, quiet suburbs—there have been real 

complaints about noise, and we find that what happens is that airplanes get rerouted. Well, if they get rerouted, for example, from 

the Nation’s Capital, they are going over suburban Virginia, so 

then they complain. 

Mr. CONNER. Uh-huh. 

Ms. NORTON. Are you able to improve the noise levels of aircraft 

today at a rate that would satisfy these issues and what is going 

to be a situation where everybody’s going to live in an impacted environment, even those who live in the suburbs? 

Mr. CONNER. With each new airplane we bring to market, we are 

required to satisfy certain noise levels. And those noise levels get 

more stringent with each new airplane we introduce. And so, yes, 

I would say that we are complying to those strict standards. 

Ms. NORTON. So those are part of the standards that you have 

to comply with? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes, absolutely. 

Ms. NORTON. So I will save that question for the FAA. 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. 

Ms. NORTON. Finally, could I ask you, concerning international 

flights, your honest view, whether you have any compunctions, any 

fear, any sense that you should bring to our attention about these 

disastrous international accidents that have happened recently on 

international airlines? I want to know if you believe their counterpart oversight equals ours. I, of course, refer to the Malaysia Airlines, the most recent one, and, of course, to AirAsia. 

Mr. CONNER. You know, I think it would be inappropriate for me 

to comment on those because they are still under investigation. We 

really don’t know at this particular point in time. Once we do 

know, then we will be able to make—— 

Ms. NORTON. But on a peer basis, in dealing with these airlines, 

do you have confidence in airlines on an international basis that 

they are being held to the same kind of standards that you regard 

as rigorous that you are being held to? 

Mr. CONNER. If they are certified, yes, they are. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Mr. Davis is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you to both the witnesses. 

Mr. Conner, I want to echo what my colleague Mr. Rice said 

about Boeing being an employer in his State. And thank you for 

what you do in the passenger side but also on the defense side to 

my constituents who work just across the river in Illinois from St. 

Louis. Anytime you would like to bring any South Carolina jobs 

22 

over to Illinois, we would be happy to work with Mr. Rice on a good 

compromise. 

Mr. CONNER. OK. I will keep that in mind. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thanks. Thanks. 

Mr. Conner, in your testimony, you stress the importance of FAA 

delegating authority so it can shift its focus from low-risk items to 

higher level safety opportunities. Can you provide an example 

where the FAA still retained a low-risk item, and what reason did 

the FAA cite for retaining that low-risk item, and what kind of impact kid it have on your certification process? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, you know, I want to stress here too that we 

have worked very well with the FAA on moving towards this delegation, and I think the leadership of Administrator Huerta, his 

staff, I think we are moving in a positive direction. The degree of 

which we move and the speed of which we move are areas where 

I think that we could improve on. 

As I said, the areas of interior certification, whereby our customers want to have more control over how they differentiate 

themselves, but still staying within the requirements of the engineering design and the intent of the design and those kind of 

things, we have a lot of capability in these areas. These are areas 

where I think that the FAA could move a little bit more toward us 

doing more of the delegation—areas of galleys, areas of laboratories, areas of seats, areas of side walls, overall interior certification. 

These are things that we do all the time, and I think that we 

spend—there is duplication of effort, and that is where we could 

then utilize their resources to work on some of the more critical 

items and use our resources to work on those because what we 

have today is both working in the same direction. But I do want 

to emphasize that we have worked very well in moving towards 

this. It is now—we are just getting to these points of the speed at 

which we move and the degree of which we move. 

Mr. DAVIS. You outline a number of steps the FAA and this committee can take when crafting our new FAA reauthorization. What 

is, in your view, the most critical step? 

Mr. CONNER. Utilization of the ODA. And one of the critical 

things is getting the workforce trained in a different way, in more 

of the systems engineering type approach. Now, this will take time. 

It is a cultural change, moving away from maybe some of the more 

detailed design effort, which we do and which we are approved to 

do and which we have an ODA delegation that would allow us to 

approve those things, but moving, again, toward more of that riskbased oversight, utilizing systems engineering type approach. So 

this will require some transition on the FAA’s part from the standpoint of training and some of those other things. 

Mr. DAVIS. OK. I have a little bit of time left. I am going to ask 

you one more question. The NTSB recommends that the FAA and 

manufacturers utilize outside experts when certificating new technology. 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. They believe it could be the most efficient way to ensure operations safety. 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

23 

Mr. DAVIS. Do you use independent outside experts when certifying new technology, and can you give me an example? 

Mr. CONNER. Yeah. I think that is a very good point. There was 

one, you know, we had the battery incident a couple years ago, and 

this is one where we complied with all the requirements that were 

known at the time. Everything was certificated. Most extensive certification ever. When we had the incidents, we drew on that outside 

expertise, from the automobile manufacturers, from different 

places. I think where we move, as we move to new technologies 

that are maybe being utilized in other areas, this is where we, as 

a community, FAA and ourselves, can draw on some of that industry knowledge to help us in terms of how we move forward and 

apply those to the aircraft. 

Mr. DAVIS. OK. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of 

my time. 

I thank you both. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Davis. 

And Ms. Frankel is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Thank you to the witnesses. 

Well, I can say this about most of us probably here is that we 

are experienced amateurs at flying; we do a lot of flying. 

Mr. CONNER. We all are. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Yes. And I actually feel rather safe when I fly, but 

I think the scariest thing for me and for probably most people is— 

for the customer, talking about the customer—is that when you get 

on the plane, you feel you have completely lost control of your life. 

Unlike a car, where if you hear a rattle or something, you can pull 

over. When you are in an airplane, it is like you are depending on 

somebody else. I mean, there is really not much you can do. You 

put your seat belt on, hold somebody’s hand. 

So I am not so sure I actually understand or maybe agree with, 

if you are saying that there are certain elements of the design of 

the plane that should not have an inspection by an independent 

party—is that what you are saying? 

Mr. CONNER. No. 

Ms. FRANKEL. I mean, for example, a bathroom. 

Mr. CONNER. No. 

Ms. FRANKEL. OK. So how would that work? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, we are authorized. We have delegated people. 

These people are essentially the arm of the FAA. Although they are 

paid by us, they are within our organization, they are approved individually by the FAA. They carry the FAA authority, in essence. 

And we take that very, very seriously. Each individual takes that 

very, very seriously. 

And I would say, when you get on an airplane, just know that 

the safety of that aircraft is the number one priority not only for 

everyone in our organization, but it is the priority of the FAA, and 

any other people involved in building or certifying the airplane. 

But I can tell you, I am not saying our people have those capabilities as well. We are just saying in those areas where we have 

that capability, we have that strength, that are less flight-critical, 

that is where we could be utilizing those capabilities to a greater 

extent. 

24 

Ms. FRANKEL. But there would be circumstances where an uncomfortable passenger could lead to a dangerous situation in a 

cabin, correct? 

Mr. CONNER. But that is not going to—I mean, sure. That happens, yes. 

Ms. FRANKEL. So getting back to, I think, the focus of what you 

are trying to say is you are looking for safe ways to speed up getting the aircraft out into the marketplace. 

Mr. CONNER. More efficient ways. 

Ms. FRANKEL. More efficient ways. The problem right now, would 

you say, is it not enough inspectors? Not enough competent inspectors? Or a lack of focus of what is important? 

Mr. CONNER. No, I think we have enough resources. Between the 

FAA and ourselves, we have enough resources to make this happen. It is how we utilize those resources in the most effective way 

possible so we can ensure that we maintain a safe and compliant 

product while still being efficient enough to be able to compete in 

the highly competitive aerospace industry. 

Ms. FRANKEL. I still do think there is some power and influence 

when you are signing the paycheck. Is there any other independent 

person who could—— 

Mr. CONNER. Well, the FAA comes back in and—at any moment, 

they could come back in and evaluate that to make sure that we 

are doing exactly what we said we would do. And we are required 

through the ODA process on the individual basis to make sure that 

they are. Every 2 years, they come in and they audit our entire 

production system, which includes that. 

Ms. FRANKEL. So could you just give some more concrete examples of what you would take off the list? 

Mr. CONNER. Take off the list in terms of their—— 

Ms. FRANKEL. Yeah. 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I would certainly, as I said, the interior aspect of the airplane, these are places where we could do more of 

the work, OK. These are things. Systems, how the systems interact 

with each other, how they interact in terms of flight, those kinds 

of things. When I say ‘‘systems,’’ you know, it is about engines, it 

is about the flight controls. Those are the areas where I think that 

the FAA, from a risk-based—those are high-risk or risk areas in 

terms of flight that they could spend more of that energy in those 

areas and do them on a systems risk-based oversight basis. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you. 

And, you know, Mr. Chair, I would just request, I don’t know if 

there is anybody who could give us the other point of view or the 

view of the FAA, that would be of interest to me. 

Mr. CONNER. I think they are. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Stick around for the next panel. 

Ms. FRANKEL. All right. Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And I think it is important, sometimes I think this 

goes without saying, but it needs to be said, Boeing and Mr. 

Hilkemann, they want those planes to work. They can’t afford to 

put a plane out—I mean, that is your business. 

