5th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation — ICRAT 2012. 22-25 May 2012, University of Berkley, California
On 25/01/2012, in Events, by steve
Following the success of its four previous editions in 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010 ICRAT has now been established as a mainstream biennial event in Air Transport Research, alternating with the USA/Europe ATM R&D Seminar. ICRAT is an excellent forum for young researchers within air transportation to share their work, expand their professional network, and gain new knowledge and inspiration. This fifth edition of ICRAT will include one day of tutorials, two days of technical presentations and a doctoral symposium where PhD students can expose their research problems to get advice from established scientists in the field. ICRAT 2012, in addition to world class keynote speakers, will have panels where senior researchers will provide constructive feedback to the paper presenters. Senior researchers are encouraged to attend ICRAT.
ICRAT 2012 is organized by the FAA and EUROCONTROL. Other co-sponsors include NASA and JPDO. It will be held at the Berkeley International House (I-House) of the University of California, Berkeley on May 22-25, 2012.
The Space Age Airport
On 10/01/2012, in Life around runways, by steve
When we think of space-flight, we tend to picture rockets blasting into the final frontier on the tip of a column of fire, thundering energy that seems to be totally random and untamable. Of course a rocket engine is anything but unpredictable but it is a technology very different from our more traditional winged aircraft operations.
But space-flight, at least sub-orbital and low-Earth orbit space flight is fast becoming reality with new machines that call home what is, for all reasons and purposes, a kind of traditional airport.
In a previous article we talked about the Lynx which takes off and lands as a traditional aircraft but its flight profile includes a rocket assisted climb which takes it to 200,000 feet which is commonly recognized as the lower limit of space.
Now comes Stratolaunch, an aircraft that looks like two 747s tied to each other side by side at the wingtips and a droppable payload in the middle which is released at an altitude of 30 to 35 thousand feet and which then boosts itself to low-Earth orbit. Initially designed for cargo (e.g. satellites) only, plans are to come up with a version in time that will carry around 6 passengers. This launch aircraft, which will actually use a lot of 747 parts, will have a wing span that is twice that of a 747-400. Clearly, she will need an airport that has a few things adapted for her special needs.
The Stratolaunch concept
The mass of this baby will be comparable to an Airbus 380 and the runway must be at least 12,000 feet long, no big surprises there. But the width of the taxiways and runways, the radius of the curves will have to be phenomenal and the refueling facilities will need to supply Jet A1 as well as liquid rocket fuel to fill up the drop-load. It is no surprise either that an airport aspiring for Spaceport status will have to be specially certified by the appropriate authorities before they can start spacecraft operations.
Click here to read the full article
Collaborative Departure Queue Management (CDQM) – What is this?
On 26/12/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Although the concept of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) originated in the US, Europe did leapfrog ahead with its initiative called Airport CDM (A-CDM). A-CDM has been implemented at a number of European airports with varying degrees of success and it seems that the momentum of implementation has slowed somewhat. On the other hand, most everybody agrees that A-CDM, if done properly, does bring the benefits predicted by the early cost-benefit analyses.
While A-CDM has several elements, practically all the benefits arise from the shared information and resulting better decisions while the chief conceptual basis of A-CDM is embodied in the milestones approach. The milestones are in fact defined events and corresponding statuses that must be achieved at defined times as the flight is going through the turnaround process. The turnaround process is then managed proactively by all the parties involved who share the same view and understanding of the process and the consequences of not meeting a given milestone. In fact, the purpose of A-CDM is to make the operation more predictable which reduces unnecessary queuing at the runway.
Of course things did not stand still in the US either. While the basic principles of the A-CDM concept have been adopted it was necessary to steer developments in a direction that took account of the fundamental differences between Europe and the US environment. These concern mainly the more active role aircraft operators play in assigning and controlling airport resources like gates and ramp areas as well as the availability of the FAA Command Center which, unlike the CFMU in Europe, has real authority to dynamically manage the National Airspace System.
The FAA has developed a Surface CDM Concept of Operations which provides the overall framework for CDM implementation in the airport context, much like the A-CDM Concept of Operations does in Europe. Collaborative Departure Queue Management (CDQM) is one element of the Surface CDM Concept, which has actually been tested in the US (in Memphis among others).
