April 8, 2019 - No. 028 In This Issue High-tech Lab Coming to Rockford's Collins Aerospace Promises to Be an Aviation Game-Changer Boeing's effort to get the 737 Max approved to fly again, explained InTech Aerospace Makes Technology Investments, Expands Facilities for More Customer Services UK to boost funding for aviation security innovation Blockchain's aviation potential explored at inaugural ICAO-UAE Summit ATC centres start ADS-B surveillance trial for Atlantic flights Millennials spark a pilot comeback A short first hop for 'drone taxi' in Vienna Flying Is Safer Than Eating Now Amazon plans to launch a massive constellation of more than 3,000 internet satellites High-tech Lab Coming to Rockford's Collins Aerospace Promises to Be an Aviation Game-Changer April 05-- Apr. 5--ROCKFORD -- Collins Aerospace is transforming 25,000 square feet inside its Harrison Avenue plant into a high-tech lab that will help build a hybrid-electric jet in 2021 with leading-edge technology that aims to revolutionize air travel. The company is among Rockford's largest employers with 2,000 workers and 50 more to be hired in the next three years to support the state-of-the-art laboratory called "The Grid." Collins Aerospace is spending $50 million to build the high-voltage lab, and research and development that occurs there is expected to yield new product development and business, sustaining of the Rockford region's largest aerospace firms. "It's going to be the most advanced electric power lab in the world and we're going to use it to develop products for the future of electric flight," said Nate Boelkins, the company's vice president of electric power systems, during a news conference Thursday to unveil plans for The Grid. The Rockford lab will work in partnership with experts from other United Technologies companies, including a Pratt & Whitney facility near Montreal, Quebec. The mission: to develop and build a demonstration jet based on a Bombardier Dash 8-100 aircraft that is re-engined on one side with a 2 megawatt-class propulsion system. That's a lot of electric juice, considering that 1 megawatt is enough to power 400 homes. The demonstration jet will be equipped with an engine optimized for cruise efficiency and supplemented by a battery-powered electric motor to assist during the mission's 20-minute takeoff and ascent. Once that mission is complete, The Grid will remain a beehive of research and development for years to come, concentrating on new electric power applications for military, commercial and business aircraft. "This investment solidifies Rockford as being a leader in the nation for aeronautics for the next 30 to 50 years," said Mayor Tom McNamara, who spoke during the news conference. The Winnebago County Board approved a $500,000 subsidy for the company's expansion and the city of Rockford has extended more than $1 million worth of tax breaks for the project. The Grid represents Collins Aerospace's attempt to maintain its position as an industry leader by developing a new market for hybrid-electric and electric jet-propulsion systems. The company already is a leading producer of electric power systems. The Boeing 787 -- the most electric airplane in the sky today -- produces nearly 1.5 megawatts of power using six generators designed and built by Collins Aerospace. The Grid "also means great things for the environment, including improved fuel consumption for airplanes, less noise emissions and easier build cycles, so this really is the next generation of flight," Boelkins said. Aircraft equipped with electric-hybrid or electric propulsion systems will weigh far less and require less maintenance than today's jets that are powered by traditional hydrocarbon combustion engines. Lighter planes require less fuel to fly, which is why the most modern planes flying today are made of lighter, composite materials. Any new technology that delivers a 1 percent to 2 percent fuel efficiency for jets is significant. But what makes electric-hybrid and electric propulsion technology so tantalizing is that fuel savings can be reduced by double-digit margins. Collins Aerospace says that the demonstrator jet that it will build in three years' time will deliver an amazing 30 percent reduction in fuel consumption over today's jet engines. To put that into perspective, consider Pratt & Whitney's next-generation GTF commercial jet engine. It is among the most advanced jet engines in use today and is more efficient, quieter and less harmful to the environment. The GTF-powered A320neo jet, for example, has achieved a 16% reduction in fuel consumption, a 75% reduction in noise footprint and a 50% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions. Airlines using the GTF-powered A320neo have saved 40,000 gallons of fuel which equates to more than $75 million in fuel expenses in two years' time, said Al Killeffer, a Collins Aerospace spokesman. "A 16% improvement was huge," Killeffer said. "With the demonstrator jet, we're targeting a 30% efficiency improvement." In other words, engineers working at Collins Aerospace in Rockford will design and build what promises to be a game-changer for the aviation industry. https://www.aviationpros.com/home/news/21075021/hightech-lab-coming-to-rockfords-collins-aerospace-promises-to-be-an-aviation-gamechanger Back to Top Boeing's effort to get the 737 Max approved to fly again, explained On Thursday, Boeing for the first time officially took responsibility for the two crashes of 737 Max jets that got the planes grounded by regulators. Claiming responsibility was part of an attempt to get the planes approved to fly again. Boeing was trying to say that it now understands why the planes crashes - flawed software - and has a plan in place to replace it with new software that will eliminate the problem and persuade regulators to get the planes off the ground. But then Friday morning, the company announced that it had found a second, unrelated software flaw that it also needs to fix and will somewhat delay the process of getting the planes cleared to fly again. All of which, of course, raises the question of why such flawed systems were allowed to fly in the first place. And that story begins nine years ago when Boeing was faced with a major threat to its bottom line, spurring the airline to rush a series of kludges through the certification process - with an underresourced Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) seemingly all too eager to help an American company threatened by a foreign competitor, rather than to ask tough questions about the project. The specifics of what happened in the regulatory system are still emerging (and despite executives' assurances, we don't even really know what happened on the flights yet). But the big picture is coming into view: A major