October 21, 2009
Thanks to Guy Boy from the Florida Inst. of Technology for his heads-up about an interesting conference happening in late 2010. HCI-Aero — a symposium organized under the auspices of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition will be looking at the future of crew-ground interaction from both an aeronautics and a spaceflight perspective. Many of the topics have great relevance to NextGen, i.e.:
- Automation and authority distribution
- Mission/trip planning and trajectory management
- Interacting in a 4D world
- UAV traffic integration
- New concepts of operations, separation modes
The call for papers and workshop/panel/demo proposals has just been published here; most submissions are due in April 2010.
October 16, 2009
As anyone who has ever tried to explain NextGen to friends or family knows, it’s not always easy to communicate NAS capacity issues to a lay audience.
I’ve gotten interested in how information graphics and rich web scripting tools can help make some of these concepts more approachable. Here’s my first experiment, a simple app that allows you to play with factors that may contribute to capacity needs in 2030.
Move the sliders, and see how the factors affect passenger counts, ATC operations, delays, etc.
June 19, 2009
Bloomberg has a lengthy, general-interest article about the weather-related problems faced by aircraft flying between the northern and southern hemisphere (i.e. AF447):
Violent weather in the region can approximate the supercells that spawn tornadoes in the U.S., which exceed altitudes of 50,000 feet, NOAA’s [Pat] Slattery said.
“We are eons ahead in forecasting convective storms in the central part of the U.S. than we are in forecasting them in the tropics,” said National Weather Service’s [Jason] Tuell. “So much of it takes place over water in the tropics — over the Indian Ocean, Pacific and Atlantic — and there is just much less data available because of that.”
There is also a brief discussion of Honeywell’s “IntuVue” 3D weather radar product:
[Honeywell's] three-dimensional systems, introduced less than three years ago, are in a small portion of the commercial aircraft fleet, said Chris Benich, director of aerospace regulatory affairs at the world’s largest maker of airplane controls. Among airlines using IntuVue are Cathay Pacific Airways, Air Canada and Singapore Airlines Ltd., while the U.S. Air Force uses it on C-17 cargo planes, according to a list provided by Honeywell. The cost for long-haul aircraft such as the Boeing 777 is about $335,000, said Bill Reavis, a Honeywell spokesman.
Most commercial planes are equipped with two-dimensional radar that requires pilots to manipulate it to get an accurate picture of the weather, Benich said.
“With older weather radars, pilots have difficulty accurately determining the top of significant weather,” Benich said.
June 15, 2009
From the Associated Press:
Utah’s two U.S. senators are urging the Federal Aviation Administration to hold off testing a new computer system at a Salt Lake City air traffic control center that guides planes across portions of eight states.
Republican Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch wrote FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt on June 11, asking him to delay a test of the new system at the Salt Lake Air Route Traffic Control Center. [..] “Safety concerns demand that ERAM (the computer system) not be implemented until it meets and exceeds the standards of reliability and stability of the system it replaces,” the senators wrote.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency has a meeting scheduled for Tuesday with the union representing air traffic controllers to discuss the test. She said agency officials still have confidence the test can take place as planned.
The test is scheduled from midnight to 4 a.m. on June 18, said Doug Pincock, an air traffic controller [and NATCA rep -- ed.] in Salt Lake City. During that period the main computer system that the control center has used for nearly two decades will be switched off and the new system, known as En route Automation Modernization, will be switched on, Pincock said.
Further information: NATCA’s press release; FAA ERAM fact sheet; Text of letter to Randy Babbitt from Sens. Bennett and Hatch.
June 15, 2009
From the Associated Press:
Federal Aviation Administration officials have given approval for flights of an unmanned aerial vehicle near a National Guard range in central Kansas.
The approval means the Flint Hills Solutions Aerosonde UAV will be allowed to fly over Crisis City, which is part of the Great Plains Joint Training Center located near the Kansas National Guard’s Smoky Hill Weapons Range.
Involved with developing the UAV and its uses are Kansas State University, Flint Hills Solutions and the Salina Airport Authority.
The FAA approval, which was previously limited to the weapons range, allows for more extensive training in search and rescue operations through the Kansas National Guard and related agencies.
