Honda's HA-480 Goes to FL470, and the FAA Is Writing Rules for It

The FAA has put forward a proposal for special conditions covering the HA-480 from Honda Aircraft, a design meant to cruise as high as Flight Level 470. In owner terms, that puts the airplane at 47,000 feet, well above most of the traffic it would share a ramp with. Special conditions are the FAA's way of adding requirements when the standard certification rules don't fully cover what a new design is meant to do, and here the issue is altitude. For now this is only a proposal and not a final rule. Owners watching the HA-480 should treat it as one more piece of the airplane's path through certification.

With reporting from AVweb.