Mr. CONNER. Chairman Shuster, our entire representation, our 

ability to sell, our ability to operate is built—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Absolutely. 

25 

Mr. CONNER. We are a 100-year-old company, and for us to maintain that reputation that we built over the course of time is completely dependent on the ability to deliver and operate safe airplanes. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Absolutely. 

Mr. CONNER. That is the number one priority of every individual 

within the company, and if we ever find anyone deviating from 

that, they are immediately dismissed. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Hilkemann, you echo those same sentiments 

for what you do? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. One hundred percent. It is the most important 

thing for us. You know, our reputation is only as good as the last 

aircraft we delivered, so every aircraft has to go out. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Absolutely. Thank you. 

And next is Mr. Hardy. 

Mr. HARDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I would just like to thank the chairman for the opportunity 

to be on this committee. Being involved in the construction industry, being involved in the regional transportation commission for 

many years in my State, I feel like I am well versed in many of 

the issues on this committee and appreciate that opportunity to be 

here. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Hardy, I think you have got a bad mic. Do you 

want to scoot over? 

Mr. HARDY. How about that? 

Mr. SHUSTER. It is breaking up somewhere. Move over one chair 

and try to use someone else’s mic. Thanks. 

Mr. HARDY. Thanks. Can you hear me in now? 

Anyway, being a new member on this committee, I would like to 

ask a question, a little out of line here, but in the past, on these 

reauthorization regulations that are set up, is there collaboration 

between the private sector and the public sector on the efficiency 

of this? And the reason I bring this up is, the State and local levels 

all over the country, because of this recession, have got together 

and been in the construction industry. We have worked together 

with those State and local entities to create a program to where we 

can build bridges and tunnels and dams more efficiently, cost-effectively, and still maintain a high standard of safety. So is that done 

in this process with the FAA? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. From Duncan Aviation’s standpoint, I guess I 

would look at it from GAMA, the Airworthiness and Maintenance 

Policy Committee. We have been in existence now for I think 

around 3 years, and I think almost at every meeting we have had, 

we have had an FAA representative there who can discuss issues 

and concerns and things that we are seeing in the industry. And 

so that was probably the genesis of the additional guidance on the 

mobile maintenance unit. 

So, from our standpoint, it is very positive to have that interface. 

Everyone that is on that committee walks away saying, we are glad 

we came to that last meeting. And, you know, the feedback I have 

received from the FAA has been the same. So it is a great resource, 

and anyone who is not on the committees, they are losing out on 

a lot of opportunity to interface and have feedback back and forth. 

Mr. HARDY. Thank you. 

26 

Another question I have. Mr. Conner and Mr. Hilkemann, you 

both have a vast amount of experience. You know your companies 

and industries very well. Instead of us telling you how to run your 

company and how we should restrict you, could you maybe elaborate a little bit on—tell us how regulations should be structured if 

you were in charge of the bases? And also please share with the 

committee the regulations that are hindering your company that 

pertains to your industry. 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I think the regulations as they stand are, you 

know, I think it would be out of my experience to talk about, you 

know, what we should do with reform and such. But we have a 

good set of regulations. How we apply those regulations, how we 

manage those regulations, those are the things I think that we, as 

the company in working with the regulator, can spend more time. 

I mean, beyond interiors, there is a number of different places 

where compliance is well known, well understood. We have done 

these things over and over again as an industry where we could 

take some of that, you know, relieve some of that burden from the 

FAA as well. I think this is more about taking what is there and 

applying it in a most efficient way so that both the FAA and industry can work in the most efficient way possible. 

Mr. HARDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Hardy. 

And seeing no one on the Democrat side, Mr. Rouzer—who is on 

the Democrat side, actually. 

Mr. ROUZER. Looks can be deceiving. 

Mr. Conner, Mr. Hilkemann, I appreciate you all coming forward 

today. And, by the way, it is good to be up close and personal here. 

I have just one quick question for you. I come from a policy background but also a business background as well, and anybody who 

has been in business understands that time is money. My question 

is, and we have been all around it, and I am just wondering if 

there is a concrete answer: How long does it take you to manufacture a plane from start to finish under the regulatory apparatus 

that we have today? 

And then the followup question to that is: If we implement—or 

FAA is able to implement this risk-based approach that you have 

outlined several different times, how much does that save you on 

a time front, or is it more of an efficiency in terms of lower costs 

so, therefore, you can be competitive as well? 

Mr. CONNER. It is a little bit of both, actually. I think that we 

can move a little quicker in the development aspect of things. That 

is typically, you know, developments in 5, 4 years type from start 

to finish with a new airplane. On an existing airplane, that varies 

depending on the airplane type in terms of start to finish, but 

where we could be more efficient, it is just about efficient and how 

we bring those airplanes actually into the hands of our customers. 

That is really where I think that things could be much better for 

us. 

Mr. ROUZER. Mr. Hilkemann, do you have any comment, follow 

up? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. No, I don’t think so. 

Mr. ROUZER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Rouzer. 

27 

Mr. Gibbs is recognized. 

Mr. GIBBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Conner, Boeing—I am over here—I want to commend you 

for—it is really exciting to hear about the increase of employment 

and planes you are building and new orders. That is exciting. And 

I want to kind of follow through a little bit on Mr. Hanna’s questions about foreign competition and the regulatory structure. And 

I realize we have agreements with them and the FAA, and I am 

sure the airlines get involved. 

And then, also, Mr. Hilkemann, on your written testimony, it 

kind of comes together a little bit. In your written testimony, you 

say there is frequent and redundant surveillance activities, many 

of which are conducted by foreign aviation authorities, duplicate 

similar efforts while producing low, additional value. And some of 

it is done by foreign authorities. 

So I am trying to—you know, I think, Mr. Conner, you said that 

the bureaucracy sometimes, you know, takes longer, than what 

maybe it takes some of your foreign competitors. 

And, Mr. Hilkemann, having run the largest maintenance, repair, and overhaul business in the United States, in this regard, 

you know, how level is the playing field? Or would you say the foreigners come in and cause the most problems? And see where I am 

going here. Can you kind of expound on what our challenges are 

to get our efficiencies in place so Mr. Conner can be competitive 

selling airplanes? 

Mr. HILKEMANN. Sure. To give you an idea of what we see in 

terms of redundancy, each week, we get about four or five paperwork audits a week that are sent into us. It is a requirement for 

most of the charter operators to conduct that and to send that to 

us. But we also have customers that follow those same standards. 

So that is happening on a weekly basis. 

On a monthly basis, we are audited by the FAA at one or multiple sites of our facilities. 

And then, on an international basis, we have six to eight international entities coming in for approximately a week throughout 

the year. And those are the audits that we pay for, either through 

license fees and additional audits. Some may stay for 2 or 3 days. 

Some may stay up to a week. So those are happening on a bimonthly basis. 

Mr. GIBBS. Just to follow through with Mr. Conner then, would 

our American Airlines customers have the ability to go do that on 

foreign competition, airplane manufacturers like Mr. Hilkemann 

just kind of described? 

Mr. CONNER. Well, when they go to pick up an airplane, then 

they typically would walk the airplane. They will buy off on the 

airplane, saying it meets their requirements. They will fly it and 

make sure that everything is to what they expect it to be. They will 

walk the interior to make sure that it is everything they expect it 

to be. A lot of situations, we have airline inspectors within our factories watching the airplane as it is built and approving in different stages of the build process. 

Mr. GIBBS. I think you also mentioned the Chinese are getting 

into the airplane export. 

28 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. Well, they are beginning the process and starting to manufacture, yes. They haven’t delivered yet, but—— 

Mr. GIBBS. They haven’t delivered, but the process is being started, just from a safety aspect, since their planes, you know, would 

theoretically be flying over our skies—— 

Mr. CONNER. Sure. 

Mr. GIBBS. We will have to have—the FAA, United States Government—will have an agreement with them? 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. 

Mr. GIBBS. It would be similar to what you have, I assume, with 

the French Government. 

Mr. CONNER. And the FAA goes, with our airplanes, to be able 

to get certified in China or any other country, we work with their 

regulatory agency to get our airplanes certified as well. 

Mr. GIBBS. OK. So I guess, you know, since we are looking at another FAA reauthorization, obviously, this is an issue that you are 

concerned about for the efficiency, so I assume you have probably 

got some more information you might want to share or—— 

Mr. CONNER. Well, I think one of the things that we want to— 

as part of this process, it is very important that we maintain the 

FAA as the gold standard in the world. And, therefore, having a 

presence in the international arena is very important. Supporting 

them, being in countries, working with the other countries, having 

people there, for instance, in China, some of these other places, 

where they can create influence, where they can actually do some 

things, working more closely and supporting them, being in different places around the world so they can make those kinds of 

things; that is very important as a world leader to be visible and 

active. And we support that fully. 

We believe that the FAA should be the leading regulatory agency 

in the world. And there are agencies around the world, EASA and 

I would imagine that the Chinese would want to move in this direction too—they want to be the leader, and they are going to push 

the envelope to make sure that they are. So, from a regulatory 

standpoint, we are in a competition too. 

Mr. GIBBS. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Gibbs. 

Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Conner, you mentioned that your company had had a 56-percent increase in business over the last 5 years, and some of those 

years weren’t the best years. 

And Mr. Hilkemann, I was wondering if you have had a similar 

increase in business. 

And the first question I have is, what do both of you gentlemen 

see over the next 2 or 3 years? Do you see that business increasing 

even faster, or what do you see in that regard? 

And then I have a second question: I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee for 6 years, from January of 1995 to January of 2001, 

and I was hearing these same complaints back then. Mr. 

Hilkemann mentions inconsistent interpretation and application of 

regulations, lack of effective communications in dispute resolutions. 

I am wondering, both of you have had ODAs now. 

Mr. Conner, you said for 6 years, I think. 

29 

And, Mr. Hilkemann, you said for several years. 

And then you have this section 313 advisory panel that put out 

a report in July of 2013, a year and a half ago. 

Are we making some progress? Big progress? I mean, what do 

you see on those things, since we were hearing these same things 

years ago? So those two questions from both of you. 

Mr. HILKEMANN. All right. In terms of growth, our business is 

heavy maintenance. And it is usually done 6 to 12 years after the 

aircraft are manufactured. So that is the bulk of our business. So 

we benefit from deliveries that occurred in the last 10 to 15 years. 

And even before the recession, we had record levels of deliveries in 

our industry. So because of that inaction in our industry, the large 

and ultra large aircraft continued to be sold during the recession— 

worldwide, more outside the U.S. than in the U.S. 

But because of that, our business is still projected to grow. We 

have recovered the volume that we lost during the recession. We 

probably have grown—I think the numbers, if I look at it, from 

about $300 million to about $500 million today since 2009. So we 

have recovered the portion that we lost during that first year in the 

recession, and we have increased that. So that is on a positive 

standpoint. 

As far as what progress have we made, you know, I think, on the 

ODA side, we have made progress because we have had more authorities and we can do more things. On the repair station side, we 

currently have 56 auditors that audit our facilities. And when you 

do that, you have 56 opinions. Now, those are managed through 

Lincoln—it is called ICAO—our managing office in Lincoln. But, 

clearly, when we have changed back to having that number of inspectors, you are going to have differences of opinion. 

So, for about 12 years, we were in a certificate management unit 

where we had dedicated inspectors. We had five in Lincoln. We had 

three or four remote inspectors that were full time with us. I think 

the positive thing from that is it showed us that there were a lot 

of things over the years prior that created inconsistencies. We were 

able to fix those. We do have some concern. It is too early to tell 

you that it is going to be better or worse, but we do have some concerns when you have the quantity of the inspectors that we have 

today under this new system. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Mr. Conner. 

Mr. CONNER. Yes. Well, do I see our business growing? Yes. We 

have committed to higher production rates in the next few years. 

There are 36,000 airplanes in demand over the next 20 years. 

About a third of those are already in the backlogs between ourselves and our competitors. But I do believe the next few years will 

determine market leadership for many years to come, so we are in 

a very highly competitive market as we stand today. One of the 

reasons why we are bringing these new airplanes to market is so 

they can compete better. 

With respect to ODA, we are making progress in terms of the extent at which we utilize it. Are we moving with the speed that we 

would like? I think we are working very diligently to work with the 

FAA to make that a reality. What we would like to see happen is 

just continue to push forward and make it a reality and utilize 

30 

what has already been approved in terms of the authorization for 

delegation. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Gentleman, Mr. Young. 

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank Mr. Conners. 

You build a great aircraft. 

Mr. CONNER. Thank you. 

Mr. YOUNG. I fly with them all the time and every time I get in 

an Airbus, I shudder, so your competitor can forget them. 

Mr. CONNER. I do too, but that is OK. For other reasons. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Young. 

And, with that, we thank the panel for being here today, appreciate your input and look forward to working with you for the next 

FAA reauthorization. We will take a few-moment recess so we can 

switch out the panels. Thank you very much. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. The committee will come to order. We are joined 

by our next panel. I want to welcome our next panel. I guess everybody went to get coffee or a restroom break. 

While we are waiting for our panel to rejoin, I know that a few 

of us are going to have to leave here close to 12 o’clock. Mr. 

LoBiondo and myself are serving on Armed Services. 

Mr. Larsen, you are not in our meeting. We are picking subcommittees on the Republican side. You guys have already done 

that? OK. 

So Mr. LoBiondo and I will have to excuse ourselves. I believe 

Mr. Davis is going to take over the chair at that time. 

Mr. YOUNG. Well—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, there is nothing wrong with you, Mr. Young. 

I just figured you had other things to do. You had other places to 

go. 

Have we lost our two other panel members? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Bathroom break. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Too much information. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. 

Why don’t we go ahead? We have another appearance by Dr. 

Dillingham. He is the Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues for 

the Government Accountability Office. So on the guidance of Chairman Young, we will start with Dr. Dillingham, who has, again, 

been a frequent visitor to us. 

So Dr. Dillingham, why don’t you go ahead and proceed? 

TESTIMONY OF GERALD L. DILLINGHAM, PH.D., DIRECTOR, 

PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; HON. CHRISTOPHER A. HART, ACTING CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY 

BOARD; AND DORENDA BAKER, DIRECTOR, AIRCRAFT CERTIFICATION SERVICE, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

DeFazio, members of the committee. FAA has taken some important steps to address the challenges stakeholders face in getting 

U.S. aviation products certified for use at home and abroad. At the 

same time, we found that these steps are not sufficient and many 

31 

key challenges remain regarding domestic certification and the consistency of regulatory interpretation. 

At the time we concluded our work, FAA indicated it had completed 8 of 14 initiatives established to address the Certification 

Process Committee’s recommendations, and 2 were on track to be 

completed within 3 years. I understand from Ms. Baker’s testimony 

that FAA has now completed 10 of the initiatives. When we completed our work of the remaining initiatives, one was at risk for not 

meeting planned milestones, and three initiatives would not meet 

planned milestones, including updating the regulations under 

which large and small aircraft are certified. Missing these milestones increases the risk of delays in improving the certification 

processes for a rapidly changing and expanding industry. 

Regarding regulatory certification—regulatory consistency, FAA 

has drafted a plan to address the Regulatory Consistency Committee’s six recommendations, which are targeted at improving the 

consistency of how regulations are interpreted by FAA and the industry. While the plan is expected to be released sometime this 

month, it is being released over a year beyond its original target 

date of December 2013. 

Moreover, some key industry stakeholders told us that although 

FAA briefed them on its draft implementation plan, they were disappointed that they were not asked to participate in the development of the plan, as was suggested in the 2012 FAA Reauthorization Act. Stakeholders also expressed concerns about FAA’s decision to close two of the committee’s recommendations before the 

plan is finalized, including the recommendation on improving the 

clarity of FAA’s final rules. 

Turning to foreign approval of U.S. aviation products. The U.S. 

has historically been viewed as the gold standard for the approval 

of aviation products, with some countries accepting FAA’s approval 

as sufficient evidence that the product is safe for use in their country. Other countries, however, do not accept FAA’s certification, 

and more often, these countries are conducting their own approval 

processes for U.S. products. Stakeholders told us that such practices result in U.S. companies facing uncertainty and costly delays 

in delivering their products to foreign markets. 

Additionally, these companies noted that some of FAA’s internal 

processes, such as the prioritization of foreign approval applications and insufficient staff resources and expertise, also contributed 

to delays and increased cost in getting their products to foreign 

markets. Working within the limitations of national sovereignty 

and other factors, FAA has several initiatives underway aimed at 

alleviating current as well as heading off future challenges related 

to foreign approval. 

GAO will continue to assist this committee by providing information and analysis on the certification process challenges and support committee efforts in considering these issues as part of the 

2015 FAA Reauthorization Act. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This concludes my statement. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Dr. Dillingham. 

Next, the Honorable Chris Hart, who is the Acting Chairman of 

the National Transportation Safety Board. 

Mr. Hart, you may proceed. 

32 

Mr. HART. Good morning, Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member 

DeFazio, and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me 

to testify on behalf of the National Transportation Safety Board 

today. 

For many years, the NTSB has investigated accidents and incidents that have identified issues regarding the FAA certification 

process. Most recently, we investigated smoke and flames coming 

from a lithium ion battery on board a Boeing 787 at Boston’s Logan 

International Airport. From this investigation, we recommended to 

the FAA actions that will address issues that they will continue to 

see in the certification process, especially as new technologies are 

introduced at an accelerating pace. 

The recommendations included: Identifying new technologies and 

the need to consult with outside experts regarding those technologies; ensuring an FAA workforce that has up-to-date training 

regarding the new technologies; and evaluating certification from a 

systems perspective, as you have already heard this morning. 

In the U.S. certification process, delegation of the certification 

has been in practice for many years and is necessary to improve 

efficiency of the FAA in the certification process. 

In its current form, Organization Designation Authority, or ODA, 

usually works well. It is a risk-based approach that many DOT 

modal agencies have adopted to use their resources more effectively 

and to focus their oversight on the riskiest areas. But as the NTSB 

has said, in many investigations, risk-based systems only work well 

when the regulator exercises effective oversight. 

