Leeham News and Analysis
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Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 12. Preliminary Design; Requirements Definition.
By Bjorn Fehrm and Henry Tam
October 17, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a series about ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development time and reaching certification and production faster than previous projects.
The series will discuss the typical development cycles for an FAA Part 25 aircraft, called a transport category aircraft, and what different ideas there are to reduce the development times.
We will use the Gantt plan in Figure 1 as a base for our discussions. We added two milestones to our Program Plan, which we will refer to in the articles: Preliminary Design Review and Critical Design Review. Here is their definition according to NASA:
The Preliminary Design Review (PDR) demonstrates that the preliminary design meets all system requirements with acceptable risk and within the cost and schedule constraints, and establishes the basis for proceeding with detailed design. It shows that the correct design options have been selected, interfaces have been identified, and verification methods have been described. The PDR should address and resolve critical, system-wide issues and show that work can begin on detailed design.
The Critical Design Review (CDR) demonstrates that the maturity of the design is appropriate to support proceeding with full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration, and test. CDR determines if the technical effort is on track to complete the system development, meeting mission performance requirements within the identified cost and schedule constraints.
Figure 1. A generic new Part 25 airliner development plan. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
*** Special thanks to Andrew Telesca for helping with this article***
FAA begins to ease restrictions on Boeing
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Part 2 of 2
By Scott Hamilton
Oct. 06, 2025, © Leeham News: Boeing is making progress toward its recovery from six years of back-to-back-to-back crises, but slow certification of three airplane derivatives has been a major roadblock. Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration began to ever so slowly ease its strict oversight of Boeing.
The first Boeing 777-9 taxis out for its first flight of the program. Credit: Leeham News.
Certification of the 777X requires a series of flight tests specific to what’s called Type Inspection Authorization (TIA), issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. Typically, TIA is a one-step authorization. The FAA is granting this in stages, to the frustration of Boeing and CEO Kelly Ortberg.
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Certification of the 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10 derivatives was paused during the 21-month grounding of the MAX 8 and MAX 9 following the March 10, 2019, crash of the second MAX 8 within five months. The two accidents killed 346 people; the root cause was traced to a design flaw within software that pushed the nose of the MAX down in the event a potential stall was detected.
During the lengthy investigation of the MAX crashes, further flaws of a less serious nature were identified. The FAA required these to be fixed before the 7s and 10s are certified. This process has not gone smoothly. According to information provided to LNA, the unintended consequences of new legislation adopted by Congress during the MAX investigation appear to be causing repeated delays in certifying the MAX in addition to some nettlesome technical issues.
Additionally, action by the Trump Administration to eliminate jobs across the government, including the FAA, as part of its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) killed some jobs tied to aircraft certification.
To summarize:
Staffing shortages affect Air Traffic Control, NOTAMS, updates–and Boeing
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Part 1 of 2 Parts
By Colleen Mondor
Oct. 2, 2025, © Leeham News: The Trump Administration’s drive to cut employment in the federal government slashed numbers across virtually every agency and department.
But for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has perpetually been understaffed across its air traffic controllers (ATC), technicians, and certification units, the impact exacerbates an already tenuous situation.
Credit: Federal Aviation Administration.
For airlines and passengers, delays have skyrocketed at key airports, followed by a surge in cancellations. Operating costs skyrocketed for the airlines as scores or aircraft sat on taxiways waiting to take off or backed up on the tarmac awaiting a gate occupied by airplanes that couldn’t take off.
Runway incursions have increased, as have near-collisions in mid-air.
Shortages of aircraft certification employees at the FAA have slowed Boeing’s recovery from six years of sorting out its crises and “ticketing authority” as the FAA scrutinizes the company. FAA certification of the Airbus A321XLR was slow, adding to the one-year delay of its entry into service.
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Special Note
The US federal government shut down at midnight on Sept. 30 when Congress failed to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the government. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) laid off more than 11,000 employees. Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) has been under strict FAA scrutiny since March 2019, notably for 737 MAX production, safety, and quality control issues. The FAA revoked BCA’s ability to certify its new airplanes as airworthy before delivery to customers, assuming this responsibility.