employer faced a major financial threat, and short-term politics and greed won out over the integrity of the regulatory system. It's a scandal. The 737 versus 320 rivalry, explained There are lots of different passenger airplanes on the market, but just two very similar narrow-body planes dominate domestic (or intra-European) travel. One is the European company Airbus's 320 family, with models called A318, A319, A320, or A321 depending on how long the plane is. These four variants, by design, have identical flight decks, so pilots can be trained to fly them interchangeably. The 320 family competes with a group of planes that Boeing calls the 737 - there's a 737-600, a 737-700, a 737-800, and a 737-900 - with higher numbers indicating larger planes. Some of them are also extended-range models that have an ER appended to the name, and, as you would probably guess, they have longer ranges. Importantly, even though there are many different flavors of 737, they are all in some sense the same plane, just as all the 320 family planes are the same plane. Southwest Airlines, for example, simplifies its overall operations by exclusively flying different 737 variants. Both the 737 and the 320 come in lots of different flavors, so airlines have plenty of options in terms of what kind of aircraft should fly exactly which route. But because there are only two players in this market, and because their offerings are so fundamentally similar, the competition for this slice of the plane market is both intense and weirdly limited. If one company were to gain a clear technical advantage over the other, it would be a minor catastrophe for the losing company. And that's what Boeing thought it was facing. The A320neo was trouble for Boeing Jet fuel is a major cost for airlines. With labor costs largely driven by collective bargaining agreements and regulations that require minimum ratios of flight attendants per passenger, fuel is the cost center airlines have the most capacity to do something about. Consequently, improving fuel efficiency has emerged as one of the major bases of competition between airline manufacturers. If you roll back to 2010, it began to look like Boeing had a real problem in this regard. Airbus was coming out with an updated version of the A320 family that it called the A320neo, with "neo" meaning "new engine option." The new engines were going to be more fuel-efficient, with a larger diameter than previous A320 engines, that could nonetheless be mounted on what was basically the same airframe. This was a nontrivial engineering undertaking both in designing the new engines and in figuring out how to make them work with the old airframe, but even though it cost a bunch of money, it basically worked. And it raised the question of whether Boeing would respond. Initial word was that it wouldn't. As CBS Moneywatch's Brett Snyder wrote in December 2010, the basic problem was that you couldn't slap the new generation of more efficient, larger-diameter engines onto the 737: One of the issues for Boeing is that it takes more work to put new engines on the 737 than on the A320. The 737 is lower to the ground than the A320, and the new engines have a larger diameter. So while both manufacturers would have to do work, the Boeing guys would have more work to do to jack the airplane up. That will cost more while reducing commonality with the current fleet. As we know from last week, reduced commonality means higher costs for the airlines as well. Under the circumstances, Boeing's best option was to just take the hit for a few years and accept that it was going to have to start selling 737s at a discount price while it designed a whole new airplane. That would, of course, be time-consuming and expensive, and during the interim, it would probably lose a bunch of narrow-body sales to Airbus. The original version of the 737 first flew in 1967, and a decades-old decision about how much height to leave between the wing and the runway left them boxed out of 21st-century engine technology - and there was simply nothing to be done about it. Unless there was. Boeing decided to put on the too-big engines anyway As late as February 2011, Boeing chair and CEO James McNerney was sticking to the plan to design a totally new aircraft. "We're not done evaluating this whole situation yet," he said on an analyst call, "but our current bias is to move to a newer airplane, an all-new airplane, at the end of the decade, beginning of the next decade. It's our judgment that our customers will wait for us." But in August 2011, Boeing announced that it had lined up orders for 496 re-engined Boeing 737 aircraft from five airlines. It's not entirely clear what happened, but, reading between the lines, it seems that in talking to its customers Boeing reached the conclusion that airlines would not wait for them. Some critical mass of carriers (American Airlines seems to have been particularly influential) was credible enough in its threat to switch to Airbus equipment that Boeing decided it needed to offer 737 buyers a Boeing solution sooner rather than later. Committing to putting a new engine that didn't fit on the plane was the corporate version of the Fyre Festival's "let's just do it and be legends, man" moment, and it unsurprisingly wound up leading to a slew of engineering and regulatory problems. New engines on an old plane As the industry trade publication Leeham News and Analysis explained earlier in March, Boeing engineers had been working on the concept that became the 737 Max even back when the company's plan was still not to build it. In a March 2011 interview with Aircraft Technology, Mike Bair, then the head of 737 product development, said that reengineering was possible. "There's been fairly extensive engineering work on it," he said. "We figured out a way to get a big enough engine under the wing." The problem is that an airplane is a big, complicated network of interconnected parts. To get the engine under the 737 wing, engineers had to mount the engine nacelle higher and more forward on the plane. But moving the engine nacelle (and a related change to the nose of the plane) changed the aerodynamics of the plane, such that the plane did not handle properly at a high angle of attack. That, in turn, led to the creation of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). It fixed the angle-of-attack problem in most situations, but it created new problems in other situations when it made it difficult for pilots to directly control the plane without being overridden by the MCAS. On Wednesday, Boeing rolled out a software patch that it says corrects the problem, and it hopes to persuade the FAA to agree. But note that the underlying problem isn't really software; it's with the effort to use software to get around a whole host