Click here to read the full article
FAA/NextGen Bashing on the other Side of the Pond
On 12/12/2011, in NextGen, by steve
If you thought we were occasionally unkind to SESAR, read this post. Then make up your own mind. While doing that, do not forget that what you are reading was put together before FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt was charged for driving under influence and subsequently quit the top-job of the FAA. Babbitt is a veteran pilot who flew 25 years for Eastern Airlines… But back to the article.
You will read things like “ERAM is the dead elephant in the room” and “How will the headless bureaucracy handle a doomed program that must succeed?”
What about this one: “In order to cost-justify NextGen, they have cooked the books on all future budget plans.”
The article is interesting, even if in places it fees a bit over-stressed, because it highlights what is probably a true problem for NextGen: basing it on ERAM, the En-Route Automation Modernization program, which is evidently struggling and might very well pull NextGen as originally envisaged down with it.
May be, just may be, there is also a lesson here for SESAR. Sorry… there we go again.
Airbus to support FAA Greener Skies Initiative with ATM expertise
On 25/11/2011, in Environment - Without hot air, by steve
Airbus has been selected to provide Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Performance Based Navigation (PBN) expertise for the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Greener Skies Initiative. As part of Boeing’s FAA System Engineering 2020 (SE-2020) team, Airbus will identify procedures which fully utilize aircraft precision navigation capabilities to reduce fuel burn, lower emissions and decrease noise.
The Greener Skies initiative seeks to improve ATM efficiency and to minimize the environmental impact on the ground and in the air through the expanded use of PBN including Required Navigation Performance (RNP), area navigation (RNAV), and Optimized Profile Descents (OPD).
The industry consortium includes Adacel, Airbus, Boeing, Cessna and Honeywell, and is tasked with establishing methods for the full implementation of PBN by utilizing advanced flight deck and Air Traffic Control (ATC) capabilities while analyzing new policies and procedures. Airbus subsidiary Quovadis will provide PBN consultancy and implementation expertise for the initiative. Seattle will be used as a key site to enable these initial advanced operational capabilities to be introduced into the US National Airspace System (NAS). Click here to read the full article
NextGen and SESAR – is this a race???
On 16/11/2011, in NextGen, by steve
For the past several years news from the US repeatedly mentioned how the FAA was teetering on the brink of running out of money while Congress was debating the so-called FAA reauthorization bill. At one point the Agency actually shut down for a few days while extra funds were made available for them.
Of course this unholy situation was anything but helpful for NextGen, the FAA’s flagship project aiming to modernize the ATM system in the US. However, after all this wrangling, there is light at the end of the tunnel… and it is not the train that is coming!
A bill that would finally settle the funding issue will probably be on the President’s desk by Christmas. This was announced recently on the occasion of the opening of the renovated NextGen Test Bed at the Daytona Beach International Airport in Florida. This airport is famous among others for being the home-base of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
The bill in question will provide a four-year blueprint for the development of NextGen and will eliminate any reauthorization issues for the FAA during this time. Congressman John Mica, when talking about the bill, highlighted the fact that it includes deadlines, incentives to attract private money into the project and also a streamlining of the FAA processes used to certify new technology.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said that “NextGen will be more convenient, more dependable and it will improve safety and efficiency all at the same time.”
More surprisingly, it seems that there is a belief in some US circles that if the US gets NextGen up and running before Europe’s SESAR is ready, the US stands to reap important economic benefits. They believe that whoever sets the protocols and standards will also win he world market. The same people indicated that in their view, the US is ahead of Europe in this “race”.
Click here to read the full article
Outdated Mentality Slows ATM Progress
On 07/11/2011, in Viewpoint, by steve
I am sure Jane’s Airport Review will forgive me for picking the title of one of their articles but it was so stunning, I could not resist the temptation.
It looks like October was a month of bad news from the world of ATM and I am starting to get a terrible feeling of déjà vu… again.