In other investigations, the NTSB has recognized the need for 

the FAA to improve the certification process in the following areas: 

Ensuring no single-point failure modes; accounting for wear-related 

failures; and including structural failures and human machine system interaction failures in the assessment of safety critical systems. 

We are pleased with the action taken by the FAA last year regarding icing based on our investigation of two accidents in 1994 

and 1997, outlined in my full testimony, but it is unfortunate that 

needed changes that we identified in both incidents and accidents 

have taken so long to implement. 

Additionally, the NTSB has investigated events that illustrate 

shortcomings with flight standards. In the investigation of a January 2003 accident, the NTSB identified improper maintenance at a 

repair station where the owner had been previously employed as a 

chief inspector at a repair station that had its license revoked. We 

identified that the FAA did not have any regulations that enabled 

them to deny applications for part 145 repair stations of applicants 

that are associated with repair stations that previously had their 

license revoked. And we recommended that the FAA promulgate a 

regulation to implement this authority. 

The FAA published a notice of proposed rulemaking in May of 

2012, but more than 10 years after the accident, it has not yet 

issued a final rule on the subject. 

As you prepare to reauthorize the FAA, the certification process 

is a very important component to consider. Also, the NTSB has several other safety recommendations that could improve safety of our 

aerospace system, including strengthening procedural compliance 

33 

for pilots, expanding the use of recorders in general aviation aircraft and enhanced recorders in commercial aircraft, and oversight 

of public aircraft operations. 

I would be happy to talk with you further about these topics as 

well. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I would be happy 

to answer any questions you may have. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Hart. 

And next, Ms. Baker, who is the Director of the Aircraft Certification Service at the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Ms. Baker, please proceed. 

Ms. BAKER. Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member DeFazio, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with 

you today. As the Director of FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service, 

I am responsible for the oversight of design, production, and continued operational safety of aircraft, engines, propellers, and articles. 

Overseeing the safety of the world’s largest fleet of aircraft while 

simultaneously certifying innovative new products and technology 

is a challenge, but one that we recognize as critical to ensuring 

U.S. economic growth. As such, we continuously strive to improve 

the process. 

The globalization of aviation, advances in technology, a high velocity of change, and heightened expectations from our stakeholders are all external forces driving us to reexamine how we conduct business. Since the 1920s, the FAA has relied on delegation 

to safely leverage the Government workforce. We apply safety management principles and use risk-based decisionmaking to leverage 

delegation and international partnerships and focus limited FAA 

resources. Today, we delegate 90 percent of certification activity. 

We are working to streamline the remainder. 

My written statement includes an update on FAA’s implementation of initiatives responsive to section 312 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. During implementation, it became 

clear that not all of industry’s concerns can be addressed through 

national policy changes. Therefore, today, I would like to focus on 

how we are addressing certification reform at the local, national, 

and international level. 

At the local level, we are reinvigorating concepts from the Certification Process Improvement Guide. This guide was developed in 

collaboration with industry over 10 years ago to improve cooperation and communication. Each company worked with their local office to define operating norms, develop an issue resolution process, 

and identify individual certification priorities. 

Utilizing the same philosophy, the FAA will work with individual 

companies to establish short- and long-term goals to help them 

reach their vision of full utilization of the Organization Designation 

Authorization, or ODA. The FAA has also created an ODA scorecard to collect qualitative and quantitative data related to safety, 

FAA involvement, and ODA-holder compliance. On a local level, the 

scorecard will support constructive dialogue between the FAA management and ODA holders about compliance, timeliness, and performance improvements that may be needed. 

At the national level, the roll up of the scorecard metrics will 

allow us to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of all ODAs, 

help differentiate between national and local issues, and point to 

34 

areas where policy improvements are necessary. Globally, the FAA 

has been the leading model for safety and efficiency around the 

world. Yet the aviation industry is made up of an international web 

of networks and complex business arrangements that are challenging our traditional regulatory model. 

We are working with our global partners to leverage our bilateral 

agreements to facilitate the needs of industry. In 2013, we formed 

a Certification Management Team between the FAA, the European 

Aviation Safety Agency, and the authorities of Canada and Brazil. 

This team discusses means to standardize and streamline certification of aviation products by reducing duplicative processes. 

I know the committee is also interested in the progress the FAA 

has made in response to section 312 of the act, which focused on 

the consistency and standardization of the regulatory interpretation. While the implementation plan for section 313 was formally 

posted on the FAA Web site yesterday, we have already taken 

steps to implement the recommendations. In fact, we have closed 

two of the six initiatives and the plan was supported by industry. 

The highest priority initiative is to develop a single master 

source for guidance organized by regulations. We are making 

progress and reviewing our existing databases to ensure the information is up to date. A challenge we face is that Enterprise Architecture Assessment identified 21 separate FAA document repositories. 

Last week, I participated in a demonstration of the proof of concept for the tool that will link the documents from multiple sources. 

This week, it will be presented to the Associate Administrator for 

Aviation Safety for approval of funding to proceed to field beta testing. I was impressed with the system’s capability. It will link regulatory material not only by regulation, as requested by industry, 

but also by concept, in case the user doesn’t know the regulatory 

citation. 

In conclusion, the FAA has made progress on sections 312 and 

313 of the act. We are conscious of the fact that certification reform 

is essential for economic growth of the United States, and we are 

working continuously to improve. The FAA is tracking the progress 

of implementing the initiatives, the performance outcomes, and the 

global return on investment for the FAA and industry. 

The FAA will continue efforts to develop meaningful metrics that 

promote open, constructive dialogue, facilitate positive change, and 

hold industry accountable to compliance with the regulations and 

FAA accountable to increasing efficiency of certification. 

Mr. Chairman, I am happy to answer any questions you may 

have. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much, Ms. Baker. 

As I said, I have to excuse myself, but I wanted to ask a question 

before I left. 

Ms. Baker, your testimony said that you completed 10 of 14 of 

streamlining the FAA’s aircraft certification process. Can you explain to us, does that mean it is fully implemented, or does that 

just mean a milestone? 

Ms. BAKER. The 10 that are completed have been completely finished and implemented. There are some caveats where we have 

had some follow-on criteria to assure that it is working properly, 

35 

but the actual things, like the prioritization process, has been fully 

implemented. 

Mr. SHUSTER. So 10 have been fully implemented? 

Ms. BAKER. Yes. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And then, again, talk about some of the things. 

How do you measure that, whether it is having a positive effect? 

I guess, if some of them have only just been approved, you haven’t 

had time. But what is the process you go through to measure that 

to see if they are working and have the effect that we intended? 

Ms. BAKER. Yes, we are continuing to work with industry to assure that we have a way to measure the effectiveness of what we 

put in place. We first started with phase 1 metrics, where measurements get put into place. Some of the information that we have had 

from an anecdotal standpoint was to get feedback on our approach. 

We had a 23-point plan to increase the ODA efficiency, and we met 

with industry to determine whether or not they felt that the 

changes that we had made were taking hold. The response that we 

got back was positive to neutral on what had occurred after the implementation. 

On the project prioritization process, we no longer have a queue, 

so we have zero wait time for the projects, so we measure that as 

a success. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

With that, I am going to recognize Mr. DeFazio and excuse myself. Mr. Davis is going to take the chair. So, again, I thank the 

witnesses for being here today. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Dillingham, on page 3 of your testimony, you talk about some 

other countries do not accept FAA certification to conduct their own 

approval process, which can be lengthy. You don’t list them. Could 

you provide a list? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Yes, Mr. DeFazio, we can provide a list. But I 

can tell you now that we spoke to a sample of manufacturers that 

represented a good proportion of those who export to foreign countries. And we asked them to tell us about their experiences and 

which countries seem to present the greatest problems right now 

and what was the nature of those problems. 

What we were told is that it differs by country, but in terms of 

the top countries where they are experiencing the most problems, 

Europe and the issues behind the EC were related to cost, the cost 

of getting our products approved. And China was a top biller, and 

the issue for China was a combination of culture and their processes and procedures. 

You would have heard earlier about—as a matter of fact, you 

were the one who said it—about requesting—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Detailed engineering and design criteria and coming over and observing the manufacturing process, and, of course, 

they are not going to copy it. Yeah, I got that. Right. 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. So we will provide you the output from our survey of the manufacturers that we talk to. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. 

So that leads me to Ms. Baker. I know you are somewhat constrained, but he does point to a number of things, the processes of 

these other nations in terms of reciprocity. And in dealing with the 

36 

EU, I note that they charge for certification, and we don’t. And I 

know there is a provision of appropriations bill that says that we 

have to authorize a charge, but wouldn’t it be great if you had a 

tool to say, Well, if you charge, we are going to charge you. So 

when Airbus wants certified, well, you are going to pay the same 

charges that Boeing has to pay in Europe. 

Wouldn’t that be reciprocal, and might that not get their attention? 

Ms. BAKER. I am going to skirt that a little. I think—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, I mean, let’s say, how far along are you then 

in getting them to reduce these charges voluntarily out of the goodness of their heart? You know, do you expect that to happen real 

soon? Yes or no. 

