§44519 Certification Personnel Continuing Education and Training

Summary

Require the FAA Administrator to create regular refresher training for engineers, inspectors, and other experts in the Aircraft Certification Service. The training must follow the strategy from section 231 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. The FAA must also, when possible, give staff chances to work in different divisions so they learn new skills. The agency must set up continuing education for people who do aircraft certification and flight standards—like human factors specialists, engineers, flight test pilots, and inspectors—and, when appropriate, some industry personnel and designees. With outside experts, the FAA must build a curriculum on current and new aircraft technologies, human factors, project management, oversight of designees, and recommended ways to follow FAA rules. When the FAA puts this training in place, it must help staff keep up with new systems, flight controls, safety, oversight, and certification project management; reduce the chance of staff becoming biased toward a particular manufacturer; follow any union contracts; and fix skill gaps the Administrator finds after talking with the certified union representatives under section 7111 of title 5. Congress set aside $10,000,000 for each fiscal year 2021 through 2028 to pay for this, and those funds remain available until spent.