Certification Readiness Level Scale: Maturing the Certifiability of Innovative Aircraft

This paper presents the Certification Readiness Level scale, an innovative framework designed for systematically evaluating the maturity of a regulatory system for future certification and operational readiness of novel aeronautical products. This nine-level, technology-agnostic scale defines criteria and outputs to guide rulemaking and standardization activities, ensuring their readiness when initiating a certification process. Complementing existing maturity scales, it starts with the early anticipation of regulations and safety objectives during concept development, progressing through the determination of regulatory gaps and the elaboration and approval of necessary rules. It has been developed and experimented within the European Clean Aviation CONCERTO project to de-risk and accelerate innovation in aviation. The paper details the full scale and its implementation for future certification of hydrogen-powered aircraft, active wing concept and high-voltage electrical distribution.