The Aerosonde is a 6-foot long, 35-pound, fixed-wing UAV that can fly for up to 12 hours, according to the manufacturer. For more on the Kansas National Guard’s plans for UAS and disaster response, see this article in the Wichita Eagle (published last April).
June 14, 2009
The Dallas Morning News had a catch-all, general interest article about the status of NextGen. Here are some quotes:
Aviation consultant Michael Boyd: “Capt. Babbitt isn’t going to run the FAA – it is going to run him. I have no confidence this is going to work. The public is simply being bamboozled by the FAA about how this is working.”
NATCA spokesman Doug Church: “The new administration seems to want to include input from all the stakeholders. We’re quite hopeful about NextGen.”
Southwest Airlines EVP Ron Rocks: “We need the will to get this done. We need what they’re calling a World War II plan in Washington. We won that war in three or four years – that’s what we need for NextGen.”
June 14, 2009
Aviation Week’s David Esler has a very well-researched and in-depth article about SESAR, the European Union’s version of NextGen. It provides a lot of detail about how the two approaches differ (one example: NextGen implementation is being driven by the federal government, while SESAR is being driven by industry partnerships), and also examines questions of harmonization.
Interestingly, one of the key themes is “who’s further ahead?” See the following excerpt:
[On the topic of] who’s leading the parade toward 21st century ATM reform – both SJU [SESAR Joint Undertaking] and FAA solons diplomatically refused to describe themselves as ahead. Here’s what the SJU’s [Executive Director] Patrick Ky had to say: “We are maybe more advanced in how we want to organize our technical activities, whereas you in the United States are more advanced in the implementation of ADS-B. We have different contexts and different relationships with industry, but I think we are making sure with the FAA that we are moving in the same direction and fully in line with each other’s priorities.”
For the FAA perspective, we interviewed Steve Bradford, chief scientist of architecture and NextGen development. “That’s not accurate at all,” Bradford said when we queried whether the SJU was setting the pace in implementing ATM technology. “I’m not going to say we’re ahead, but we are spending money and have a full ADS-B implementation in progress and will have full service by 2013. And our new automation program, ERAM [En Route Automation Modernization], is ahead of schedule.”
We think any discussion of “who’s further ahead” is a bit like asking who’s winning a marathon at mile marker two.
June 11, 2009
From the Los Angeles Times:
Federal and local officials will unveil a new warning system today that is designed to stop runway incursions that for years have endangered planes taxiing to and from terminals at Los Angeles International Airport. [..]
[Los Angeles World Airports Executive Director Gina Marie] Lindsey said the Board of Airport Commissioners decided to pay for the warning system with airport revenue rather than wait for federal money — a move that allowed the signals to be installed almost three years earlier than they would have been.
Jon Russell, the western regional safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn., said the new warning lights are a significant safety measure, but the devices need to be installed on all taxiways that intersect runways. He said lights were not put in some of the areas where close calls have occurred.
“This is a great starting point,” Russell said, “but the system is not complete.”
Given their budget constraints, FAA and LAX officials said they selected sites they thought had the greatest potential for collisions. If necessary, they said, lights can be added to other taxiways and runways in the future.
June 8, 2009
In the wake of the crash of the Air France A330 into the South Atlantic, a number of outlets have begun speculating on whether this could lead to a push for improved oceanic communications and surveillance. One summary comes from the Associated Press:
The plane’s disappearance has prompted calls for the U.S. and other countries to hasten the move to GPS-based networks that would pinpoint planes and enable air traffic controllers to monitor them as they cross the ocean outside radar-range.
“It does seem a little disconcerting for the public who have not been familiar with the lack of surveillance in oceans,” said Bill Voss, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation in Virginia. [..]
Voss believes that being able to better communicate with aircraft is more important from a safety point of view than surveillance. [..]
“This crash may put more pressure on international organizations to advance the use of satellite voice communications,” — technology that you would use when you hire a satellite phone to “go off to Antarctica or deepest darkest Africa,” said Voss.
