The new space economy

"The new space economy is getting real," when I heard these words, I was thinking of flying cars and the Jetsons flying through the air. Well, I was close, it turns out it was space travel. There is alot going on in space travel now..What we thought was taking place in the future is starting to take place now. In this article by SPACE, it says there are meetings taking place now to have Virgin Galactic fly the first tourist aboard commerical spaceships in just a few years. It's not bad if your rich (starting price is $200,000). If you choose to fly it may be in this:


NASA is also getting involved in space travel. They realize how realistic this has become within the past few years. On the NASA website Human space travel is getting ready to go beyond Earth's orbit. Imagine going to Mars or Jupiter, what was just a thought 20-30 years ago is now being planned for the future.
Speaking of NASA, they are the pioneer's for space travel, they sent a man to the moon, and have successfully gained much knowledge of outer space. This website explains the history of NASA, and goes to show how far we have come. It's gone from going to the moon in 1969 to trying to let everyone buy there way to see outer space.
In terms of aviation, I don't believe it will hurt pilots or managers, I see one as a nessecity and the other as a luxury. In some ways I see it opening careers for aeronatical engineers, because they get to design and build better performing space shuttle's.

ETS Problems

The EU has said that all airlines flying into Europe must pay for the emissions which are not environmentally friendly. The problem is that no airlines, especially American carriers that fly in the EU airspace for about 1/8 of the trip want to pay. I have to say that to me it makes no sense, why would anyone want to pay. I can understand the EU's actions, but some of the rules they made, like any US carrier traveling to the EU would have to pay the EU for the entire trip, not just for the emissions going over the EU, but the entire trip, that's not the right solution, it's kind of greedy.
The conflict between the US and the EU is between money. The U.S has a bill that would protect American carriers from having to pay extra for flying in the EU. In the end I think the EU will backdown and leave it as it was.
In this article, the EU estimates that aviation will increase emissions by 130% in 2012 compared with 2005 when it was at 60%, they say it will cost them 3.5 billion euro's per year, which is why the EU is charging a fee. The EU will be charging every aircraft operator that fly's into or out of the EU, and they will follow their annual cycle; operators will require that aircract operators watch their own annual emissions, and file a report of it, and have it verified. Also airlines will have to write how they will lower their emissions...As if they didn't have enough to take of.

Reno Air Race

In this AOPA blog, Alton Marsh talks about the Reno Air Race that claimed the lives of 11 people; including 1 pilot and 7 spectators. In the update he says that something may have happened to the tail horizontal control surfaces and may have lead to the accident. There is a video avialable in the AOPA blog showing the aircraft in a nosedive and hitting the ground. The aircraft was like most sport type aircraft; heavily modified, which makes one think, when will the FAA start to limit modifactions for sport aircraft.

A380 Vs. B787

These two aircraft are the newest, top of the line and most appealing to customers in the aviation industry. Least to say these two aircraft are the big money makers and pilots all over the world love flying these aircraft more than any other.
I'm going to be talking about the A380 today. According to the Airbus website, it is the world's largest aircraft and can hold 525 passengers in a normal seating (1st class, business class and economy class,) and because it has an upper deck it provides more than 50% more floor surface than the competition. The A380 will come in two different versions, one for airlines (A380-800,) and one for cargo (A380F). For this blog I'm going to looking at the A380-800.
The A380 has a range of 8,300 nm...thats over 9500 miles and has a fuel capacity of 85,472 gallons.
Airbus projects that in the first 3 years 15 million passengers will have flown the A380. Their have been a total of 236 orders of the A380 and 57 deliveries to 6 airlines; Emirates, Singapore airlines, Qantas, Lufthansa, Air France, and Korean Air.

**bar graph courtesy of wikipedia
The bar graph does a good job showing which airlines are in right now and whose in for the future of the A380.

 In 1988 a few Airbus engineers worked to break the monopoly set by Boeing. Airbus and Boeing both stated reseach together on "very large aircraft" in 1994 and that ended farily quicky. And in 1999 Airbus designers decided it was time to bring the Airbus to life, The project cost them about 10 billion dollars to complete.
I believe the A380 will have a postive effect on the manufacturs of airbus. I mean the unit cost of one complete A380 is around 375 million dollars, so imagine selling 200-300 of these. It will bring money to company. As far as Boeing goes, I think they ran into competition and I can't wait to see the new 787. But honestly, their's no doubt Boeing has lost money because of Airbus. Finally as a future manager in the industry I can't wait to see the income the new planes bring in. I think with these two companies competing for service with airlines, it will bring out the best of both companies (hence new airplanes).