Back in the times of EATCHIP and ATM2000+ meeting after meeting we were banging the tables, telling anyone who would listen that air traffic management modernization was not rocket science, the technology aspect was almost a no-brainer compared to the kind of cultural change that was necessary on the part of all stakeholders but from ANSPs and airlines most of all, if we were to get anywhere.
When EATCHIP was faltering, ATM2000+ came along and this latter was even signed off by the ECAC Ministers of Transport and what happened? Nothing… or anyway very little compared to the lofty aims defined originally. After a few horrible summers, it was 9/11 and the ensuing economic slump that saved the day. The ATM system would have collapsed had the 5 % year on year traffic demand increase actually materialize.
Then NextGen in the US and the Single European Sky and SESAR in Europe came along. This time it was going to be different… We are well into those programs and here is what we have learned in this black October of the year 2011.
As reported in Aviation Week, the FAA’s En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) is turning into a major embarrassment. It is four years late and may in fact slip by another two years while the cost is already 330 million bucks over the original budget and it may go to 500 million… ERAM is an essential step in getting NextGen operational, even if ERAM itself is not a NextGen element as such.
Click here to read the full article
The crystal ball of surface movement analysis
On 19/10/2011, in Life around runways, by steve
We have all heard of the so called airport hot spots… places where extra caution is required to avoid nasty incidents like runway incursions. Until now, hot spots were discovered the hard way. Usually the dangerous places were identified as such following several incidents that made the situation clear: this is where danger lurks, extra caution advised. For the same reason, it is difficult to engineer out hot spots even in green field projects as it is not easy to establish before the start of operations just where things will consistently go wrong.
The Airport Viewer being developed by the FAA and Saab Sensis Corporation will change all that. A system originally developed to collect operational data to be used to judge the effects of various NextGen elements on airport operations is turning out to be a powerful tool to assess otherwise hard to notice operational anomalies which can lead to serious ground movement incidents.
Like in so many other areas, the key to this potential safety improvement is the harvesting and processing of ground movement data that has always been there albeit in a form that did not lend itself to easy interpretation. ASDE-X, the Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X (which is also a Sensis product) is being deployed across the US at all major airports. It monitors and records live traffic which the FAA can review like data from any other of their surveillance systems.
In the past, the recorded data was reviewed usually only when an incident was being investigated. After the fact as it were. Yet the circumstances that led to many incidents were there also in the past, possibly hiding in the mass of data. Even if things came very near to being an incident, if it did not happen, the almost-event went unnoticed.
Sensis is now creating a few clever algorithms which, let loose on the ASDE-X data, are able to discern movement patterns and behaviors which represent anomalies and which may indicate problem areas. Possible hot spots!
Click here to read the full article
The advantages of not being American
On 17/10/2011, in Viewpoint, by cleo
Remember how we used to say to anyone willing to listen just how wonderful the FAA was and how happy they should be in the US for having just one big ATM organization to contend with?
This was of course before NextGen and the current reshuffle of the FAA to make it better suited to achieving the NextGen goals. We have now learned that David Grizzle, the COO of the Air Traffic Organization, is of the opinion that the FAA-wide changes will go a long way toward making them one FAA as opposed to independent and often feuding activities all housed at 800 Independence Avenue. I also read in Aviation Week with great surprise that two FAA guys will be used as “battering rams” to break down the cultural barriers inside the FAA… All this is of course set in the context of setting up a new Project Management Organization (PMO) within the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, to look after NextGen and improve the general management of that project.
Wow… we always thought the FAA was better.
Of course this highlights immediately how lucky we are in Europe.
Our world is composed of EC and EUROCONTROL member states, the two sets not being identical. EUROCONTROL has more members but that organization is being made irrelevant albeit its final name (Network Manager) is something even the FAA can be jealous of. Then we have the FABs, composed of ANSPs but no real European organization that would oversee the FABs of which there are far more than anyone would ever need… The ANSPs in the FABs are forming alliances but those alliances do not align with the FABs. Then there is the SESAR Joint Undertaking with ANSP and industry members trying to realize SESAR, something that has never envisaged having to contend with the fragmentation represented by the FABs and the ANSP alliances. On top of all that, we have the European Commission who is actually responsible for the FAB idea in the first place (big mistake) but they are also laboring on what is called the Single European Sky (SES), something that almost died in trying to bring that jigsaw puzzle into a coherent whole… and the jury is still out on what will come of this all, SES or not.
