Certification

Certification and Safety Assessment

Systems, safety, and certification engineering for electric, hybrid-electric, and autonomous aircraft, from the first safety assessment through to approval.

Explore the compliance accelerator

DO-178C and DO-254 design assurance: DAL A
Integrated modular avionics platform: TSO-C153a
Development assurance: ARP4754
System safety: ARP4761
Designated Engineering Representatives on staff: FAA DERs

Accelerator

Compliance Accelerator

A TSO-C153a platform, certification data, and DER-led engineering support that shorten the path to TSO authorization, Type Certificate, or Supplemental Type Certificate.

Explore the compliance accelerator

Integrated modular avionics platform developed to DAL A for TSO-C153a authorization
DO-297 module acceptance credit on authorization of the platform
Usage domain, compliance summaries, and qualification data for certification
Stage of Involvement support from FAA Designated Engineering Representatives

Services

How we help

Certification support

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Designated Engineering Representatives (DERs) on staff. Support for G-1 and G-2 issue papers, the certification basis, means of compliance, test witnessing, and formal validation and verification.

Safety assessment

ARP4761A safety assessment, from Functional Hazard Assessment (FHA) through Preliminary System Safety Assessment (PSSA) to System Safety Assessment (SSA), with in-house tools that shorten each iteration.

Systems engineering

ARP4754B development assurance scaled to each project, with Development Assurance Levels (DALs) allocated to DO-178C software and DO-254 hardware.

AI accelerator

A Git-based configuration management system (CMS) for plans, standards, and configuration items. Every change is peer-reviewed and rebuilt. AI-assisted engineering review assesses the data for consistency with the applicable standards, verifies traceability, and identifies deficiencies.

Training

Certification and Safety Training

Training for applicants and 12 civil aviation authorities worldwide, from performance- and safety-based certification to the safety process techniques and their integration with hardware and software development.

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Performance- and safety-based certification, and continued airworthiness
Safety process techniques, from fault tree analysis to STPA
Integration with the complex hardware and software processes
eVTOL, hydrogen fuel cell, and hybrid-electric exercises

Resources

Guides and white papers

Analyses and white papers by Hover safety and certification engineers.

Analysis

eVTOL Safety Analysis

Fault tree analysis of electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) propulsion architectures with 6 to 12 electric propulsion units, ranked from a safety and systems optimization perspective.

White paperJuly 2020

Holistic Safety Analysis for Urban Air Mobility

Harmonizing FAA and EASA probability budgets and Development Assurance Levels for UAM aircraft, with compensating factors, human factors, COTS equipment, and neural networks.

White paperJuly 2019

Regulations and Standards Gap Analysis

Using STPA and a holistic safety analysis to find and close the gaps in regulations and standards for electric, hybrid-electric, and hydrogen fuel cell powertrains.

Comparison

ARP4761 and ARP4761A Comparison

The differences between SAE ARP4761 and ARP4761A, from aircraft-level safety assessments and model-based safety analysis to FDAL and IDAL assignment.

Analysis

Propulsion Unit Safety Analysis

Fault tree analysis of seven Electric Propulsion Unit (EPU) architectures, comparing loss of thrust and uncommanded thrust as redundancy and monitoring are added.

Analysis

DO-311A Battery Safety Analysis

The DO-311A safety prerequisites and thermal runaway containment test, with a battery-level fault tree analysis of uncontained battery cell thermal runaway.

Analysis

Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Byzantine fault tolerance explained, with three channel architectures for eVTOL aircraft and electric and hybrid-electric powertrains, from triplex to fully Byzantine fault tolerant.

Analysis

Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA)

The STPA process, with control structures, unsafe control actions, and safety constraints for an electric propulsion system, an energy storage system, and an optionally piloted eVTOL aircraft.

Certification and Safety Assessment

Compliance Accelerator

How we help

Certification support

Safety assessment

Systems engineering

AI accelerator

Certification and Safety Training

Guides and white papers

eVTOL Safety Analysis

Holistic Safety Analysis for Urban Air Mobility

Regulations and Standards Gap Analysis

ARP4761 and ARP4761A Comparison

Propulsion Unit Safety Analysis

DO-311A Battery Safety Analysis

Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA)

Designing a certifiable aircraft?