The German news-weekly Spiegel had an in-depth article about issues related to in-flight data transmission:
If search teams fail to recover the flight recorder, which consists of two metal devices that record flight data and cockpit conversations, this question may never be answered. “It would be a real shame for aviation,” says Robert Francis, the former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency that investigates aviation accidents in the United States. “If we want to avoid dramas like this in the future, we have to know what went wrong,” says the safety expert. For this reason, Francis wants to see all important flight data transmitted via satellite in the future, using ACARS technology. “This crash demonstrates how valuable this technology could be,” he says.
Significant upgrades to aircraft would not even be required, according to Francis. All that is needed, he says, is to reprogram the software in the communication system, turning it into a sort of online black box. Krishna Kavi, an engineer and professor at the University of North Texas in Denton, presented the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with a similar system 10 years ago. “The cost is low,” he says. For the 256 parameters recorded by a black box, Kavi came up with a volume of data requiring transmission of four to eight kilobits per second. “This is a fraction of what mobile wireless devices transmit today,” says Kavi. [..]
But transmission of flight data is expensive. It takes up satellite bandwidth. Former NTSB official Francis is familiar with these problems. But he argues that a constant flow of data during flight would not be absolutely necessary. “We would already gain a lot if the system would only transmit data the minute the aircraft entered an unusual situation,” he says. Experts with Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation in Braunschweig and the European Aviation Safety Agency in Cologne consider it “technically feasible” to report flight data on every flight to a central office via an online system. But pilots are the ones raising objections. “It would be tantamount to the full-scale monitoring of pilots,” says Jörg Handwerg of Cockpit, a German pilots’ association.
Safety expert Francis knows his proposal affects the personal rights of pilots. For this reason, he says, data would have to be encoded to prevent unauthorized individuals from listening in on radio communications. [..]
On the other hand, he says, nothing highlights the need for improved radio transmission of data than last week’s desperate search for wreckage from the downed Air France jet. According to Francis, ACARS should always transmit an aircraft’s position data, thus enabling rescue teams to search more effectively in an emergency.
“This crash demonstrates, in a drastic way, that we must improve our monitoring systems,” he says. In a world in which satellites perform monitoring and navigation tasks, says Francis, it should not be possible for aircraft to simply disappear.
June 8, 2009
In a Chicago Tribune article about Thursday’s AIRE demo flight, American Airlines captain and spokesman Brian Will had this to say:
“For years, we’ve had all this great equipment on the airplanes, but we are not able to use a lot of these things because of what essentially are speed bumps caused by an outdated air-traffic system,” said Brian Will, a Boeing 777 captain at American who is also the airline’s technical programs manager. “This flight from Paris’ Charles De Gaulle to Miami International will show what can be accomplished — several thousands of pounds of fuel saved on that one flight — if we can get the regulators and the rules out of the way,” Will said. [..]
“Airplanes using GPS can report their real-time position anywhere on the planet with accuracy of 20 feet,” Will said. “We have the tools today and really shouldn’t be forced to wait until 2020.”
June 8, 2009
From the Miami Herald:
Thursday’s flight will use GPS signals virtually all the way, instead of conventional ground-based radio navigation beacons. A similar Paris-Miami flight by Air France is scheduled for Tuesday, according to the FAA — but the French airline could not be reached for comment.
Brian Will, an American Airlines captain, described the event as a gate-to-gate demonstration flight in which the airline and air traffic control in Europe and the United States will coordinate new technical capabilities and ”tailored arrival” procedures in which aircraft descend at reduced power from cruising altitude to approach without leveling off at intermediate altitudes — the traditional step-down method.
The air traffic controllers union is skeptical.
”The FAA has gone to great lengths to advertise NextGen as the panacea to all issues involving our enormous air traffic control system,” Jim Marinitti, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association Local MIA, and Mitch Herrick, the local’s vice president, said in a statement. “The event scheduled for this week with the American Airlines aircraft is simply a publicity stunt. The flight will be using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology that we have been using for years.” [..]
American Airlines said the flight is part of AIRE, an initiative stemming from the Europe/U.S. Open Skies treaty. AIRE stands for Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions, a joint project involving the FAA, the European Commission and several global airlines to speed application of new technologies and procedures to reduce noise and carbon emissions.