NextGen advantages and disadvantages

NextGen is a new technology that I can not wait for. There has been a lot of talk about NextGen for a few years now. There are many benefits of NextGen which I will talk about, but with anything good, it will come at a cost for someone.

In this short video by the FAA they say that in 2009 we had 689 Million passengers and 36 Billion pounds of cargo and those numbers are expected to increase by 50% in 2025. So with more air traffic we know we will be needing a new, better and faster system. NextGen provides pilots, and ATC with real time information. Pilots will know where they are in relation to other aircraft and the ground.  We will be moving from radar systems to satelitte technology. More airplanes would be able to fly closer together; 500 feet of vertical seperation will be the new standards. All this will lead to 20% reduction of en route errors, reduced fuel cost, more direct routes which will lead to faster flights, and fewer delays, and enhanced security by giving the FAA, Homeland Security, and the Military more effective means of watching traffic.

The FAA has already invested 128 Million in 2007, 216 Million in 2008, 659 Million in 2009, and 868 Million in 2010. That is a lot of money that shows that NextGen is coming soon. The problem lies with general aviation. If all aircraft will be required to install new equipment, how will aircraft owners afford to install new equipment, in partical the Automatic Dependent Surveillence Brodcast (ADS-B). The airplanes will litterally talk to each other to avoid mid air collisions by informing the pilots where to go. Another problem is that the NextGen system will eliminate 75% of the FAA workforce (according to my avt 315 professor). So it will come with cost, but is expected to save money in the long run.

Post 9/11 Airport Security

Yes, we all know aviation security is a hassle. As a Pakistani-American citizen I know how much TSA can be bothersome, but security has come a long way and there is still much to learn. There is an intresting article on CNN about how the Israelis have been doing there security; in particular El Al airlines. They actually interview everyone that boards the aircraft and believe it or not they have not had one incident...so it must work, a technique that I think most flyers will embrace more so than the screening.

In the article I looked at this week, a poll of over 2000 American passengers showed that nearly 1/3 of Americans are more concerned about security now then they were 10 years ago, and 84% said they believe American will be hit with another attack from a citizen of a foreign country in the next 10 years.

A pair of Gallup polls last year indicated relatively few U.S. air travelers (27 percent) are upset about security procedures, but 71 percent said they'd prefer it if security procedures included profiling rather than depending on random selections for more intense security screenings. The article also says that we waste money screening "grandmothers and other passengers who pose no threat to the system," but in my opinion, if terrorist really want to cripple America they would no doubt send there Grandma's to do some damage if they found TSA not screening elder people's.

 

The article also said "Every action and every layer of aviation security that has been added to the system has been based on a reaction to a previous threat," Which is why I believe we should institute the Israeli system of interviewing all passengers, if we can do it while people are waiting in line, it wouldn't be so bad with time. If we really want to be serious about safety then we should have everyone going thru screeners (except the flight crew) and everyone should be interviewed, and we should wait until something bad happens to act

Security Article: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/09/11/Sept-11-A-decade-later-how-secure-are-we/UPI-15221315724700/#ixzz1YLC4bunt

Automation and human error

I want to start off with a basic example of my view on automation...how often do we try to do something on a regular computer/labtop and mess up? (or how often does the computer mess up?) For me it's quite often. Don't get me wrong, I think automation is a great thing, just like I think computers are a great thing.  But I don't think we should have to rely on a computer to fly a plane.  Dr. Tartalone has told his flight students numerous times that most likely when we start flying it's not going to be something fancy, like a G-1000 system...it's going to be something simple in a DC-9.
In another example Dr. Phil told about some pilots that were trying to taxi a brand new freshly painted Airbus A-380, and they somehow made the plane think that it was in the air, so when they hit the brakes on the ground it didn't work, and they ended up totaling the new plane into a sound barrier.
If there is a complanency with automation that can be a big problem, as a avt. manager I would have more training every time new automation/technology comes out. Even if it cost more, training is an essential, but will end up saving lives in the end. 
The key advantage in automation in avtiation is giving pilot more Situation Awareness. It gives pilots a faster, and easier way of making a decision. But with that fast and easy decision will come alot of money being invested. So even if it doesn't work, atleast the lights look cool.

* http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:automation