Ms. BAKER. If we are successful, by June. We are trying to get 

an agreement with them to make significant reductions in their 

charges. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Yeah, but maybe it is a little more, a few more 

tools are necessary. 

And what about the Chinese, where we know what they are 

doing. What are we doing about that? I mean, they just want to 

be able to manufacture these things themselves. They are charging 

us—they send their people over here for 2 weeks for something 

that should take 1 day. We are required to pay for that. You know, 

are we working on some reciprocal arrangements with the Chinese 

that might get their attention? 

Ms. BAKER. We do. We meet with them at least once a year, but, 

recently, we have been meeting with them quite a bit because we 

are conducting a shadow program of their ARJ21 program right 

now. When we are aware of where they have overstepped their 

bounds, we have intervened. 

Recently, there was a situation where they were asking for much 

more information on the Robinson helicopter than they should be 

requiring just to operate the helicopter in their country. We intervened. We told them we did not feel that it was appropriate and 

in the spirit of our bilateral relationship, and they changed their 

process. And so we will then work with them—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Good for you, and I hope you do a lot more of that. 

You know, we have the PASS testimony, which, unfortunately, 

wasn’t available to be read or given here, but they are pointing to 

the fact that a lot of times inspectors only show up at, you know, 

an ODA once every couple of years, you know, that you don’t have 

enough staff to really provide robust monitoring. I mean, do you 

feel comfortable about, you know, your capabilities? Are you using 

sort of targeting—I know that you try and target people you think 

are problematic and put more scrutiny on them. But it seems to me 

there just aren’t enough inspectors. 

Ms. BAKER. We use a systems approach to oversight which, I 

think, has shown to be very, very successful in the manufacturing 

of aircraft. We have done that for many, many years. We rely on 

a system, and then our people will intervene and do spot checks. 

If they find problems, then they will dig deeper and take the necessary action, whether it was a fine or just a corrective action to 

change the procedure so that they align with what the manufacturer is actually doing. We are evolving to that with engineering. 

37 

As Ray testified, Boeing has a lot of engineers. They are very 

confident at what they do. We just need to assure that they are 

very versed in compliance with the regulations. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. And just one other quick question. You know, 

when you give an ODA to a large organization, what is to prevent—in terms of your monitoring, what protections legally do we 

provide to the members of their ODA? I mean, do you think the 

firewalls are adequate? Are there special protections that are afforded? I know we have got the hotline, but that is generally for 

operational things more than these sorts of things. Do you think 

there are enough tools out there to avoid undue influence by companies that are trying to meet deadlines for new technology, for instance? 

Ms. BAKER. Well, first, you have to start with the premise that 

everyone is aiming for a safe product. Once you have passed that, 

then you look at the individuals within the company. If they feel 

unduly pressured, they can come directly to the FAA and ask that 

we retain an item and intervene. We also require—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Will they get protection at that point, some whistleblower or something? 

Yeah, I will be right with you Don. Yeah, well, Don, actually, the 

custom is—and I was very good before—that the ranking member 

gets a little more time. Yeah, well, that is true. 

Ms. BAKER. He could if he went through the program for a whistleblower. When they come talk to us, it is usually not at that level. 

It is either a misunderstanding or something that we can work out. 

The other thing I wanted to note is in order to be an ODA, you 

have to assure that there is separation in the company and the person who is in charge of the ODA has high enough ranking within 

the company that they aren’t unduly influenced—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. We will cut off at that point since the gentleman 

from Alaska has something urgent to add. 

Mr. DAVIS [presiding]. Gentleman’s time is expired. 

Gentleman from Alaska is recognized. 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Baker, section 313, from your perspective, what is the status 

of implementing that perspective? 

Ms. BAKER. We have closed out two items. One was what they 

were envisioning would be a regulatory oversight body that was 24/ 

7 that you could go to, kind of like an op center. We decided to replace that with the Regulatory Consistency Communications Board, 

which then would vet the issues. So the 24/7 kind of op center was 

set aside. 

And then we also have put forward means to train our employees. 

Mr. YOUNG. When is the final time going to be? 

Ms. BAKER. It is in process, so there are a number of things— 

just let me go back to what the main priority is. It is that big database in the sky that I talked about in my oral testimony. We have 

that proof of concept, but we have to do the beta testing, and then 

it will take probably another couple years before it would be implemented. And that is really the long—— 

Mr. YOUNG. I am going to make a suggestion. Just keep us informed, and I don’t like dragging feet, you understand? 

38 

Ms. BAKER. Yes. 

Mr. YOUNG. Second thing is your AFS and your AIR, are they 

working together to guide the manufacturers as well as the operators, or are they separated and don’t talk to one another? 

Ms. BAKER. We work very closely together. My office is right next 

to the Director of Flight Standards, and in the field, they work very 

cooperatively together. We have a group, called the Aircraft Evaluation Group, that is almost a part of my organization, providing 

the liaison between the two organizations. 

Mr. YOUNG. That is important because, you know, I have 

watched agencies over my career here before you were born where 

they grow and they grow and they grow and they don’t talk to one 

another, and that hurts the operator as well as the manufacturer 

of our aircraft, and where the ultimate goal is safety, not the building of an agency, so I am hoping that you work together. 

Mr. Hart, of the investigations of what you do, what was the percentage of pilot error versus aircraft error? 

Mr. HART. Thank you for the question. What we generally see is 

system error in which good people try to do the right thing in difficult circumstances and then make mistakes. It is very difficult to 

say pilot error versus system error because it is a total system 

error involving the pilot and the airplane. 

Mr. YOUNG. OK. Now, I don’t which one—how many new regulations have the FAA passed in 2014? 

Ms. BAKER. I don’t know off the top of my head. 

Mr. YOUNG. Would you guys find out for us, and the reason I ask 

that, again, regulation for regulation’s sake doesn’t accomplish the 

safety which we are trying to achieve. 

Ms. BAKER. Yes. 

Mr. YOUNG. I hear a lot of times you are short on money, but 

I see a lot of FAA activity that has nothing to do with safety. It 

has nothing to do with it, like moving a fence on a golf course. Lots 

of money spent. No reason for it. Putting fences in airports there 

is nobody around, lots of money. Lots of little things within the 

FAA itself that takes away, I think, is your ultimate goal is safety, 

not all this other stuff, and you grow and you grow and you forget 

what your ultimate goal is. But overall, I haven’t had that—too 

many complaints yet. Most are minor from what I call civil aviation 

and again an overenthusiastic inspector, who hasn’t been trained 

to be an inspector, so we will look at that. It is not your problem. 

We are just pursuing that. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. DAVIS [presiding]. The gentleman yields back. 

Mr. Larsen, the gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you. Mr. Hart, Chairman Hart, what concerns does NTSB—what concerns has the NTSB identified with 

FAA’s certification efforts regarding new and novel technology, and 

what recommendations has the board made to FAA regarding the 

certification of new and novel technology? 

Mr. HART. Thank you for the question. We have been looking at 

certification accidents for more than 20 years. The latest one that 

I mention in my oral testimony regarding the Boeing 787 battery 

had a wrinkle of being a new technology accident, and I suspect we 

are going to see more of that as new technologies come in at an 

39 

accelerating pace. The key to the process with new technologies is 

quality of the process. That is why we made recommendations ensuring that the broadest possible base of resources are consulted, 

in this case, looking at the lithium-ion battery. Since we knew the 

auto manufacturers had been using these batteries and had experiences with them, including some bad experiences, talk to them. We 

knew that the Defense Department had been putting lithium ion 

batteries in their equipment—good situations, bad situations—talk 

to them. The Department of Energy had a lot to inform the process, 

but they weren’t consulted. 

We are looking at how to get the broadest base of expertise regarding new technologies. Also, we are looking to make sure that 

the FAA workforce is properly trained to stay up to speed with the 

development of the new technologies because otherwise they may 

not know that the sources that they are looking at aren’t as broad 

as they could be. Then last but not least, we recommend looking 

with a systems perspective at the introduction of the new technologies. 

Mr. LARSEN. Ms. Baker, is the FAA using outside experts to the 

extent that the agency is suggesting or how would you—how would 

you characterize what the FAA is doing relative to those recommendations? 

Ms. BAKER. The FAA has extensive use of outside experts. We go 

to RTCA, ASTM, SAE was useful. We have used MITRE, used a 

number of outside venues to get the expertise. 

I think what Chris was highlighting is that one of the things 

that we all need to be cognizant of is that sometimes the knowledge is outside of the aviation sector, so we really need to reach 

out more broadly, and that would be something that we will take 

into consideration as we move forward. 

Mr. LARSEN. All right. Can you, as well, Ms. Baker, discuss the 

accelerated use of ODAs and whether or not it has created oversight challenges with inspector’s workload increasing beyond head 

count, and what assurance can you give the committee that the 

FAA will build a running ODA program while maintaining safety? 

Ms. BAKER. Yes. I talked a little bit about the ODA scorecard in 

my testimony. Again, we are trying to look at what is going on nationally with all the ODAs, but then look at what is happening locally. We will not only track measures for our effectiveness in our 

oversight, but their effectiveness in compliance with the regulations, so we are going to be building on that. That will give me confidence that we can move further and further to a systems approach. 

