• 04 Mar 2025 01:10 AM
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Washington Report, Mar/Apr 2025

Trump Administration Takes Charge

Shortly after President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, the Senate began confirming several nominees to their posts while acting chiefs have begun leading other agencies.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was sworn into office on Jan. 28, and his department stated he would “roll back burdensome and costly regulations.” Duffy had previously been a Republican congressman from Wisconsin from 2011 to 2019 and later a Fox Business co-host.

Trump named Chris Rocheleau first as Acting Deputy Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and then the Acting Administrator on Jan. 30, in the wake of the first fatal US airline crash in 16 years (see “Rotorcraft News,” Vertiflite, Mar/Apr 2025) the previous day. Since 2022, Rocheleau had been a senior executive at the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) trade group and had previously worked at the FAA for two decades in various roles.

On Jan. 24, the Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense despite criticism about the inexperience of the Fox News host, including a vote against him by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. On Feb. 7, Hegseth said during a town hall meeting at the Pentagon that he would “not maintain the status quo” and would take “unconventional approaches” to slash wasteful spending and the civilian bureaucracy.

In January, Trump also began multiple efforts to lay off federal workers and pressure others to leave government jobs, including directives to end work from home and report to offices. This has created significant inefficiencies for both workers and agencies because many offices don’t have the facilities or desks available to accommodate this sudden shift, with employees having to alternate between using computers and standing by idly.

On Jan. 28, the US Office of Personnel Management sent notices to most civilian federal workers incentivizing them to resign immediately, while on Feb. 13 the government began sending termination emails to as many as 220,000 employees who had been hired within the last year and were still on probation. As many as a half million government employees could be eliminated through these different efforts, reducing the size of the federal workforce by up to 25%.

Multiple legal challenges have been filed against many of these actions.

Laying off federal workers could be a prelude to replacing jobs with AI software, potentially including air traffic safety positions. The Trump Administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, is a wild card for potential changes.

DOGE is planning an 8% cut from the fiscal 2026 Department of Defense (DoD) budget, including targeting the workforce, the number of generals and civilian employees, as well as big ticket items like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The F-35, which includes the short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant, is supplying aircraft to some 20 countries; to date, more than 30 years after the program was launched, over 1,000 fifth-generation fighters have been delivered worldwide, one third of the planned total.

DOGE has also targeted NASA, with Musk having publicly tangled with the agency, as well as the FAA, due to constraints on Musk’s SpaceX launches and contract awards. President Trump has picked billionaire SpaceX investor and astronaut Jared Isaacman — who has been critical of delays and cost overruns in the space program — to lead NASA. The Trump Administration also fired some 400 FAA probationary employees and curtailed the travel and communications of federal agencies with conferences, committees and industry — including safety working groups — as well as participation in international collaborative efforts.

Trump’s executive orders also disrupted payments of previously awarded federal grants for science research, including through the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), NASA, FAA and other agencies. NSF is said to be targeted to have its staff cut in half and its budget, much of which goes to university research, reduced by two-thirds.

The Administration is also working to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts by the federal government, and is seeking to halt efforts by states, universities and private industry. DEI has been seen by many organizations as a way to increase the quality and quantity of workforce talent, particularly in the technical community.

Trade Tariff Push and Shove

On Feb. 1, Trump signed executive orders that would levy tariffs against China, Mexico and Canada. This raised questions not only about how trade restrictions could impact international supply chains and deals, but also about the staying power of such edicts. Trump paused tariffs against Mexico and Canada shortly after his initial announcement was met with criticisms and promises from those nations’ leaders, indicating a strategy of rapid-fire actions until courts or officials push back.

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) trade group noted that Mexico and Canada are “two of the American aerospace and defense industry’s largest trade partners.” In a statement, AIA noted that “Decades-long trade agreements enabled robust civil aviation and defense trade that resulted in a sky-rocketing positive trade balance over the last 40 years, making aerospace and defense the largest American exporting industry. Tariffs on Canada and Mexico could change that positive trajectory.”