Suppose, somebody somewhere discovers that there is a problem in Europe similar to what the FAA has faced and to which their reply was establishing the PMO. What would we do?
Wrong question. We can never discover a problem like that…
Alternate Position, Navigation and Timing (APNT) – What is this?
On 19/09/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
In any conversation about satellite navigation and the use of enablers like GPS, talk inevitably shifts to the risks and the ease with which GPS for instance can be jammed. It is easy to sketch doomsday scenarios with a full-scale GPS outage once NextGen and SESAR are operational, making the industry essentially dependent on signals from space. The response is alternating between brushing away the risk or suggestions that satellite navigation is perhaps not the best path for the future of air traffic management.
The fact of the matter is, there have been cases where the GPS signal was effectively unusable in certain parts of the US, with the duration of the incidents varying between 1 hour and 72 hours. The incidents were all traceable to temporary adverse conditions but it is only a matter of time before malicious intent will join the list of causes. There is certainly no shortage of cheap but effective jammer devices, some of which fit inside a cigarette box.
Adverse conditions may arise for example as a result of meteorological or space-based phenomena or trucks passing near the location of an antenna situated in a crammed environment. Portable jammers may be activated anywhere…
One of the main attractions of the move to a space based ATM paradigm is the potential cost saving offered by the chance to eliminate the ground navigation infrastructure. The vulnerabilities of the space based system at the same time require that measures be introduced that cost-effectively mitigate the risks posed by those vulnerabilities.
Air navigation service providers the world over are obliged to set up a system that enables them to continue providing the services required even in the case of various contingencies. No-break power supplies, robust, redundant communications lines, contingency control rooms and the ability to transfer control to neighboring centers in case of a full scale failure or natural catastrophe are just a few examples of routine measures in place to soften the impact of contingencies.
In the past, the failure of a VOR/DME serving a busy intersection, failure of an ILS serving a busy runway or total equipment failure on board a single aircraft were serious events and made both controllers and pilots sweat but it was hardly the end of the world.
Click here to read the full article
Initial Tailored Arrivals – What is this?
On 05/09/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
We have all heard about Tailored Arrivals. But what are Initial Tailored Arrivals? The following article from the FAA explains it for us.
An Initial Tailored Arrival (ITA) is a pre-negotiated arrival path through airspace of multiple air traffic control (ATC) facilities. The ITA limits vectoring and minimizes the time the aircraft spends maintaining level flight during its descent. The concept has matured during four years of demonstrations, and we will make the transition to normal operations in 2011.
The pilot initiates an ITA with a request to ATC while the aircraft still is in its cruise phase. If an ITA is available, the controller sends the pilot a clearance that includes a descent profile with speed and altitude restrictions, as applicable. The clearance is sent as data, which limits ITAs at present to aircraft equipped with the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) for communications over oceans. The pilot loads the clearance directly into the aircraft’s flight management system, which controls the descent.
ITAs differ from other types of Optimized Profile Descents (OPDs) in that they are assigned by controllers to specific approaches and tailored to the characteristics of a limited number of FANS-equipped aircraft types – 747s, 777s, A330s, A340s and A380s. They begin at the top of the descent and, when completed, control the aircraft all the way down to the runway. By contrast, other types of OPDs, such as Area Navigation arrival procedures, are published for all users and must serve a wide variety of aircraft types.
Click here to read the full article
Metron Aviation Wins NASA Contract for NextGen Airspace Management
On 26/08/2011, in NextGen, by steve
Metron Aviation announced that it has been awarded a contract from NASA to perform advanced research and development to further NextGen airspace management concepts. This is an interesting twist in the NextGen story… Metron Aviation has been recently acquired by Airbus.
Metron Aviation will support NASA’s NextGen Concepts and Technology Development Project (CTD), as it continues to conceptualize and create Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) concepts for allocating airspace capacity during convective weather events. Metron Aviation will develop DAC concepts and algorithms that incorporate uncertainties in weather forecasts, methods for conversion of convective weather activities into airspace capacity and uncertain pilot, airline and Traffic Flow Management (TFM) responses to weather.
