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Editorial

First Word: February 2012

When I travel around and visit various aviation businesses, a common complaint is how difficult—and expensive—it is to move a certification project of any kind through the FAA. The smaller the company is, the more stressful the process is because major companies like Garmin and Cessna cast a darker shadow and have the staff who can spend time doing nothing but jumping through FAA hoops. Small companies can’t afford that. When light sport came along, the idea was to spur innovation by getting the FAA out of the loop and letting manufacturers do their own approvals with loose oversight by ASTM International.

Paul Bertorelli
Verified

When I travel around and visit various aviation businesses, a common complaint is how difficult—and expensive—it is to move a certification project of any kind through the FAA. The smaller the company is, the more stressful the process is because major companies like Garmin and Cessna cast a darker shadow and have the staff who can spend time doing nothing but jumping through FAA hoops. Small companies can’t afford that.

When light sport came along, the idea was to spur innovation by getting the FAA out of the loop and letting manufacturers do their own approvals with loose oversight by ASTM International.

Paul Bertorelli

Paul Bertorelli is Aviation Consumer’s Editor at Large. In addition to his valued contributions to Aviation Consumer, his in-depth video productions on sister publication AVweb cover a wide variety of topics that greatly contribute to safety, operation and aircraft ownership. When Paul isn’t writing or filming, he’s out flying his J3 Cub.