of other problems. Recall, after all, that the whole point of the 737 Max project was to be able to say that the new plane was the same as the old plane. From an engineering perspective, the preferred solution was to actually build a new plane. But for business reasons, Boeing didn't want a "new plane" that would require a lengthy certification process and extensive (and expensive) new pilot training for its customers. The demand was for a plane that was simultaneously new and not new. But because the new engines wouldn't fit under the old wings, the new plane wound up having different aerodynamic properties than the old plane. And because the aerodynamics were different, the flight control systems were also different. But treating the whole thing as a fundamentally different plane would have undermined the whole point. So the FAA and Boeing agreed to sort of fudge it. The new planes are pretty different As far as we can tell, the 737 Max is a perfectly airworthy plane in the sense that error-free piloting allows it to be operated safely. But pilots of planes that didn't crash kept noticing the same basic pattern of behavior that is suspected to have been behind the two crashes, according to a Dallas Morning News review of voluntary aircraft incident reports to a NASA database: The disclosures found by the News reference problems with an autopilot system, and they all occurred during the ascent after takeoff. Many mentioned the plane suddenly nosing down. While records show these flights occurred in October and November, the airlines the pilots were flying for is redacted from the database. These pilots all safely disabled the MCAS and kept their planes in the air. But one of the pilots reported to the database that it was "unconscionable that a manufacturer, the FAA, and the airlines would have pilots flying an airplane without adequately training, or even providing available resources and sufficient documentation to understand the highly complex systems that differentiate this aircraft from prior models." The training piece is important because a key selling feature of the 737 Max was the idea that since it wasn't really a new plane, pilots didn't really need to be retrained for the new equipment. As the New York Times reported, "For many new airplane models, pilots train for hours on giant, multimillion-dollar machines, on-the-ground versions of cockpits that mimic the flying experience and teach them new features" while the experienced 737 Max pilots were allowed light refresher courses that you could do on an iPad. That let Boeing get the planes into customers' hands quickly and cheaply, but evidently at the cost of increasing the possibility of pilots not really knowing how to handle the planes, with dire consequences for everyone involved. The FAA put a lot of faith in Boeing In a blockbuster March 17 report for the Seattle Times, the newspaper's aerospace reporter Dominic Gates details the extent to which the FAA delegated crucial evaluations of the 737's safety to Boeing itself. The delegation, Gates explains, is in part a story of a years-long process during which the FAA, "citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes." But there are indications of failures that were specific to the 737 Max timeline. In particular, Gates reports that "as certification proceeded, managers prodded them to speed the process" and that "when time was too short for FAA technical staff to complete a review, sometimes managers either signed off on the documents themselves or delegated their review back to Boeing." Most of all, decisions about what could and could not be delegated were being made by managers concerned about the timeline, rather than by the agency's technical experts. It's not entirely clear at this point why the FAA was so determined to get the 737 cleared quickly (there will be more investigations), but if you recall the political circumstances of this period in Barack Obama's presidency, you can quickly get a general sense of the issue. Boeing is not just a big company with a significant lobbying presence in Washington; it's a major manufacturing company with a strong global export presence and a source of many good-paying union jobs. In short, it was exactly the kind of company the powers that be were eager to promote - with the Obama White House, for example, proudly going to bat for the Export-Import Bank as a key way to sustain America's aerospace industry. A story about overweening regulators delaying an iconic American company's product launch and costing good jobs compared to the European competition would have looked very bad. And the fact that the whole purpose of the plane was to be more fuel-efficient only made getting it off the ground a bigger priority. But the incentives really were reasonably aligned, and Boeing has only caused problems for itself by cutting corners. Boeing is now in a bad situation One emblem of the whole situation is that as the 737 Max engineering team piled kludge on top of kludge, they came up with a cockpit warning light that would alert the pilots if the plane's two angle-of-attack sensors disagreed. But then, as Jon Ostrower reported for the Air Current, Boeing's team decided to make the warning light an optional add-on, like how car companies will upcharge you for a moon roof. The light cost $80,000 extra per plane and neither Lion Air nor Ethiopian chose to buy it, perhaps figuring that Boeing would not sell a plane (nor would the FAA allow it to) that was not basically safe to fly. In the wake of the crashes, Boeing has decided to revisit this decision and make the light standard on all aircraft. Now, to be clear, Boeing has lost about $40 billion in stock market valuation since the crash, so it's not like cheating out on the warning light turned out to have been a brilliant business decision or anything. This, fundamentally, is one reason the FAA has become comfortable working so closely with Boeing on safety regulations: The nature of the airline industry is such that there's no real money to be made selling airplanes that have a poor safety track record. One could even imagine sketching out a utopian libertarian argument to the effect that there's no real need for a government role in certifying new airplanes at all, precisely because there's no reason to think it's profitable to make unsafe ones. The real world, of course, is quite a bit different from that, and different individuals and institutions face particular pressures that can lead them to take actions that don't collectively make sense. Looking back, Boeing probably wishes it had just stuck with the "build a new plane" plan and toughed out a few years of rough sales, rather than ending up in the current situation. Right now the company is, in effect, trying to patch things up