Prime Propulsion Aviation Blog: FAA Certification & Engineering Insights

Our previous post laid out the guidelines when an STC is needed, but why would an individual or company go through all the work and costs...

If you've followed our posts on PMA and the two ways to obtain one, you know a PMA is about producing a replacement part. A Supplemental Type Certificate is a different tool for a different job: it's how you get FAA approval to modify a product that's already type-certified. An STC approves a major modification to a type-certified product — an aircraft, engine, or propeller — and documents how that modification affects the original design. An STC can be issued for a single ai

An ODA is an organization or company that the FAA has granted designee authority related to issuing certificates, testing, inspection, or...

Last month we discussed what exactly a PMA ( Parts Manufacturer Approval) is, but let’s start going down the path of how a company can obtain one. There are primarily two ways, Identicality and Test and Computations. A company can decide which is most beneficial to them based on the information they have on-hand or can obtain by the time of submission to DER (Designated Engineering Representative) or FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). So, lets dive into some details about

A Parts Manufacturer Approval is an FAA design and manufacturing approval for aircraft, engine, or propeller part. A company can only receive approval after the FAA (or Designated Engineering Representatives (DER)) has reviewed the submission package and MIDO has reviewed the production quality system to verify the part that shall be produced will be to the FAA approved design. PMA parts are typically used as a replacement for an Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) part. T

If you're pursuing a PMA, STC, or any certification project that requires engineering data approval, at some point the question comes up: do you work with a Designated Engineering Representative, or route everything through the FAA directly? The short answer is that a DER doesn't just speed things up — a DER changes how the project runs from the beginning. And that difference shows up in the timeline, the number of FAA review cycles, and whether problems get found early enoug