“We are extremely pleased to have been awarded this prestigious NASA contract. Working consistently with NASA to dynamically change Airspace Configuration will not only show immediate results towards harmonization and NextGen, but will also impact the National Airspace for years to come,” said Robert Hoffman, PhD., Principal Analyst and Director of the Advanced Research Group at Metron Aviation. “For years, we have been working with NASA on various airspace optimization projects, and are excited to continue our heritage of innovation to create a more efficient, optimized and safer airspace.”
Click here to read the full article
ERAM suffers under FAA shutdown
On 20/08/2011, in NextGen, by steve
En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) is one of the FAA’s flagship projects that was supposed to be fully operational at all of the FAA en-route facilities by the end of last year. Formal acceptance took place in October 2007 and Lockheed Martin, ERAM’s manufacturer could be proud of having delivered the new system on time and within budget. As it turned out, their happiness was a tad premature. The system was running in operational trial mode in Seattle and Salt Lake City and a host of software problems arose resulting in the full-delivery date slipping to 2014. OOOOps!
Last year the US Transportation Department’s Inspector General went so far as to publicly name the problems ERAM was struggling with. These are the interfaces with other ATC facilities, the aircraft data labels on the controller displays and the way handoffs are processed. None of these areas represent revolutionary new ways of working. ATC systems the world over can do such things and one cannot but wonder: what was Lockheed Martin doing wrong so that they do not work well in ERAM? Or were the requirements such that they in fact became a system-designer’s nightmare as they struggled to keep up with the FAA’s requirement creep? Getting things back on track will cost a cool 500 million bucks extra and then we did not consider the extra costs the delay in operational introduction will cause the industry in general.
Click here to read the full article
TITAN – a smart layer upon Airport CDM
On 17/08/2011, in TITAN, by balazs
Not so long ago, a daring fellow named Orville Wright took off from a hazy field in North Carolina with his „homebuilt” airplane. He flew an impressive distance of 39 meters, then landed. That day, the Wright Flyer made four take-offs: the Wright brothers intended to take full advantage of the good weather on their day off.
108 years later, the distances flown in public air transport grew a bit longer, but the overall target of getting the most out of the possibilities hasn’t changed. In the last decades the engineering people of the industry unquestionably did a good job: the equipment is capable of running nearly 24/7. We have got instruments that can land an airplane without any intervention of the flight crew, airport opening hours are driven by the traffic much more than by the weather, moreover, the reliability of ground and in-flight systems is increasing as quickly as their maintenance period does.
There are only two factors of the equation that have remained – and will always remain – constant, and these become the ultimate limits of air transportation capacity. These are the physical space available and the loadability of the human mind.
Space, the first constraint, cannot be outflanked, since there are only two states of a given runway, airport gate or piece of airspace in a given moment: occupied or free. However, along with the evolution of information technology, computers are continuously extending the capacity of the human brain, at least on the level of data storage and organization. In the pre-computerized era, decision making required the talent of complementing the data available with good estimations of the missing information, the aim of IT solutions is to make all relevant information available to get rid of the need for this talent.
From the late 70’s computational data management started to gain growing influence in different fields of airline and airport management. This resulted in discrete, standalone systems that were – if at all – loosely interconnected. The responsible people of the different fields of operation could not complain anymore regarding the lack of data primarily needed for decision making. But regardless of the IT efforts, the delay statistics remained proportional to nothing else but the level of traffic at the best run and equipped airports just as well as at the others without the freshest IT infrastructure.
Click here to read the full article
What a way to run a railroad – the FAA is shutting down!
On 25/07/2011, in Just to let you know..., by steve
The writing has been on the wall for some time. Approval of the reauthorization bill (the all important act of Congress that ensures funding to the FAA) has been a convoluted process year after year and there have been a few near misses already. But this time they have done it!
The FAA went into partial shut-down last Friday… incredible but true. 4000 non-essential employees were furloughed and no money for the aviation trust fund can be collected or paid. Air traffic controllers are not affected but all FAA Regional offices will be closed and only essential personnel will come to work.
