By Scott Hamilton
Billy Nolen, former acting administrator of the FAA. Credit: ZeroAvia.
Dec. 16, 2025, © Leeham News, Washington (DC): A former acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration predicts that alternative technology aircraft will be plying the US skies in two years.
Billy Nolen was acting administrator from April 1, 2022, to June 2023. He predicts that three companies will be certified. He did not name the companies, but referred to supersonic and hybrid propulsion.
Nolen appeared at the monthly meeting of the AeroClub Washington (DC) on Dec. 2 along with three other former top FAA officials.
“I am optimistic about, I believe that in two years, we will probably have three companies that will be certified. We will continue to show the use cases. You’ve got other forms of hybrid propulsion. We’ll have supersonic travel. It could come at a better time,” he said.
Nolen was named in March as Senior Strategy & Regulatory Advisor of ZeroAvia, which is developing hydrogen-powered aircraft. He is the chief regulatory officer for Archer, an eVTOL company. His resume does not list an affiliation with Boom SuperSonic, which is developing an 88-passenger SST designed to be capable of using 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel. Boom’s potential certification, however, will go beyond the two-year horizon Nolen suggested.
Nolen also said Artificial Intelligence (AI) will become increasingly common and that the FAA will benefit from it.
“AI is here. If we use it wisely, we will have an agency that in two years’ time will have the structure, the tools, the capabilities, the talent, and most importantly, the money that needs to go into the national economy.”
Market, political interests converging
Market and political interests are converging to enable unprecedented cooperation between the FAA and industry for technological advances in the coming years, said the four former top FAA officials at the AeroClub event.
“In my career, I haven’t seen the stars align quite like they have for this administration,” said Dan Elwell. He served with the FAA from 2017-2020, first as deputy administrator and then as acting administrator.
“I’m not trying to be partisan, but the energy from the administration to the agencies, and to the players in our ecosystem, has never been stronger to get real stuff done in a real good way. I think this window of opportunity is incredibly timely with all the new entrants and the FAA.”
“We haven’t even touched AI. In every conference I’ve been in in the past year, it’s all we’ve talked about.”
Katie Thomson, a former deputy administrator (2023-2025), said that all the building blocks are in place. “We just have to make sure we get out of our own way and that we’re ruthlessly pursuing progress. When we have differences, and we’ll always have differences, figure out how we can resolve them the fastest way and keep moving forward. Don’t get knocked off our game.”
Marion Blakey was the FAA administrator from 2002-2007. “One thing I would say that I think is still challenging is looking to build stronger relationships and tap the resources. I mean the intellectual, technological resources between the DOD (Department of Defense) and the FAA. I would throw NASA into that because there’s a tremendous amount of follow-up aging, exciting work that’s being done.
“We pull together and really accelerate. Some of it can be done, I think, very gently if we just get out of the bureaucratic levels.”
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