piecemeal - a software update here, a new warning light there, etc. - in hopes of persuading global regulatory agencies to let its planes fly again. But even once that's done, Boeing faces the task of convincing airlines to actually buy its planes. An informative David Ljunggren article for Reuters reminds us that a somewhat comparable situation arose in 1965 when three then-new Boeing 727 jetliners crashed. There wasn't really anything unsound about the 727 planes, but many pilots didn't fully understand how to operate the new flaps - arguably a parallel to the MCAS situation with the 737 Max - which spurred some additional training and changes to the operation manual. Passengers avoided the planes for months, but eventually came back as there were no more crashes, and the 727 went on to fly safely for decades. Boeing hopes to have a similar happy ending to this saga, but so far it seems to be a long way from that point. And the immediate future likely involves more tough questions. A political scandal on slow burn The 737 Max was briefly a topic of political controversy in the United States as foreign regulators grounded the planes, but President Donald Trump - after speaking personally to Boeing's CEO - declined to follow. Many members of Congress (from both parties) called on him to reconsider, which he rather quickly did, pushing the whole topic off Washington's front burner. But Trump is generally friendly to Boeing (he even has a former Boeing executive, Patrick Shanahan, serving as acting defense secretary, despite an ongoing ethics inquiry into charges that Shanahan unfairly favors his former employer), and Republicans are generally averse to harsh regulatory crackdowns. The most important decisions in the mix appear to have been made back during the Obama administration, so it's also difficult for Democrats to go after this issue. Meanwhile, Washington has been embroiled in wrangling over special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, and a new health care battlefield opened up as well. That said, on March 27, FAA officials faced the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Aviation and Space at a hearing called by subcommittee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX). Regulators committed at the hearing to revamp the way they certify new planes, in light of the flaws that were revealed in the previous certification process. The questions at stake, however, are now much bigger than one subcommittee. Billions of dollars are on the line for Boeing, the airlines that fly 737s, and the workers who build the planes. And since a central element of this story is the credibility of the FAA's process - in the eyes of the American people and of foreign regulatory agencies - it almost certainly won't get sorted out without more involvement from the actual decision-makers in the US government. https://www.vox.com/2019/4/5/18296646/boeing-737-max-mcas-software-update Back to Top InTech Aerospace Makes Technology Investments, Expands Facilities for More Customer Services HOUSTON, April 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- InTech Aerospace LLC, a long-standing aviation technical services firm specialized in commercial and government airplane interiors and components, has expanded its main MRO facility near George Bush Int'l. Airport, and has added even more technology improvements to its capacities. Scott Mowery, InTech's Chief Operating Officer, said, "We practice lean principles and program management disciplines for work efficiency and cost effectiveness. Our recent expansions and investments are direct responses to customers' expectations." InTech's goal is to do more interiors projects for its airline, MRO, government, and leasing clients. InTech is certified to AS-9110(C) quality standards, and in the past year won the FAA's Diamond Award for training. InTech Aerospace announces these technology and facility improvements on the eve of "MRO-Americas," the industry's largest trade show serving the aviation MRO market. InTech Aerospace has teams of highly experienced craftspeople and FAA-licensed aircraft technicians that repair and overhaul virtually everything inside the cabin of an aircraft, including seats, leathers, fabrics, plastics, composites, galleys, lavatories, floor panels, sidewalls, overheads, and everything in between. Commencing in 2017 and continuing throughout 2018, InTech increased its facility size to over 60,000 sq. ft., adding shops and skilled personnel for higher levels of customer throughput. Over and above the many capabilities that InTech has built-up over decades of experience, it has further invested recently in: • Powder Coating: More OEM's are using powder coating for more durable finishes, so InTech is matching that capability for repairs and refurbishments. • Thermo-Forming: InTech's expanded its thermoforming capabilities with new, larger equipment, providing for larger, deeper drawn products and more efficient production runs. • Engineering/DER Support: More adjunct staffing is now available so InTech can provide engineered and DER-approved repair solutions for customers. • Build-to-Print: Component repairs often require detailed form, fit, and finish machining. InTech has added more build-to-print assets and trained personnel. • 3-D Printing: Interiors MRO lends itself to 3-D printing and modeling for small production parts. • As a business strategy, InTech Aerospace will continuously invest in technology that keeps the company at the leading edge, alongside its customers. InTech's institutional majority owners have substantial capital resources to keep fueling growth and improvements. InTech Aerospace is poised for continued growth as commercial airlines fleets keep expanding. Interior retrofits are a recurring requirement as airplanes age, and as planes occasionally change hands among lessors and airlines. For more information: www.intechaero.com and www.rangeraerospace.com. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/intech-aerospace-makes-technology-investments-expands-facilities-for-more-customer-services-300825768.html Back to Top UK to boost funding for aviation security innovation The UK Department for Transport has launched a new scheme where up to £1 million will be available to industry and academic experts with enterprising ideas for improving aviation security. The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is making more funding available for innovations that enhance aviation security measures, courtesy of the Future Aviation Security Solutions (FASS) programme. FASS - a joint initiative between the Department for Transport (DfT) and Home Office which was set up to improve aviation security by funding and supporting the development of innovative science and technology solutions - will provide up to £1 million for innovative solutions that can boost the screening of passengers and cargo at airports. This substantial funding will build on existing aviation threat detection capabilities by encouraging industry and academia to come up with novel ideas that reinforce screening processes at UK and international airports. Cutting-edge science and technology developed with this funding could mean passengers see shorter queues and experience faster screening while benefiting from more effective security measures. Security Minister, Ben Wallace, said: "Ensuring that the UK is a world leader in aviation security is a key objective of the government's counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. This is another example of bringing together government, industry and experts to ensure that the UK remains on the front foot and a global leader in the development of technologies that keep the public safe. I look forward to seeing new ideas which improve security and make for a better experience at airports for passengers." This funding will be made available to experts from industry and academia through DASA's Open Call for Innovation focus areas - many of which focus exclusively on aviation. Alongside ideas that could improve the airport screening process for passengers, DASA is also seeking novel proposals that can boost the screening of aviation cargo. Around 80 per cent of air cargo is carried on passenger aircraft so it is important that it is robustly screened to ensure that prohibited items are not part of flown cargo. Identifying and investing in the latest screening solutions will help keep passengers - and those who work at airports - safe and secure. DASA is requesting proposals from industry and academia through its Open Call for Innovation focus areas as follows: Finding suspected threats on passengers during airport screening Once a metal detector or security scanner alarm is activated on a passenger, the passenger is subjected to a further search in order to resolve the alarm and determine whether the alarm is genuine. Currently this is carried out by combining the use of hand searches, handheld metal detectors and explosive trace detectors. Hand searches, particularly when performed on certain areas of the body, can be intrusive for the passenger and uncomfortable for the security officer conducting the search. The DfT are interested in receiving proposals for the development of hand-held solutions that will help detect both metallic and non-metallic threats on the body while reducing the need for person-person contact, particularly in harder-to-search areas of the body. Matching passengers with their x-ray trays during airport screening Airport screening requires passengers to put their items into trays which are then passed through x-ray machines. Passengers may require multiple x-ray trays when they have a large number of personal effects. This can lead to trays becoming separated from one another and from the relevant passenger. Therefore, we are seeking a novel solution which is able to: Link each passenger to all of their x-ray trays, until all items have been screened and retrieved by the passenger record each tray's outcome (clear or divert) for auditing purposes Integrate with the x-ray system for specific screening of each tray, as a further capability. The DfT are looking for innovative solutions to ensure airport passengers are correctly linked to the x-ray trays they are using to put their personal effects through scanners. Improving aviation cargo screening speed Aviation cargo screening can be a laborious process that takes a significant amount of time. Cargo can be either distributed on pallets or in large containers. Currently, aviation cargo is screened for threat items by a variety of methods including x-ray systems. Cargo often has regions of high density, and other complexities such as size and shape which require further investigation. Secondary screening involves manual screening and other detection methods such as metal detection, canine screening and explosive trace detection. The DfT are looking for novel ideas that would help increase the speed, accuracy and volume at which cargo is screened. https://www.internationalairportreview.com/news/84408/uk-boosts-funding-aviation-security/ Back to Top Blockchain's aviation potential explored at inaugural ICAO-UAE Summit MONTREAL and ABU DHABI - Joining a high-level audience of government and air transport officials for the inaugural ICAO-UAE Blockchain Summit and Exhibition in Dubai, ICAO Council President Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu appreciated the foundational rather than disruptive characteristics of distributed ledger or 'blockchain' approaches, while recognizing the clear areas where they could bring benefit to civil aviation customers and operators. "With traffic growing at its exponential rate, one of the new challenges and risks is the growing number of logistical, administrative and oversight activities which will result from projected traffic growth," Dr. Aliu noted in his opening remarks. "Blockchain technologies could be of tremendous benefit to reduce the pressure on current human resources, while at the same time sustaining increasing demand and quality levels." Global air traffic volumes are anticipated to double within the next fifteen years. Increases in the number of aircraft and flights translate to increased ground, passenger, ticketing, and cargo handling activities, and a parallel expansion of the associated tracking, documentation, approval, and certification requirements. "Blockchain has the potential to virtually exclude loss, distortion, or forgery of vital log data in all aviation sectors where certificates are issued and controlled," Dr. Aliu said. "It can ensure the integrity of the ever growing certification-based system which is integral to aviation, with the potential to increase efficiency while reducing errors, and therefore enhancing both safety and security." The application of blockchain technology can be envisioned for almost all areas of the aviation system where complex and safety critical records are managed and updated, such as personnel licensing, aircraft maintenance, operational approvals, or cargo manifests. Another promising application of blockchain for aviation and governments concerns the methods we use to establish traveller identity. While offering many benefits, the integration of the technology would nonetheless present many challenges, and could cause fundamental changes in the structure of today's aviation systems. "The aviation system today relies mostly on human agents or intermediaries to assume validation activities, and so we can foresee that the integration of blockchain processes in support of a State's