House to ease civil aviation regulations

The bill was introduced by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), and approved last week by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Aviation subcommittee Chairman Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) said last week that the bill would make “necessary, commonsense reforms to the existing prescriptive regulatory regime” for small aircraft.

{mosads}Supporters of the bill note that the general aviation industry includes 600,000 pilots and adds $150 billion to the economy each year, but has suffered from fewer pilots and flights due to overly burdensome regulations.

In June, an FAA committee made new recommendations for how to change the Federal Aviation Regulations dealing with small airplane certification. Those recommendations are aimed at streamlining the certification rules, and the bill would require the FAA to act on those recommendations by Dec. 31, 2015.