Other sources: Associated Press wire, AA press release.
June 8, 2009
From Flightglobal:
Light aircraft developer Terrafugia has completed flight-testing of its proof-of-concept aircraft, the Transition, three months after the two-seat light sport aircraft took to the skies for the first time.
The “roadable” aircraft – dubbed the Flying Car – made 29 flights, says Woburn, Massachusetts-based Terrafugia “and has now completed the first of a four-stage process to bring the Transition into production”.
The second phase of development is under way, with work on the beta prototype already in progress. First deliveries are earmarked for 2011.
Some pictures from the manufacturer’s website:
June 4, 2009
Elizabeth, one of our readers, had this to say in response to our recent entry about education and workforce development issues in the aviation sector:
While I agree that the aviation industry is going to be struggling because of the lack of upcoming students, there needs to be more of an effort to recruit recent engineering graduates. I am an undergraduate student with numerous friends who have recently graduated with engineering degrees. At least half of them tell me they would love to get into the aviation field, but aviation companies are just not hiring.
If the aviation industry is indeed in dire need of young talent, why not look to these students? If they are hiring, then more needs to be done to clear up students’ misconceptions about the lack of job prospects in the aviation industry.
It would be interesting to hear what industry players have to say about this. Are short-term pressures competing against long-term needs? Are certain types of jobs available if one knows where to look?
June 2, 2009
Aviation International News has a wrap-up of the New Jersey State Aviation Forum that was held at Newark airport last month, focusing on gaps in aviation education:
“The whole aviation industry is balanced on the head of a pin,” said Mike Stoddard, president of the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Coalition. “The people who made aviation what it is today are dying, retiring, and there is no replacement pool. Unless we start generating some interest in educating young people for the jobs that are available, for the sheer joy of flying, I don’t foresee anything but a bleak future for general aviation.”
We believe that this topic will escalate in importance over the next 10 years. Small, high-tech manufacturers in the U.S. already have a serious workforce development crisis. Too few students are entering engineering programs, and too few students are preparing themselves for careers in precision manufacturing. It’s unlikely that aviation will be able to unilaterally avoid the demographic and educational pressures that are looming on the horizon.
June 2, 2009
The NTSB has released an incident report about a runway incursion between a CRJ-200 and a Pilatus PC-12 that happened at Charlotte-Douglas airport last week:
At about 10:17 a.m. on May 29, a PSA Airlines CRJ-200 regional jet operated as US Airways Express flight 2390, was cleared for takeoff on runway 18L. After the regional jet was into its takeoff roll, a Pilatus PC-12, a single engine turboprop aircraft, was cleared to taxi into position and hold farther down the same runway in preparation for a departure roll that was to begin at the taxiway A intersection. After the ground-based collision warning system (ASDE-X) alerted controllers to the runway incursion, the takeoff clearance for the regional jet was cancelled.
The pilot of the PC-12, seeing the regional jet coming down the runway on a collision course, taxied the PC-12 to the side of the runway. The FAA reported that the regional jet stopped approximately 10 feet from the PC-12.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the link to the NTSB press release archive isn’t yet available — we will update once they post the item.
May 27, 2009
The FAA’s annual controller staffing report and outlook is available, and is chock full of interesting information. Front and center, not surprisingly, is the announcement that the agency beat its hiring target in FY’08 by bringing in 2,196 trainees. (Release from ATO communications is here.)
But the report itself is the real treasure trove. Some facts we didn’t know:
- Of the population of certified controllers, about 4,400 are in the ‘age bubble’ between 44-49 years old.
- 2,358 controllers are currently retirement-eligible, with 746 more reaching eligibility in FY09.
- Of the controllers who retired in ‘08, 34 percent did so in the first year they were eligible.
- FAA expects about 720 controllers to retire in ‘09, and also expects to lose about 800 to promotions, transfers, resignations, removals, and deaths.
- In 2008, the average TRACON had a higher percentage of trainees working than the average En Route center did. The FAA expects this to reverse starting in FY’10.
- In 2008, the average training time for TRACON certification was 1.1 years — down from 3.1 years in 2005.