aviation safety oversight system, for example, would likely require substantial adjustments to related regulations, procedures, and responsibilities," Dr. Aliu explained. "Along with this potential there will be risks, to be sure, mainly as relying on a set of servers and smart contracts to validate documents and issue certificates poses clear cyber risks," he said. "It is therefore important to recall one of the outcomes from the 2017 ICAO Cyber Summit, also hosted here in the UAE, that collaboration and exchange between States and stakeholders is key to an effective and coordinated global cybersecurity posture for civil aviation. This becomes even more valid if we rely on blockchain to manage critical safety and security processes." The organization of the ICAO-UAE Blockchain Summit, which will conclude on 4 April 2019, represents a very important step in aviation's consideration of the technology, with the invited specialists expected to explore both its merits and its risks. It most certainly responded to the expectations of the ICAO Council and Air Navigation Commission, which have shown growing interest in blockchain potential. "I am looking forward to some provocative ideas and insights from our key presenters as we seek to ensure a suitably robust and resilient blockchain preparedness in the civil aviation sector," Dr. Aliu concluded. "The hosting of this summit, and creating a forum with a collaborative platform, is of high importance to the UAE and the entire international aviation industry. Staying ahead of evolving threats is a shared responsibility, involving governments, airlines, airports, and manufacturers," explained H.E. Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi, Director General of the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority. Accompanied by several Representatives on the ICAO Council, the Director of ICAO's Air Navigation Bureau, Mr. Stephen Creamer and by the ICAO Regional Director for the Middle East Office in Cairo, Mr. Mohamed Rahma, the President held a series of bilateral meetings with senior government officials from States in attendance. https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/blockchains-aviation-potential-explored-at-inaugural-icao-uae-summit Back to Top ATC centres start ADS-B surveillance trial for Atlantic flights Air traffic controllers in Canada, Iceland and the UK have begun trial operations to monitor aircraft crossing the North Atlantic - an area largely without conventional radar coverage - via satellite-based surveillance technology. Flights in remote areas outside the reach of ground-based radar stations are controlled by regular position reports from pilots, typically every 10-14min. Employment of automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast (ADS-B) technology will ensure permanent flight surveillance, enabling more flexible and efficient flight routes with reduced separation minima between aircraft. ADS-B service provider Aireon says its system went live on 2 April, after required capabilities had been established in February on the last six of 66 Iridium Next satellites. On aircraft equipped with ADS-B, the transponder broadcasts the flight's position, altitude, speed and heading. Satellites relay that information to ground stations within a second. Aireon describes the system as "the first real-time, global air traffic surveillance system", which will "radically optimise flight safety and efficiency". Around 30% of the world's airspace is covered by ground-based surveillance systems, while aircraft in the remaining areas - oceanic, polar and remote regions - are controlled via position reports. The North Atlantic is the world's busiest oceanic airspace, with more than 500,000 flights a year, says Martin Rolfe, chief executive of UK air navigation service provider NATS; traffic is forecast to reach 800,000 flights a year by 2030. NATS, Nav Canada and their Icelandic counterpart Isavia are the first air navigation service providers to adopt the system as part of the North Atlantic trial. Aireon says ADS-B employment will reduce "overall flight safety risks" by around 76% across the North Atlantic, while operators will generate fuel savings by flying at optimal speeds and flight levels. More than 95% of aircraft operating across the North Atlantic are equipped with ADS-B today, according to Nav Canada chief executive Neil Wilson. US regulations mandate operators to install the equipment by January 2020, with European regulations set to follow from June that year. "To know the position, speed and altitude of every ADS-B equipped aircraft in oceanic airspace - in real time - is a transformational change to how our controllers manage air traffic," say Wilson. Nav Canada's facility in Edmonton, Alberta will reduce separation to 5nm (9km) between aircraft operating in continental airspace with no current surveillance, provided that aircraft are within range of very high frequency (VHF) radio communication. For flights operating in non-VHF airspace with controller-pilot data link communications (CPDLC) capability, the Edmonton centre will reduce, from October, longitudinal separation to 14nm or 17nm and lateral separation to 15nm or 19nm, Nav Canada says. The service provider's Gander, Newfoundland control centre will reduce longitudinal separation in oceanic airspace to 14nm or 17nm - plus 5nm for aircraft flying in the opposite direction to each other - if CPDLC is provided. From October, the Gander facility will also reduce to lateral separation of 15nm or 19nm for flights in oceanic airspace. Under conventional operations, transatlantic aircraft may be separated by as much as 40nm, Aireon says. Chief executive Don Thoma states: "Improved safety and cost savings for all aviation stakeholders is just a start. The revolutionary impact of the real-time location data and historical tracking information of Aireon's space-based ADS-B data will create innovations that we have not even imagined." https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/atc-centres-start-ads-b-surveillance-trial-for-atlan-457271/ Back to Top Millennials spark a pilot comeback A surge in pilot certificates for millennials is chipping away at a critical, decades-long labor shortage in aviation. What's happening: The U.S. pilot shortage has threatened to eventually shut down smaller regional and cargo airlines and make rural areas of the U.S. more isolated and out of reach. But since 2006 - when millennials began reaching adulthood - the number of 20- to 35-year-old pilots has been slowly ticking back up after decades of decline, and compensating for a fall in other age categories, according to FAA data. In 2008, 150,907 people in the 20- to 34-year-old age group had active pilot certificates. By last year, the number was up