Aviation authorities from the U.S., Brazil, Europe and Canada have developed a roadmap designed to increase collaboration and smooth the product-validation process. A Certification Management Team (CMT)—comprising officials from the U.S. FAA, Brazilian ANAC, European Aviation Safety Agency and Transport Canada Civil Aviation—established the bilateral validation improvement roadmap (VIR) to enable the agencies to leverage their partnerships and take a risk-based approach in the certification process.

“The continued globalization of the aviation industry has prompted collaboration among the world’s civil aviation authorities to harmonize regulatory systems,” the FAA said, noting that industry growth is placing demand on available agency resources for certification and validation projects. “By maximizing the use of existing U.S. bilateral partnerships with our CMT partner countries, we can reduce the amount of effort all of the agencies currently expend on validation programs,” the agency added. The CMT strategy, the FAA said, is changing how it prioritizes its resources in the international arena.

The roadmap includes milestones to ensure that efficiencies and benefits are negotiated through the EU/U.S. bilateral aviation safety agreement and should improve the export of aviation products and technologies between Europe and the U.S., GAMA added, praising the effort.

GAMA president and CEO Pete Bunce called the roadmap an “extremely important step forward to strengthen global leadership and streamline certification processes among authorities,” and added, “GAMA has long advocated[the roadmap] to facilitate effective implementation of the EU/U.S. safety agreement and reduce redundant certification inspections."