On Sept. 29, the FAA partially returned this authority to Boeing, which now may certify the airplanes on a weekly alternating schedule. With the government shutdown, the question of FAA’s oversight and certification of Boeing airplanes arises. Boeing declined comment, but Boeing has told customers that at least for now, production rates, certification, and FAA oversight activities will continue uninterrupted. This may change if the government shutdown is prolonged.
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Staffing shortages among controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport will cause existing cuts in flight service to be extended through October 2026, Reuters reported on Sept. 25.
This was the latest in a litany of news articles highlighting staffing issues within the nation’s air traffic control system. The Washington Post reported in July that nearly 20% of recruits at the FAA training academy failed to complete the training program, contributing to shortages. It then followed up on Sept. 21 that the academy was struggling with instructor shortages.
USA Today asked in May, “Why air traffic control is under so much stress”, while NPR spoke with controllers in July and declared the “…push to modernize equipment won’t fix deeper problems.”
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 3.
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 15, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a series about recent ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New project talks about cutting development time and reaching certification and production faster than previous projects.
The series will discuss the typical development cycles for an FAA Part 25 aircraft, called a transport category aircraft, and what different ideas there are to reduce the development times.
We will use the Gantt plan in Figure 1 as a base for our discussions. Before we start the discussions, we outline the process to certify a transport category aircraft under the US FAA 14 CFR Part 25 regulations and how it relates to the Figure 1 plan.
Figure 1. A generic new Part 25 airliner development plan. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
US House Panel approves jump in FAA budget
- AIN’s Oshkosh Air Venture show news is here.
House Panel Approves Budget Jump for FAA in 2026
House bill to provide a $23.3 billion budget for FAA in 2026
By Kerry Lynch • Editor, AIN monthly magazine
July 18, 2025
The U.S. House Appropriations Committee yesterday approved a $23.3 billion budget for the FAA in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026, more than a $2.3 billion increase over the agency’s funding in the current year and including enough for the hiring of 2,500 air traffic controllers. The FY2026 transportation, housing, and urban development (THUD) bill passed 35-to-28 after a nearly eight-hour markup, drawing opposition from Democrats over funding measures primarily involving the HUD side of the bill.
The full story on AIN may be found here.
DOT Chief Continues Push for More ATC Funding
Duffy says FAA needs $31.5 billion to completely upgrade ATC
By Kerry Lynch • Editor, AIN monthly magazine
July 17, 2025
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy continued his push for further federal investment into modernization of the air traffic control system, reiterating to lawmakers yesterday that it will take $31.5 billion “to do the full project.”
Duffy appeared before the full House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to discuss a range of priorities for the Department of Transportation.
The full story on AIN may be found here.
NASA’s Quiet Supersonic Jet Completes First Taxi Tests
By Amy Wilder • Writer
July 18, 2025
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft completed its first taxi test on July 10, the initial movement of the experimental jet under its own power. The test took place at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, and signals the start of the final phase of ground testing before first flight.
The full story on AIN may be found here.
Pratt & Whitney Plots Next Century of Aircraft Engines
Aircraft engine maker Pratt & Whitney is celebrating its 100th anniversary today, having entered the market with its R-1340 Wasp radial engine in 1925. The company, which is now part of the RTX aerospace and defense group, has more than 90,000 engines in service worldwide on a variety of airplanes and helicopters.
The full story on AIN may be found here.
Parent agency, FAA often at odds as politics outweighs safety
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By Colleen Mondor
June 26, 2025, © Leeham News: On March 12, 2019, then-Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and her staff flew from Texas to Washington (DC) on a Southwest Airlines 737 MAX. It was two days after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, the second devastating accident involving the 737 MAX.