to 197,493, according to the FAA. But there's still a long way to go: • There are 177,000 fewer pilots today than in 1980. Fewer than a third are 20-34 years old, whereas this age group made up almost half of pilots in 1980. • A fifth of certified U.S. commercial pilots are over 50. Mandatory retirement age is 65. • And the usual main font of pilots - the military - is turning out far fewer than it used to. Moreover, millennials are significantly less likely to be veterans than past generations, according to Pew Research Center. Major airlines - such as American Airlines, Delta, Southwest and United, which account for 67.5% of industry revenue - have been better able to attract young pilots with wage, benefits and recruitment strategies, such as Delta's Propel program. • But smaller regional and cargo airlines are struggling to fill their cockpits, experts tell Axios - even though they are paying a starting salary of $60,000, up from around $20,000 in 2012. The big picture: The industry expects the number of air travelers to double over the next two decades, and cargo companies could be forced to find new ways to fulfill growing demand without access to more pilots. How we got here: Following 9/11, several airlines went out of business or filed for bankruptcy. The industry then suffered through the financial crash. That made piloting a hard sell for young people starting careers. But there are other hard obstacles: • Price: If you aren't a veteran, you need training courses that cost tens of thousands of dollars, which, on top of already-rising costs for college, make it unattainable for many young people. The FAA has also increased requirements. • Diversity: The millennial and post-millennial generations are the most diverse the U.S. has ever seen - about half of post-millennials are nonwhite. Yet airlines are largely not tapping nonwhite and women millennials. Look at the data - 92% of pilots and flight engineers are men, according to Census data collected by Data USA. And 93% are white. "We're only set up to recruit from half the population - males," says James Higgins, director of the aviation program at the University of North Dakota. • Civic virtue: Aviation may be missing millennials who seek an altruistic occupation. "They may go into medicine, they may go into Peace Corps, they may go into other things that in their mind would be more impactful. I think we've lost a little bit of people coming into aviation because of that," Higgins said. The power of image: Sandy Napier, a former Navy aviator who spent several decades as a pilot for a major airline, said that when he was young, planes were the new technology and films often glorified flying and wartime in ways they don't anymore. • "If you walked down a terminal, through the concourse, and you had your uniform on," Napier, a Baby Boomer, said remembering when he became a pilot, "if they see four stripes, generally people knew that was significant of being a captain." But the prestige has diminished some, he said. https://www.axios.com/millennial-pilot-job-aviation-634c075d-fb9f-4321-9a3f-3430f85f070a.html Back to Top A short first hop for 'drone taxi' in Vienna It was more of a small step than a giant leap, but the first public outing of a pilotless "drone taxi" in Vienna on Thursday nevertheless offered a glimpse into the possible future of urban travel. Several big companies such as Boeing and Airbus are working on their own versions of the technology but it was the Chinese firm EHang that unveiled its aircraft to assembled journalists in the Austrian capital's Generali Arena football stadium. But anyone expecting to see it gliding over the Danube was to be disappointed -- it is as yet not certified for Austrian airspace and stayed firmly within the confines of the stadium after a vertical hop of around 10 metres. Being inside the two-seater EHang 216 was "funny, soft and surprisingly noisy," said AFP photographer Joe Klamar, one of the first journalists to climb aboard, adding that the cabin was "very cramped". "The rotors are scary but we got used to it," he added. The EHang 216 is equipped with eight sets of rotors which emit a noise level of 90 decibels, below a normal helicopter but still easily loud enough to be uncomfortable. The firm says it hopes to get the noise level down to 75 decibels. Resistant 'mentalities' EHang says it eventually hopes to use to the drone to carry passengers at low altitude over distances of up to 35 kilometres but for now still needs to be cleared for use by aviation authorities. "Our biggest challenge is not technology, it's not regulation, it's people's mentality," says EHang's chief marketing officer Derrick Xiong, referring to possible reticence on the part of passengers towards the new vehicle. The company says it has received "thousands" of pre-orders and that is working with Austrian aeronautics company FACC to start mass production as of next year. Xiong says early interest has come from "oil and gas companies who want to transport engineers from one platform to the other" as well as tourism companies and firms transporting organs for transplant. He said the EHang is expected to cost around €200,000 but would not be available for private buyers. "Technically speaking its not a dream, its a reality," FACC CEO Robert Machtlinger told reporters, adding that the project had already carried out 7,000 flying hours, of which 2,000 have been manned. The Austrian company, which has a turnover of around €800 million ($900 million), supplies aerospace giants including Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer. It said it hopes to produce around 300 of the drone taxis by mid-2021. Hybrid technology EHang has been carrying out most of its testing in China, as well a test flight in February 2017 in Dubai which was closed to the public. Manufacturers working on other drone taxi prototypes -- notably the German Volocopter -- have been in touch with aviation authorities, including the EU's European Aviation Safety Agency, to try to get authorisation for their models. "Some draft regulations are already existing" says Machtlinger, but adds that getting drone taxis legal status is complicated by their hybrid nature: "It's not a helicopter, it's not an aeroplane." Austrian Transport Minister Norbert Hofer, who was present at Thursday's demonstration, said he hoped Austria could be among the first countries to have drone taxis flying regularly in its cities. Dubai has also expressed interest in being an early adopter of the technology. EHang says its drone taxi can fly unaided for 30 minutes and reach speeds of up to 130 kilometres an hour and carry 260 kilos. With its 17 kilowatt battery, its energy consumption per journey is "comparable to an electric car in an urban environment," says