- The appendix includes a fascinating snapshot of controller populations at each En Route center, TRACON and staffed tower as of 9/27/08. Of the En Route centers in the continental U.S., Chicago and Cleveland ARTCCs had the highest certified controller populations on that date (338 and 335, respectively). Seattle and Salt Lake had the lowest (151 and 156, respectively).
If you find data inside the report that you believe is meaningful, post a comment or email us at editor (at) flynextgen (dot) com.
May 22, 2009
Jim Swickard at Aviation Week has the following analysis in the wake of the FAA reauthorization bill passing the House:
The current FAA bill retains the FAA funding mix of excise taxes, fuel taxes and general fund contributions, but increases the general aviation jet fuel tax rate from 21.8 cents per gallon to 35.9 cents per gallon and increase the avgas tax from 19.3 cents per gallon to 24.1 cents per gallon. These were the same rates the Way and Means Committee endorsed in the previous Congress.
Industry groups stated their acceptance these tax hikes in lieu of user fees when they were proposed last year.
The Air Transport Association last year had complained vociferously that General Aviation was not paying its fair share of Air Traffic Control costs. That argument was muted by AOPA, NBAA and NATA’s eerily gracious acceptance of the increased fuel taxes.
There are philosophical issues related to the U.S. General Fund contribution to the FAA and ATC budgets and the Obama administration wants to reduce that contribution and impose direct user fees after 2011, a prospect that would not upset the airlines. But that’s for tomorrow.
For now, all parties involved; industry associations, regulators and legislators can feel proud of their unity of larger purpose while not cluttering the playing field with their differences. In other words, they have acted like aviators – to their great credit.
Can this collegial atmosphere hold through passage of a final bill by both the House and Senate, and the President’s signature? Stay tuned.
Swickard’s view is compelling, though offset somewhat by the contents of a highly critical letter sent to Congress by ATA President James May (full text at Aero-News.net):
We have asked that Congress:
- Expedite investment in and deployment of NextGen. The United States is at a critical juncture right now. Either we can accelerate the transformation of the ATC, to allow air transportation to grow in a safe and efficient manner while achieving environmental benefits, or we can risk bringing our economy and leadership in technology to a halt by failing to address our growing aviation capacity constraints. Leadership from the committee is needed to ensure that appropriate funding and program direction is in place to accelerate the deployment of this critical program.
- Reject increasing taxes and fees on passengers. An increase in the maximum passenger facility charge (PFC) from $4.50 per segment to $7 per segment would impose an additional and unwarranted $2 billion tax increase per year on commercial passengers. With airport revenue eclipsing record levels – over $12.7 billion in 2007 – and with $27 billion in unrestricted financial assets, the imposition of an increased PFC tax is not only unwarranted, but also will further reduce demand for travel.
- Protect our valued U.S. aviation repair facilities by ensuring that any requirements are applied in a manner consistent with U.S. obligations under international agreements. During recent conversations between U.S. trade associations and European officials, the Europeans have indicated that as a result of the current language in Section 303, many U.S. facilities would be subject to new, regulatory requirements by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Such duplicative, burdensome impositions are in no one’s interest.
- Reject the automatic elimination of previously granted antitrust immunity (ATI) to carriers for international marketing alliances. DOT has approved international airline alliances because they produce numerous and substantial benefits, both to the public and the participating carriers. Arbitrarily terminating antitrust immunity will have a harsh impact on airline employees and cause a ripple effect across the travel and tourism industry at a time when the industry is already hobbled.
- Maintain safety without requiring overly strict fire-fighting standards. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations have safely dictated staffing and equipment requirements for airport fire stations for years based on the needs within the airport boundary. Increasing staffing and equipment based on surrounding populations will not enhance airport safety but will increase costs unnecessarily. These are not legitimate safety claims and should be rejected.
- Allow carriers to continue improving customer service without imposing unsafe or unreasonable deplaning requirements. In particular, we oppose a hard-and-fast rule requiring airlines to give passengers the option to deplane after three hours. Mandatory deplaning will have numerous unintended consequences that, ultimately, will create even more inconvenience for passengers and lead to even more flight cancellations.