In taking the flight, Chao showed not only her support for Boeing and Southwest, but even more so the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which steadfastly refused to ground the aircraft. As the pressure mounted, the agency stressed the importance of its methodical data-gathering process, which had begun months earlier with the October crash of Lion Air.
Chao also reassured the public, telling reporters “I want people to be assured that we take these accidents very seriously. We are reviewing them very carefully.” The day after her flight, President Trump announced that after conversations with Chao, the CEO of Boeing and Dan Elwell, the FAA’s acting administrator, his administration was grounding the aircraft. Elwell told reporters later that day, however, that the decision rested with the FAA. “So the decision is an emergency order to ground the airplanes,” he said, “and that is authority rested in the FAA with me.”
Chao’s flight centered her in yet another chapter of the ongoing saga between the Department of Transportation (DOT) and FAA. This was familiar territory for DOT which, since the FAA lost its independence in 1967, has often portrayed itself as the crucial, agent of flight safety in the U.S.
The most recent example was when current transportation secretary Sean Duffy captured media attention after the January 29 midair collision over Reagan National Airport. The FAA, which again had an acting Administrator, was relegated to secondary sound bites as Duffy declared, “We are going to take responsibility at the Department of Transportation and the FAA to make sure we have the reforms…to make sure that these mistakes do not happen again and again.”
FAA’s data of accident, incidents, often not shared
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By Colleen Mondor
May 19, 2025, © Leeham News: On March 27, acting FAA Administrator Chris Rocheleau testified before the US Senate Commerce Committee on the continued fallout from the Jan. 29 midair collision near Reagan National Airport in Washington (DC) between an American Eagle Airlines CRJ-700 and a US Army helicopter. All aboard both craft died.
In response to repeated questions from several senators about how warning signs about the congested airspace were missed, Rocheleau admitted that the agency needed to be more proactive about future safety issues, saying, “We have to identify trends, we have to get smarter about how we use data, and when we put corrective actions in place, we must execute them.”
FAA history of trend analysis
The FAA has collected safety information on National Airspace System users for decades. While the earliest data contained incident and accident reports drawn from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency’s Aviation Incident Data System and the Service Difficulty Reporting System were created in 1978. By the early 1980s, they were stored in the FAA’s “System 2000,” where eventually they were converted into usable formats and transmitted to FAA employees. It was cumbersome, time-consuming, and not entirely accessible. But it was a start, and by 1988, as listed in the following table from the Office of Technology Assessment, several other databases had been established.
| Data Type | Database | Federal Agency | Earliest Year* |
| Accident/Incident | Aviation Accident Data System | NTSB | 1962 |
| Accident/Incident | Accident Incident Data System | FAA | 1978 |
| Incident | Aviation Safety Reporting System | NASA | 1975 |
| Incident | Near Midair Collision Database | FAA | 1980 |
| Incident | Operational Error Database | FAA | 1985 |
| Incident | Pilot Deviation Database | FAA | 1985 |
| Mechanical Reliability | Service Difficulty Reporting System | FAA | 1978 |
| Air Operator Data System | FAA | 1980 | |
| Traffic Levels | Air Traffic Activity Database | FAA | Previous 18 months |
| Operational Practices | Air Operator Data System | FAA | 1980 |
| Air Carrier Statistics Database | RSPA | 1968 | |
| Inspection Results | Work Program Management System | FAA | 1987 |
| Violations/Enforcement Actions | Enforcement Information System | FAA | 1963 |
*Earliest year for data stored electronically. RSPA = Research and Special Programs Administration. “Incident” in this database does not always refer to NTSB-determined incidents. Other agencies sometimes use the term for any manner of non-accident events.
The FAA: Tombstone Agency or Hampered by Tombstone Politics?
Special Report: The US Federal Aviation Administration is known to be slow in mandating changes related to safety. The FAA has come under widespread criticism for Congress and families of crash victims, in recent history with increasing frequency. Sometimes called the Tombstone Agency, this name emerged after the FAA repeatedly failed to implement safety requirements until after fatal or near-fatal air crashes. But as this Special Report shows, actions—or the lack of them—have roots going back to the propeller days.