Machtlinger. https://www.thelocal.at/20190406/a-short-first-hop-for-drone-taxi-in-vienna Back to Top Flying Is Safer Than Eating The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) decision to ground Boeing's 737 MAX 8 passenger jet in the wake of two crashes has raised questions about the safety of today's airplane technology and led to some exaggerated reactions. "Can pilots trust Boeing with any of its other [planes]?" demanded one retired pilot on CNN. A more balanced assessment was offered by Atlantic journalist James Fallows. "The astonishingly good safety record of the world's commercial air-travel system," he suggests, "has earned most of the system's members the benefit of the doubt on safety judgments." Quoting another pilot, Fallows concludes that "airline accidents have become so rare I'm not sure what is still acceptable to the flying public." The safety of modern airline travel is indeed a wonder. For the near-decade between February 2009 and April 2018, there wasn't a single fatality on a commercial flight in the United States. Considering that during that time, Americans flew something on the order of sixty million miles per month-akin to flying to the moon and back every day for four years-that's an astonishing degree of safety. It's a clichι that driving to the airport is more dangerous than flying, but putting it that way may actually overstate the risk of plane travel. A 2006 report calculated the odds of dying in a crash at 1 in 11 million-and that was before the decade-long zero-fatalities streak. Driving is vastly more dangerous. In 2017, Americans drove more than 3 billion miles at the cost of 37,133 lives. In the entire decade before that, American air carriers suffered 67 fatalities (none in the U.S.), while flying 7.8 billion miles worldwide. According to other sources, seven people die for every billion miles traveled by car, whereas for plane travel, that figure is 0.07. That's such a tiny number that it's little exaggeration to say that flying is safer than doing anything else. Hiking, biking, and eating are literally thousands of times more deadly. About three hundred people die annually from falling off ladders; more than twice that many from toaster fires. About five thousand die from choking on food. The proverbial lightning strike is a virtual epidemic in comparison to airline fatalities. Lightning killed twenty-seven Americans in 2017-a record low, far below the seventy-five per year average before 2000. A person is four times more likely to be killed by a shark than by a passenger plane. To cite a more optimistic number, the odds of getting five cherries on a slot machine are one in 3,125-meaning you're more likely to win two jackpots in a row than to die in a plane crash. There is a risk of non-fatal injury on commercial jets. But even there, the industry's safety record is extraordinary. Only about forty people are hurt by turbulence each year. By comparison, nearly two thousand people per year suffer serious knife wounds while cutting bagels. This isn't to minimize the tragedy of airline fatalities but to celebrate the engineering achievements that lie behind this remarkable safety record. That record is the result of painstaking precautions and meticulous learning from mistakes in the years since September 17, 1908, when Thomas Selfridge became the first person killed in a plane crash. (His pilot that day was Orville Wright, who never fully recovered from his own injuries.) The degree to which airplane science has advanced since then is shocking. Only after two de Havilland Comets crashed in 1954 did engineers realize that the square shape of the windows was concentrating stress at the corners, resulting in structural failure. Airplane portholes have been oval ever since. Two years later, two planes collided over the Grand Canyon, killing 128 people, due in part to obsolete air traffic control rules that gave different agencies conflicting authority over guiding planes from the ground. Things improved when the FAA was given the responsibility, ending such confusion (though safety could improve far more if private companies were allowed to compete for the job). Perhaps the greatest recent innovation is satellite-guided navigation, which in the past two decades has not only reduced the risks of air travel even further but has provided other benefits as well. Investigators were alerted to the possible link between the two MAX 8 crashes, for example, by information on both flights recorded by satellite trackers. This data will help to ensure that the already breathtaking safety margins of today's flying are improved still further. The commercial airliner is one of the most complicated machines ever built, an awe-inspiring masterpiece of scientific and technological ingenuity. And considering all the factors involved in sending an eighty-ton machine through the sky at five hundred miles per hour, it boggles the mind to think how far we've advanced. Nothing will ever be entirely risk-free-but we owe a debt of gratitude to the countless engineers and pilots who have managed to make air travel among the safest things that human beings do. https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2019/04/flying-is-safer-than-eating/ Back to Top Now Amazon plans to launch a massive constellation of more than 3,000 internet satellites The company is joining firms like SpaceX and OneWeb, which all want to send huge numbers of satellites into low Earth orbit to connect underserved areas with broadband. How it works: The plan, dubbed Project Kuiper, will send satellites up into orbit at three different altitudes. There will be 784 satellites at 367 miles (591 kilometers), 1,296 satellites at 379 miles, and 1,156 satellites at 391 miles, according to a filing with the International Telecommunications Union, which oversees global telecom satellite operations. Combined, these satellites will provide internet access to more than 95% of the global population, according to Amazon. More details: A spokesperson said, "This is a long-term project that envisions serving tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet." It's not yet clear if Amazon will manufacture or buy its satellites, or when it will start to provide satellite broadband services. Before it does, it will need to obtain approval from the US Federal Communications Commission, and it will need to show how it plans to decommission its satellites and manage its role in the growing problem of space debris. Not alone: Amazon is one of several companies planning to provide broadband in this way. SpaceX, OneWeb, and Facebook are all working on internet satellite projects. https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/613272/now-amazon-plans-to-launch-a-massive-constellation-of-more-than-3000-internet/ Curt Lewis