The impact on the aviation trust fund is a cool 200 million bucks lost revenue per week and in all likelihood the schedule of NextGen will also be adversely affected.
Of course thus may sound like peanuts compared to the very real danger of the US itself defaulting on its debts if no agreement is reached in raising the credit ceiling by 2 August but still…
Meet EDA – The Efficient Descent Advisor
On 21/07/2011, in NextGen, by steve
You will have heard of Tailored Arrivals… they are nice and work well but they often also need to be broken off prematurely when conflicts between aircraft arise. Now here is a tool that pre-empts the conflicts and releases the full power of tailored arrivals. Meet EDA, the Efficient Descent Advisor being developed by NASA.
What is the problem?
As an airplane transitions for landing, today’s air traffic control procedures often force the aircraft to fly inefficient arrival paths involving frequent changes in vectoring, altitude, and speed in order to maintain safe separation from other aircraft. The frequent changes of this stair-step approach are problematic because they often require added engine power, which increases fuel burn, causing detrimental effects to the environment.
What is the solution?
Continuous Descent Approaches (or CDA) is a next generation aviation concept that enables aircraft to “coast” during the final stages of flight, using less engine power. Instead of approaching an airport in a conventional stair-step fashion, CDA allows aircraft to fly a continuous, gliding descent at low engine power, thereby minimizing fuel consumption, environmental emissions, and noise pollution.
What is NASA doing to help?
Click here to read the full article
6 July 2011 – 75 years of ATC in the US
On 15/07/2011, in Anniversaries, by steve
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration marked the 75th anniversary of federal air traffic control ON 6 July as American aviation experiences its safest period ever. Since its inception with 15 workers operating in just three control centers in 1936, the agency has become a world leader, pioneering safety improvements and developing new technology to speed up flights, save fuel and improve safety.
“The United States has the safest air transportation system in the world. But as the last 75 years show, we will never stop working to make our system even safer,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
“As a pilot, I am in awe of the aviation safety and technological advancements that have been made in the last 75 years,” said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. “NextGen represents the next milestone in aviation innovation. The FAA is committed to transforming our national airspace system so passengers can reach their destinations even more safely and more efficiently than they do today.”
Federal air traffic control began on July 6, 1936, when the Bureau of Air Commerce took over the operation of the first airway traffic control centers at Newark, N.J., Chicago and Cleveland. Faced with a growing demand for air travel, the 15 employees who made up the original group of controllers took radio position reports from pilots to plot the progress of each flight, providing no separation services. At the time, the fastest plane in the commercial fleet was the Douglas DC-3, which could fly coast-to-coast in about 17 hours while carrying 21 passengers.
Click here to read the full article
FAA AC 120-76B – DRAFT – Guidelines for the Certification, Airworthiness, and Operational Use of Electronic Flight Bags (EFB)
On 20/06/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
The FAA recently released for comment a draft Advisory Circular 120-76B, “Guidelines for the Certification, Airworthiness, and Operational Use of Electronic Flight Bags (EFB)”. This is the third revision of the AC 120-76 series and provides guidance for operational approval and installation of Electronic Flight Bags. While previous versions of this AC were applicable primarily to certificated operators (i.e. Part 91, Part 135), the proposed draft of AC 120-76B includes additional guidance and policy for Part 91 F (large and turbine powered aircraft) Operators. The AC also clarifies EMI and Rapid Decompression testing requirements for all operators and equipment and provides additional guidance on airworthiness certification of EFB mounting devices and power provisions, use of Lithium Ion batteries in Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs), and requirements for paperless operations. The comment period ends July 13, 2011
Download the document here. The FAA Flight Standards Service’s list of draft Advisory Circulars (ACs) is available here.
BluSky Services and Holland Aviation Consultancy & Engineering (HACE) team up to develop advanced e-training courses
On 13/06/2011, in Training world, by steve
The importance of training in aviation cannot be over emphasized. This has been amply demonstrated by recent events, including the Air France A330 crash and the A380 taxi incident, in both of which pilot training issues have been identified as important contributory factors.