FAA Publishes Updated Vertiport Design Brief 

In late December, the FAA published two documents related to powered-lift aircraft, including electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

The final version of “Engineering Brief No. 105A, Vertiport Design, Supplemental Guidance to Advisory Circular 150/5390-2D, Heliport Design,” (EB 105A) was posted on Dec. 27, 2024. This final document resolved many of the concerns submitted by industry associations, including the Vertical Flight Society (see “Washington Report,” Vertiflite, Jan/Feb 2025).

The most important outcome was that the FAA agreed that there should be a unified design guide for heliports and vertiports, covering all vertical flight aircraft. This also resolved a discrepancy in the language, such that all vertiports are considered to be heliports (though not all heliports will be vertiports), with additional symbology recommended for heliports that can act as vertiports. Vertiports are distinguished with the addition of a “VTL” marking on the touchdown and liftoff area (TLOF).

The new guidance also laid the foundation for updating the landing area geometry, creating a subset of the controlling dimension (D) related to just the propulsion devices, where D is the diameter of the smallest circle enclosing of the entire VTOL aircraft projections, RD is the smallest circle enclosing just the propulsion units, which for some designs may be smaller than D. Where applicable, the geometry of the TLOF and final approach and takeoff area (FATO) will now be related to the RD rather than D. Thus, in these instances, the safety area has decreased in size.

EB 105 also created a new section on VTOL parking, with larger parking positions that support air taxiing or hover taxiing to them, rather than just ground taxiing. The FAA also recommends establishing a downwash/outwash caution area (DCA) to protect pedestrians within and near heliports and vertiports anywhere that wind velocity can potentially meet or exceed 34.5 mph (55.5 km/h).

In addition, the previous recommendation that vertiports use the “broken wheel” symbol was removed. All vertiports will now use the traditional helicopter “H” symbol. Simulator testing with pilots at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center indicated that the H was superior to the broken wheel and the “V” symbol proposed by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

As mentioned in the last issue, VFS has organized a Vertical Flight Infrastructure Focus Group to work with the FAA Office of Airports to provide informal feedback as the agency moves forward. However, no one from the FAA attended the early February meeting, likely due to the Trump Administration restrictions mentioned above.

As noted previously, EB 105 states that to achieve the FAA’s desired performance-based heliport design standards, helicopter manufacturers need to include performance data in helicopter flight manuals to inform pilots of an aircraft's capabilities for operations at confined-area landing facilities. This requirement could lead to additional certification requirements for helicopters, which would require rulemaking, and classification criteria for heliports.

Downwash and Outwash

On Dec. 30, the FAA published “Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) Downwash and Outwash Surveys” (DOT/FAA/TC-24/42). The report was based on testing conducted by three eVTOL developers for the FAA with Woolpert and modeling by Advanced Rotorcraft Technology, Inc. using viscous vortex particle method (VVPM).

Archer, Joby and Volocopter volunteered to fly their aircraft for the FAA testing in 2022–2023. The report found that peak velocities exceeded the guideline velocity of 34.5 mph (55.5 km/h), in some cases at distances of 126 ft (38.4 m). The report was the first to document the downwash and outwash (DWOW) measurements of multiple eVTOL aircraft, indicating the need for additional research with a much higher number of sensors to better capture the dynamic nature of the airflow.

The report also noted the limitations of the VVPM modeling approach: “While particles closer to the aircraft are tracked effectively, their paths did not reach distances where DWOW velocities would be considered safe for people. These current limitations make VVPM alone an unlikely tool for forecasting where people and property will not be affected by high winds.”

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has published several reports in recent years on helicopter and eVTOL DWOW. In a tragic incident where a S-92 was landing at a rooftop hospital heliport, one pedestrian sustained fatal injuries and another was seriously injured due to the helicopter’s outwash in March 2022.

In April 2024, the CAA published “Standards for helicopter landing areas at hospitals” (CAP1264) for helicopters, in addition to “Understanding the downwash/outwash characteristics of eVTOL aircraft” (CAP2576A) in October 2023. The CAA is preparing to publish a new document, CAP3075, reporting on trials and simulation work that connects new helicopter downwash knowledge to eVTOL designs, supporting CAP1264 and providing initial verification and validation for CAP2576.

As with EB 105, testing of and planning for eVTOL aircraft will also require more understanding of helicopter operations and capabilities for safer heliports and vertiports in the future.