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By Colleen Mondor
March 6, 2025, © Leeham News: On Jan. 31, two days after the midair collision near Reagan National Airport in Washington (DC), the FAA announced it was indefinitely restricting usage of the two low level helicopter routes through the airspace.
Two weeks later, the Wall Street Journal reported the agency was moving to permanently delete those routes. For longtime FAA observers, this was yet another example of reactionary response, further proof of a “tombstone mentality” that permeates the FAA bureaucracy. For those who subscribe to such a view, the FAA never does anything until the cost is so high there is no other choice. In Flying Blind, Flying Safe, former Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo said the attitude was pervasive but then relied upon a common construct to support the claim: the anonymous source. In her case, she quoted a third hand exchange between an unnamed FAA official and unknown journalist where the official apparently said: “We regulate by counting tombstones.”
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The origins of the tombstone moniker are unknown. On his website, consumer advocate Ralph Nader shares a quote from an unnamed National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) official dating to the time of his 1994 book on airline safety. This official allegedly said, “that the FAA operates under a ‘tombstone imperative’.” The same terminology was headlined by the Tampa Bay Times that year and in 2001 the Washington Post referred to “tombstone regulation” writing that “Great leaps forward in aviation safety often occur after crashes.” Last month, on February 12, the New York Times cited the crashes in DC, Pennsylvania and Alaska, to make the reference again, saying the FAA “has earned the nickname the tombstone agency among aviation safety advocates for not addressing potential problems until disaster struck.”.
Politics and the FAA
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By Colleen Mondor
Credit: New York Post.
Feb. 13, 2025, © Leeham News: On Jan. 29 at 8:47 PM, a US Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter flying a low-level route over the Potomac River collided with a PSA Airlines Mitsubishi CRJ700 operating as an American Airlines flight 5342 on final approach to Washington Reagan National Airport.
The military crew of three and the 64 passengers and crew on flight 5342 were all killed. The near immediate upload of Air Traffic Control (ATC) communications online showed that flight 5342 was cleared for final to runway 33 while approaching the airport from the south. The Black Hawk, transitioning the airspace from the north, requested visual separation and acknowledged traffic in sight.
In the aftermath of the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) immediately launched a “GO Team” in the area. It held an early press conference with all five members of the board present. Within hours of the crash, however, it was obvious that two potentially conflicting stories were emerging. The first was a traditional aviation accident investigation, which included the NTSB and investigators from the US military. The second was comprised of pure politics and fueled by negative comments from President Trump the day after the accident, which attacked not only the professionalism of Reagan’s ATC employees but controllers nationwide.
FAA understaffing affects air operations oversight; NTSB falls short, too
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By Colleen Mondor
Commentary
Jan. 13, 2025, © Leeham News: When discussing the topic of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) staffing, it is traditionally Air Traffic Controllers that command media attention. Even when problems surfaced after the Boeing 737 MAX accidents in 2018-19, and following the Jan. 5, 2024, door plug failure on Alaska Airlines flight 1282, the discussion of FAA oversight remained narrow, focused only on Boeing.
Staffing levels within Flight Standards District Offices (FSDO) and how they impact commercial operations, especially among Part 135 operators, are rarely mentioned. (Part 135 operators are commuter airlines and on-demand companies.) And yet it is the inspectors for operations, maintenance, and avionics who can have the greatest positive impact on flight safety or, when absent, the most detrimental.
Between 2019 and 2023, there were 330 accidents involving Part 135 operators. (More than 100 occurred while operating under Part 91 or Part 133. Part 91 are individuals and corporate operators. Part 133 covers rotorcraft external operations.) In 11 of them, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted extensive interviews with FAA inspectors. Such interviews are largely the only way to obtain direct information on inspectors’ feelings about staffing and workload concerns. Their experiences vary, with Alaska standing out with the most severe staff shortages. A common theme is not having enough time to conduct in-person visits.