In section 312, you probably know that we already have looked 

into expanding to delegate noise, emissions, and the instructions 

for continued airworthiness, so I think there are many areas where 

we can continue to expand very safely. 

Mr. LARSEN. Expanding, but how can you ensure then that appropriate FAA oversight is spent—we talked in the previous panel 

how Boeing and many other companies, frankly, want to use ODA 

as fully as possible but still need the FAA sort of behind that in 

order to do auditing, do oversight, so on. 

Ms. BAKER. Each ODA is required to put together a manual, and 

we audit to the manual every 2 years, and then we do spot checks 

40 

along the way to see if they are truly doing the job as we would 

if we were in their shoes. I think that it has been effective and will 

continue to monitor that. We will be watching the results from our 

inspections of the ODAs and to determine whether or not we are 

finding an increased number of noncompliances to the regulations 

versus noncompliances of just following their manual. I think that 

will help keep a very good level of oversight. 

Mr. LARSEN. OK. Dr. Dillingham, not that the FAA doesn’t have 

enough to do, and we are not asking—not that we are asking you 

if they have enough to do, but in looking at the international certification side as you did, do you think the FAA needs to make its 

international certification to be as a higher priority if we are going 

to address these international challenges that you described in 

your testimony? Where do those fit? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Thank you, Mr. Larsen, for the question. I 

would hesitate to suggest what FAA’s priorities would be, but if 

you look at what is going on with international, the industry representatives that we talk to indicated that from an internal perspective, leave aside what happens once the application goes overseas, is that they think that FAA does not make this a high enough 

priority, that including the issue of getting full use of the ODA, the 

ODA program. I think from what we learn, what FAA is doing now 

with regard to working to make the bilaterals more efficient and 

more effective and working to get the concept of mutual acceptance 

of approvals from our longstanding partners, I think if that plays 

out, then the priority issue will be less of an issue going forward. 

Mr. LARSEN. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one final note, 

Mr. Chairman. Not that I am pitching for a codel to the Paris Air 

Show, which by the way, you don’t spend any time in Paris when 

you are at the Paris Air Show, just one walk around the pavilions 

at the Paris Air Show would let you know just how global the industry, aviation industry is and how important this issue of FAA 

certification international market is as well. 

Mr. DAVIS. OK. 

Mr. LARSEN. On the other hand, if we want to take in the Paris 

show, that is fine, too. 

Mr. DAVIS. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you. Mr. Hart, Ms. Baker, I have Griffiss Air 

Force base, the former Griffiss Air Force base, my district, and as 

you know, it is one of the six sites selected for UAS tests, and it 

is becoming a little obvious that the FAA really hasn’t done the 

rulemaking to allow them to move forward in the way that people 

anticipated because the questions that they need to answer really 

haven’t even been asked yet, if that is fair, and that is a question. 

Given your experience with the FAA certification process and all 

these challenges, how do you plan on doing that, assuming it hasn’t 

been done, and I don’t think it has. How do we take advantage of 

these test sites? And what are you going to do—there is an estimated 500,000 of these devices in the country. How are you going 

to manage all that knowing that other countries are already using 

them, some of them Japan, for example, 20 years, and it is a tremendous opportunity for this country for all the reasons that, you 

know, I don’t need to go into, and you are already busy and these 

41 

sites are, for lack of a better word, they have the potential to linger 

and yet we have got a lot invested in them. I guess the question 

is what is going on? What can we anticipate? And how are you 

going to take advantage of Griffiss and help it grow? 

Ms. BAKER. There is a lot going on. It is a very high priority of 

the Administrator to move out on UAS and to do it right. There 

are the activities with the rule on small UAS. Our aircraft certification office in L.A. actually certified a UAS on a restricted category-type of certificate to operate in the Arctic. We have also been 

working with the test centers so that they could get designees to 

issue airworthiness certificates so that that could facilitate them to 

do more work on our behalf and make them more self-sufficient. So 

again, I think that there is quite a bit going on. 

One of the other things that we are doing in our organization is 

we put together an advisory circular that would identify the level 

of rigor that should be applied to the size and complexity of the 

UAS because, as you know, some could fit in your hand and others 

could be as large as a 747. So we are trying to establish how you 

would handle all of those UAS. But it is an interaction with our 

organization, AVS, aviation safety organizations, which is inspectors and flight standards and our engineers but also with air traffic 

to ensure that they will blend into the national airspace safely. 

Mr. HANNA. But it doesn’t feel like the FAA is up to the challenge right now, that they are behind. Would you believe—do you 

believe that? I mean, is that fair? 

Ms. BAKER. I don’t think we would say we are behind. We are 

working very carefully to introduce them into our national airspace. Some of the countries that has utilized them have different 

situations. They are different environments that they are working 

in. They either have more open space or they have less general 

aviation population that is working in their airspace. 

Mr. HANNA. You don’t think Iowa has a lot of open space? 

Ms. BAKER. They do. 

Mr. HANNA. I mean, you don’t think—where I live, they are taking advantage of these other countries to monitor vineyards, which 

we have, monitor animals. 

Ms. BAKER. Uh-huh. 

Mr. HANNA. It doesn’t—and these things are very controllable. I 

just wonder if there isn’t a way to expedite the use of these at certain elevations, and I am familiar with the Supreme Court ruling, 

but my time has come to an end here but—yes, sir. 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. Hanna, we have—we have a study underway looking at what it takes to get UAS into the national airspace 

for this committee, and we have—we have testified in the past that 

instead of the rule coming out when it was scheduled, the rule is 

going to be as much as 2 years late coming out. So what we have 

suggested is that there needs to be action taken in the interim, and 

some of those actions relate to the test sites, meaning get a greater 

use out of the test site, for example, giving them greater authority 

to allow testing and evaluation at the test site, look at ways in 

which things can be done now on an interim basis like section 333 

of the regulation. Also, to take some lessons learned from other 

countries, particularly Canada, our northern neighbor, and talk 

42 

about what you heard several times this morning, sort of a riskmanagement approach to the integration of UAS. 

So there are things that can be done, and we think that FAA is 

beginning to move in that direction because there is such a—almost a dam of industry and industry activities that are waiting—— 

Mr. HANNA. There is a huge demand, yeah, and Griffiss Air 

Force base is waiting, you know. 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you very much. My time is expired. 

Mr. DAVIS. Gentlelady from the District of Columbia is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Baker, I am about to have a town meeting in the District of 

Columbia because of complaints about noise over residential neighborhoods, and I asked Mr. Conner of Boeing whether or not noise 

was a part of the process. I think you yourself have testified that 

it is now part of the process. 

Now, what we found out was that when there were complaints 

in the past about flying over areas, residential areas, in this case 

in Virginia, what FAA did was simply to fly over areas in the District of Columbia. As a part of the Next Gen process, you are supposed to have quieter aircraft, and, of course, Mr. Conner testified 

they were quieter. We have asked for aircraft to be flown over the 

river. 

We are wondering whether when you get complaints about noise, 

why are we getting complaints about noise with all the new technology; and two, why would the FAA simply go from one area to 

another area to relieve those complaints? Do you have a system for 

relieving those complaints such as, for example, our suggestion in 

the Nation’s Capital that you fly over the river where no one lives? 

Ms. BAKER. The actual routing of the aircraft is a different part 

of the organization that I am not familiar with, but the noise of the 

aircraft, the actual noise levels are set by the EPA, and we work 

with companies like Boeing to make improvements. 

Ms. NORTON. Noise is part of certification. Do you believe that 

considering Next Gen, and Next Gen is already in effect, to some 

extent, that the noise levels are consistent with increasingly flying 

over inhabited neighborhoods? 

Ms. BAKER. The noise levels are set by the EPA, so what we 

would do is to assure that we can work with the manufacturers to 

ensure that the aircraft themselves are meeting the level of—— 

Ms. NORTON. Are you saying that EPA has told you that the 

noise levels are acceptable and that I should be talking to the EPA? 

Ms. BAKER. They set the noise regulations, and we are delegated 

on their behalf. 

Ms. NORTON. So here we have delegation on top of delegation? 

Ms. BAKER. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON. Let me ask a question that was never fully answered. It is very interesting and in some ways troubling to hear 

Mr. Conner testify, I think he raised this on his own accord, that 

FAA should not lose its own gold standard role. There was no question but that he feared that that was happening. 

I then asked him whether or not sequester and cuts had had any 

effect. He didn’t say they were the cause of the loss of the gold 

43 

standard, but he testified that those cuts had hurt, and he gave 

some specific ways in which they had hurt. Now leave aside China. 

This is my question. Why is the United States losing what had 

been the gold standard? What happened here, we are fine with you. 

What is the source of this loss of that lead role since there is no 

question, if you leave aside China, even the Europeans are secondguessing our role. I ask that of all three of you. 

