President’s Message: Making the Sky Safe for Vertical Aviation

James A. Viola is VAI’s president and CEO. After a career as a US Army aviator, he joined the FAA, where he served as director of the Office of General Aviation Safety Assurance before joining VAI. James holds ATP ratings in both airplanes and helicopters and is a CFII. Contact him at President@verticalavi.org.

President’s Message: Making the Sky Safe for Vertical Aviation

VAI is speaking up to safeguard our industry’s future.

By James A. Viola

Only one organization fights every day to ensure a bright future for our expanding and diversifying industry: Vertical Aviation International (VAI). It is VAI’s purpose to fuel the growth of the vertical aviation industry—to see that it not only survives but thrives. Our advocacy efforts on your behalf are one important way we fulfill that purpose.

With all the changes occurring in aviation, critical questions are ahead for us to resolve, questions whose answers will have lasting effects on our industry. Here are some of the ways in which VAI has been representing your interests in front of regulators, legislators, the courts, and other aviation interests:

• Who administers the airspace? VAI gained a recent victory when the US District Court in Hawaii agreed with our assertion that, as the federal government’s authorized agent for aviation, the FAA, not the state legislature, should oversee the airspace. The court’s decision overturned a section of a bill that imposed burdensome reporting requirements on that state’s air tour operators.
• What will the rules be for remotely piloted operations? The FAA is currently writing rules that would permit unmanned aircraft systems to fly beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the remote pilot or observer. VAI will soon release a policy statement on the issue that explains our position in more detail. Briefly, though, VAI maintains that BVLOS operations must be performed within a system of performance-based requirements harmonized across all airspace operators that protect the safety of all.
• Who should be in the room when decisions affecting aviation safety are made? The National Park Service’s decision to have nonaviation stakeholders make critical safety-of-flight decisions is one of the alarming outcomes of that agency’s air tour management plan (ATMP) process. VAI is working to get the ATMPs back on track, including bringing aviation stakeholders such as VAI and operators into the decision-making process.

VAI’s advocacy on behalf of our industry pays off in other ways as well. New legal or regulatory decisions are often based on precedent—past decisions or rulings—so VAI’s actions to, for example, preserve infrastructure and airspace access are vital to the success of both the current and future vertical aviation industry. When access to airspace is eliminated, when vital aviation infrastructure is torn down, we risk losing that airspace and that infrastructure forever.

This is why coming together as a united industry makes so much sense. We occupy the same low-altitude airspace, use the same infrastructure, and enjoy all the advantages that vertical aviation gives us. We also wrestle with the same challenges—why not find solutions that will lift us all?

Moreover, the public does not see the fine distinctions that we in the industry think divide us. When an operator 1,000 miles from you, someone you have never met or even talked to, has an accident, that news affects how the public sees your operation—and indeed vertical aviation as a whole. All sectors of our industry have a stake in making sure that the next era of aviation is launched efficiently, economically, and safely. The whole world is watching.

VAI’s commitment to addressing the immediate needs of the vertical aviation industry lays the groundwork for a future in which we all can thrive, ensuring that the industry can fly to new heights for generations to come.