Ms. BAKER. Go for it. 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Ms. Norton, you know, we have heard that metric over the last couple of years about the U.S. being the gold 

standard, and in fact, the U.S. losing its position of the gold standard. I think that metric is more of a sort of an explanation that 

the world of aviation is changing. The manufacturers that we talk 

to had mixed opinions about whether the U.S. was the gold standard, or EASA was the gold standard or whatever, but what they 

were saying is, in the past, if the U.S. said OK, then it was OK. 

That was the gold standard, because if the U.S. approved it, it 

meant it was—— 

Ms. NORTON. So Dr. Dillingham—— 

Dr. DILLINGHAM [continuing]. Ready to go. 

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. You are telling me it is not OK today? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Well, there are some contributing factors to 

that. No one is saying that the U.S. standard of quality has 

changed, but what we see is, we see ICAO, the International Civil 

Aviation Organization, telling nation states that you must establish 

your own certification processes and apply those as you see fit. So 

instead of what it used to be that it could just go through, they are 

going through another process. 

Ms. NORTON. So you don’t think it casts any doubt on our standards here. It is just that everybody wants to do it his own way and 

wants to repeat what has already been done. 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Exactly. If—in other countries, those organizations have to pay for themselves, so automatically they are going 

to charge us, and no one is saying that, you know, our quality is 

any less. The world is just spinning with more civil aviation authorities in place. 

Ms. NORTON. Can I ask you this: In terms of the training, Ms. 

Baker, of your own engineers, we understand there is a shortage. 

I don’t know what it takes to be an engineer, if you have to be an 

engineer to be a certified engineer, but there are complaints of inadequate training, even from your own personnel. What are the difficulties you are encountering in certification of engineers so that 

you can feel confident that, in fact, the inspections should be recognized everywhere? 

Ms. BAKER. When the engineers are hired by the FAA, they already come to us with an engineering degree, and most of the time 

with a lot of experience coming from a manufacturer of an aviation 

product. What Ray Conner—— 

Ms. NORTON. Do you do your own training? 

Ms. BAKER. We do do our own training, and when there is new 

technology, we will send them out to training that is outside of 

FAA where there is the expertise for us to gain that knowledge 

from the absolute threshold of experienced people. 

44 

What Boeing was talking about was systems engineering. We are 

currently hiring people with a lot of expertise in fields like structures and avionics. What we are moving towards is a systems engineer, someone who can look at the entire system and judge where 

they should be making the interventions and how they can improve 

the system. That is more of a process type of thing versus a specialty engineering. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. 

Mr. DAVIS. The gentlelady’s time is expired. 

The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Dr. 

Dillingham, for being back with us. It is good to see you again. I 

want to start with you to follow up. I know a lot has been discussed 

with regards to the ODA program, and it is my understanding that 

one of the biggest problems that we have is really with FAA engineers and specialists getting involved in the certification process, 

and essentially getting involved when the ODA has already authorized or conducted their review and duplicating efforts. And so in 

other words, the ODA is doing their job, and yet the FAA is retaining some of that work; is that correct? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. When we talked to manufacturers in preparation for this hearing, that was one of their concerns about the 

ODA. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So that is reoccurring? It is not just one stakeholder. It is multiple stakeholders that said that? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Yes, multiple stakeholders said that, and we 

think part of the explanation is that when you go to an ODA and 

you start to assign those kinds of inspection responsibilities outside 

of the FAA, we are talking about a significant cultural change from 

the way the agency has been doing business for eons, and it takes 

time for that to be in place. And I think the recent—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So would you suggest more training on the FAA 

so they can understand the role of the ODA then? Because if it is 

a cultural change and you are saying that they are—they have got 

boundary lines that they are crossing over, how do we make sure 

that that happens in a very fast and effective manner so you don’t 

lose out the competition from overseas? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. I think with as much speed as possible. As part 

of the 312, 313 recommendations, FAA has worked the ODA process and issued new guidance for how they are supposed to operate 

and their training and their oversight, so I think we are at the 

point now that change is possible and change in a relatively speedy 

time. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you have issued the regulation. So is the training actually happening or not? Because it is one thing to write a 

regulation; it is another to implement it. 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. That is a good question. I am going to ask Director Baker to take that on. 

Ms. BAKER. Thank you, Gerald. Yes, it is. It is happening. We 

have an understanding by all of the engineers, if they are to retain, 

they need to document why it is that they are retaining. The order 

that was updated, such that there are categories. Inspectors would 

identify where they are retaining based on those categories. Again, 

we talked about the scorecard that we were developing. We just reVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:58 Feb 05, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\114\FULL\2015\1-21-1~1\92673.TXT JEAN
45 

cently got some information back on some major ODA holders, and 

we found that it is amazing. There is a lot that is being delegated. 

In one particular case, 85 percent of the work didn’t even require 

a notification letter to the FAA. Of the 15 percent that required the 

notification letter, only 5 percent was retained. What is happening 

is FAA keeps getting in the critical path to delivery of the aircraft. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So critical path means delays in certification, 

delays in the process, and losing money? 

Ms. BAKER. It does. So that is why we take what they have identified as where they have retained and why they have retained it, 

and we will start to delve deeper in at the local level. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if I would ask the stakeholders to give you a 

grade on your implementation, A through F, what would the stakeholders give the FAA in terms of a grade? 

Ms. BAKER. Overall, we would probably get a C, but there are 

people who would grade us F and there are people that will grade 

us A. There are some organizations that are smaller and not having success at getting as much autonomy as they would like, and 

there are others that are still struggling. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So how do we move it from a C overall 

and an F in some cases to an A or a B? Because it really is not 

about a grade. It is about competitiveness, it is about profit, it is 

about keeping market share, and really when you look at certification process, somebody is going to do it. It is either us or we are 

going to lose out to other competition, so how do we move that during this reauthorization, how do we address that effectively? 

Ms. BAKER. Again, I don’t know that it is a national solution. I 

really think that you have got to get down into the documentation 

that the employees are supposed to make when they retain something. What we found when we just did this recent survey was that 

there were some areas that were instructions for continued airworthiness. We have got that taken care of, so now the companies 

just need to ask for that authority. Noise. It is in a beta test that 

will start to reduce the work that FAA will be involved in. Emissions. We can do that now. They just need to ask for that authority. 

There are other areas where rules that were put in place recently 

and we were retaining them as the company gained experience, but 

now it is showing up as something that can be done nationally to 

reduce our involvement and then we will start to pull away where 

we can. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, as we go through this process—my time is 

expired, but as we go through this process, this is something that 

we will be looking at very acutely and very keenly, and so as you 

look at it, we look for specific recommendations on how we can address that. And I thank the chairman, and I yield back. 

Mr. DAVIS. The gentleman’s time is expired. The gentleman, my 

colleague from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 

witnesses for being here today. One of the biggest issues that I 

have been focused on during my time in this committee is streamlining the FAA’s certification process to make sure that manufacturers can move innovative safety enhancing ideas from the design 

table to assembly line into the cockpit without months of delay in 

46 

unnecessary cost which unfortunately has been happening all too 

often. 

First question I wanted to ask Ms. Baker, Ms. Baker, sorry. I 

was lead Democratic co-sponsor of the Small Airplane Revitalization Act. I was pleased that Congress recognized and responded to 

the challenges posed by the certification process. Many of us on 

this committee and many at DOT and FAA did the rewrite of part 

23 rules as vital to safety innovation. So I want to ask, what steps 

have you taken to move this rule forward? And where is the rulemaking being vetted today? Has it been received by DOT and 

OMB? 

Ms. BAKER. Yes. The part 23 rule is very important to us also. 

We have done a number of things to push the rule through as 

quickly as we possibly can. We have a dedicated technical team 

working on it. We have a headquarters attorney assigned solely to 

this particular rule. We meet weekly to look at the schedule for all 

of the rules, but we meet monthly to assure that there aren’t any 

roadblocks to move the part 23 rulemaking forward. We are still 

working on it in our organization. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. OK. So it hasn’t been received by DOT and the 

OMB yet? Can you assure this committee that the NPRM for part 

23 small airplane rule will be published by the summer? 

Ms. BAKER. The official schedule has not yet been published. We 

have, again, worked as hard as we can to move it as quickly as possible, and we would be happy to keep you updated on the progress 

of the rule if you would like. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I would. I definitely would like you do that, and it 

is important that we move this forward as quickly as possible. 

I want to follow up on part 23 with Mr. Hart. In your written 

testimony, you referenced general aviation safety, specifically loss 

of control mitigation as one of the items on your most wanted safety list. Data that Government and industry have used to develop 

recommendations show that loss of control counts for a significant 

portion of fatal accidents in general aviation. As I mentioned in the 

last question, the 113th Congress passed legislation that will enable safety enhancing features to be accelerated for part 23 category aircraft in order to address issues like loss of control accidents. 

How can efforts like this legislation help to achieve improvement 

in aviation safety? 

Mr. HART. Thank you for the question, Mr. Lipinski. We are 

troubled that more than 40 percent of the general aviation accidents are related in one form or another to loss of control, and most 

of those are related to aerodynamic stalls. In addition to training, 

which is a continual problem, we recommend equipping general 

aviation airplanes more extensively with angle of attack indicators 

so that the pilot will have a more direct awareness of the angle of 

attack. The pilot already has indirect indication of the angle of attack, but we are looking for more direct and more immediate 

awareness of the angle of attack to help avoid aerodynamic stall. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Are there any—you know, anything you could say 

what more needs to be done on this issue? I know the angle of attack indicator is very significant. Anything else you wanted to mention that is important here? 

47 

Mr. HART. The biggest complaint we hear generally from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is that the angle of attack indicators are too expensive, and as usual, that goes back to a certification issue. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. What are your thoughts on FAA’s current policies 

and regulations on retrofitting of new equipment onto existing GA 

aircraft? 

Mr. HART. That is hard to generalize because in some cases, retrofitting is realistic; in some cases it is not. So it is hard to make 

a general statement. I could give you an answer if you had a more 

specific question regarding a specific retrofit type. For example, retrofit of shoulder belts is very difficult in some airplanes. Retrofit 

of angle of attack indicator is another story altogether. It is very 

difficult to generalize about all retrofitting. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. OK. With that, I will yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. HART. Thank you. 

Mr. DAVIS. The gentleman yields back the balance of his time. 

I see we have nobody else to ask questions besides me. So I appreciate all three witnesses being here today, and I reserved my questions till the end for my colleagues to be able to leave me here 

alone with you and not hear all your responses. I will gladly then 

tell them all exactly what you said. 

First off, let me start with Director Dillingham. In your testimony, you indicate that the jury is still out as to whether the FAA 

is successfully carrying out implementation plans for certification. 

Can you give me, in your opinion, the best way the FAA could 

avoid the mistakes in the past when it comes to implementing 

these plans? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Yes, sir. One of the problems that GAO has is 

we have—we have—we have been asked by this committee to look 

at a number of different instances where the implementation of initiatives or recommendations has been at the center of it, the implementation by FAA. And what we found is the definition of ‘‘implemented’’ and ‘‘completed’’ sort of varies from we just started to, we 

have got a plan to, we have actually done some things. 

So our answer to that is, you know, as part of congressional oversight is to make sure that there are some metrics by which the 

agency can be held accountable, metrics that include sort of a baseline metrics, where do we start; an interim metric, where are we 

now when the Congress asks again; and in the end, an outcome 

metric, what did we actually achieve related to what the objective 

of the initiative was? 

So we are very much into performance metrics and accountability 

so that we can get some consistency, and the Congress can know 

what it actually means when FAA says we have implemented 22 

out of 30 or we have implemented 10 out of 14. It is kind of—it 

is hard for us to tell at this point without really digging, digging, 

and digging. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. Well, welcome to our world. So in your opinion, basically, we should hold the FAA accountable to these metrics 

and these performance measures and ask more specific reasons 

why these performance measures are not being followed. 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. Exactly. And what do they mean? I mean, it is 

OK to use the concept of implemented and completed, but what do 

48 

they actually mean? What is the, you know, sort of where is the 

beef kind of answer. 

Mr. DAVIS. So what you are saying is the FAA is not clear? 

Dr. DILLINGHAM. It varies in terms of when you ask the status 

of something. It varies as to what the term means. 

Mr. DAVIS. Absolutely. Well, thank you very, very much. Thanks 

for bearing with me, too. 

Chairman Hart, your testimony before us today highlights accidents and incidents where the agency has used its investigative authority to actually promote safety objectives. Can you elaborate on 

what the purview of the NTSB is today? And given the safety advances that have been made in aviation as well as other modes, 

how has the agency evolved since its inception? 

Mr. HART. Thank you for the question. I know I look old, but I 

am not old enough to have been around since its inception, but I 

will do my best on answering that nonetheless. We recognize that 

there is a new environment today and we need to respond to that 

new reality. The new environment is new mostly because of huge 

IT advances, and so that is going to change the way that all of us 

do business, and we are looking to respond to that new reality. 

In the old days, after an accident, we would do our exhaustive 

investigation, identify all the links in the chain and come out with 

a report in 18 to 24 months. The report was very useful to management because they would say, I didn’t know that happened in my 

airline every day, and it was very useful to the FAA who would 

say, I didn’t know that happened in that airline every day. The 

worker bees, of course, knew about it because they did it every day. 

Fast forward 20 years, today we issue that same report, and by 

the time it hits the street in 18 to 24 months, because of the amazing advances that the industry has made through collaboration 

with the Government in collecting and analyzing data, there is a 

good chance they already know about the problems and they are 

already fixing those problems. 

So what is the value that we bring to that table? And that is one 

of my challenges is to make sure that we position ourselves strategically to add value to that equation because the industry has done 

very well, but there is always room for improvement, and our challenge is how do we play a strategic role in that improvement. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. Thank you. 

Ms. Baker, my district is a very rural district in central Illinois. 

It is a district that includes many acres of agricultural land and 

large real estate tracts, and we have seen that unmanned aircraft, 

unmanned aerial vehicles are easily utilized to help not only on the 

production side of the agricultural sector, but also on the real estate side to ensure that property could be shown effectively since 

they are very large and very difficult for an individual to go walk 

the entire acreage of some of the tracts of land. 

So I am concerned about what I think is the FAA’s somewhat 

slow activity in the rulemaking process. There is obviously a growing demand. All you had to do was hear the stories from the 

Christmas season about UAVs and how they were popular gifts. I 

didn’t get one, so I hope maybe you did. But what is the status of 

the FAA’s efforts to put a risk-based certification system in place 

for UAS? 

49 

Ms. BAKER. There are, again, various activities that are ongoing. 

If we are looking for an actual certification of it, I think we have 

got a good AC, and we have already shown that we can certify 

them in a restricted category and would like to continue to in that 

vein. But we are also issuing the exemptions, as Gerald mentioned, 

the section 333 of the last reauthorization to allow people to start 

to use these in areas where they can mitigate the possible damage 

to people and property. 

So I think that we have ways to accommodate many of the things 

that you are talking about now and will move on to make sure that 

we provide more and more opportunities in the future. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, you granted 333 exemptions so far? 

Ms. BAKER. No, no, the section 333 of the last reauthorization 

bill. 

Mr. DAVIS. Oh, you granted 13 in section 333, you granted 13 exemptions so far, right? 

Ms. BAKER. I am not—you might have a better number than I, 

but we knew we weren’t doing a very good job at getting them out 

the door, and so just last week we pulled a group together and assured that they had everybody that needs to be involved in establishing the mitigations that are necessary to assure that we can do 

this safely and put them in one room so that we can get these out 

as quickly as possible. So they are building templates. What happened before was that there were offices that were remote from 

each other, and just the sheer need to send emails and stuff back 

and forth was causing delays. So we got everybody in one room, the 

attorneys, the engineers, the inspectors, everybody at one place so 

that we could churn up the volume. 

I would hope that in a week or two, you will see a lot more coming out of our doors. We have 120-day metric that we want to assure that we beat by quite a bit, and to do that, we have this group 

of people that are solely focused on just issuing those exemptions. 

Mr. DAVIS. I mean, I hope they are still not locked in the room 

right now. 

Ms. BAKER. Almost. We probably bring them in pizza. 

Mr. DAVIS. I mean, we have 13 that have been granted. How 

many do you estimate have been requested, exemptions have been 

requested? 

Ms. BAKER. I don’t know what the count is now, but we are anticipating hundreds. 

Mr. DAVIS. In the hundreds. OK. And Canada has granted thousands of exemptions, and I mean, we just have some concerns 

over—we look to UAVs as part of our flight and part of our aviation 

sector for years to come, and there has got to be a way for us to 

be much more—much more receptive to the newness and much 

more receptive to ensuring that they don’t provide any opportunity 

for incursions in and around our airports, and it is just simple rulemaking, it is simple procedures. 

We ought not to, in my opinion, look to the future with exemptions, and more so look at how do we implement them into our existing system. I would urge the FAA to do that, and as you know, 

as you come in front of this committee often, I will probably be asking you more. 

50 

Is there any—are there any performance measures—you mentioned 120 days for the group now that you have gotten together 

locked in the room, and you expect that to actually be done before 

120 days for all of the hundreds of applications? 

Ms. BAKER. We have a metric for all exemptions to get them out 

within 120 days. That is regardless of whether it is on UAS or 

other things. What we are trying to do is to reduce the amount of 

time that it takes to get the UAS exemptions out because of the 

sheer volume. 

Again, if we can get templates, people can see what others are 

granted and make theirs as similar to the request as one that was 

already granted, it will expedite our ability to get them out. 

Mr. DAVIS. OK. Well, I look forward to working with you, and 

just as you offered to keep my colleague Mr. Lipinski up to date 

on part 23, I would actually ask that you also send that to my office, too. 

Ms. BAKER. OK. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. And thank you very much for your testimony. If there are no further questions, although I am still always 

haunted by former Chairman Young looking at all of us up here in 

front of you, if there are no further questions, I thank the witnesses for their testimony, and the members who are not here, for 

their participation. I ask unanimous consent that the record of today’s hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have 

provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them 

in writing, and unanimous consent that the record remain open for 

15 days for additional comments and information submitted by 

members or witnesses to be included in the record of today’s hearing. Without objection, so ordered. The committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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Æ 


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