But the need for quality training extends way beyond pilots and air traffic controllers. People working on all levels and in all aviation disciplines must be able to supplement their basic training and skills with new knowledge constantly being generated in this fast moving industry.
Training is an expensive affair. The courses themselves tend to have a steep price and having people travel to the course location incurs additional expenses. Temporary absence from the workplace must also be accounted for. With company budgets under stress everywhere, managers are often forced to axe all but essential training. Of course the line between essential and nice to have is not always easy to identify and missing out on important new knowledge happens before we know it.
However, modern technology is here to help. Enter the Advanced E-training Courses being offered in air traffic management by the HACE/BluSky Services partnership. These two companies bring together several years’ worth of expertise in air traffic management and e-learning to offer a wide range of courses at a very reasonable price.
Whether you are an individual wishing to expand your horizons or a company with a need to bring its personnel up to speed on certain subjects, e-learning provides a cost-effective and convenient way to acquire the knowledge you seek. In all cases, the total cost is a fraction of what an equivalent classroom course would require in terms of time and money.
Click here to read the full article
When Titans speak
On 25/05/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Mid-March Aviation Week published a double interview in which Canso director general Graham Lake and Air Traffic Control Association president/CEO Peter F. Dumont spoke their minds about air traffic management developments on both sides of the Atlantic.
The interviews were refreshing and revealing. They both spoke about the prospects of SESAR and NextGen frankly and eschewing the usual bluster and we-have-won type of text so frustrating in the “formal” communications.
Mr. Lake tells us that it is not yet clear where the 4 billion euros implementation funding needed by SESAR will come from… With SESAR well into its 8-year life-span and 2.1 billion euros being burned through as you read this, such an uncertainty about the future is cause for concern to say the least.
He also makes the point that the new ATM system will still need people to operate it. He then goes on to say that some 70 % of the typical ANSPs costs are staff related, expressing surprise that parts of the ATM network face disruptions as a result of labor disputes and demands for unsustainable labor agreements. As an industry, we cannot allow this to continue he states. There is a strong message here and one is almost tempted to compare the number of pilots and other airline stuff who lost their jobs because of the economic crisis with the number of ATC staff who had been handed the pink slip for the same reason…
Click here to read the full article
Big brother in the sky
On 18/05/2011, in Satellite Navigation, by steve
Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) is only now starting to make inroads as a surveillance means more accurate and cost-effective than traditional radar. With the ground infrastructure slowly being built, someone has already come up with a new idea: why not put the ADS-B receivers on satellites and start a surveillance service that covers every nook and cranny of the planet, oceans and the deepest mountain valleys included, and sell the service to Air Navigation Service Providers? Whether as a second layer of surveillance or as the primary one, the satellite based solution promises to be much cheaper in deployment and cost of usage than the already not too expensive ground ADS-B network.
This is a very innovative and absolutely market oriented approach that is of course not without some risk. That surveillance data is essential is not in question. Whether ANSPs will be ready to relinquish their hold on the surveillance infrastructure and go for a more efficient and cheaper solution that is as good as or better than the existing heavy iron is the big question of course.
In any case, Iridium thinks the risk is worth taking. These are the same folks whose first attempt at bringing us satellite telephones was a flop but who have risen from the ashes offering more interesting and viable solutions.
Of course the idea is logical and the timing is good. With both Europe and the USA heading towards all aircraft being equipped with ADS-B, broadcasting their GPS derived position and other information for everyone who cares to listen to hear, a system not limited by geography or topography to pick up and forward the broadcast information makes perfect sense, especially if the cost of its deployment and operation is comparable or less than that of a ground based ADS-B network.
Click here to read the full article
Margaret Sanders, ATCO – An example to follow
On 13/05/2011, in Women in ATC, by steve
When I first embarked on our project to collect information about women in air traffic control in general and then about the first women air traffic controllers in the US, I did not think about a fact of life that is the other inevitable thing besides taxes… Many of those first pioneering ladies have flown West now and I am almost too late for collecting their stories to share with you for the enjoyment and education of us all. Luckily there are still many controllers who have worked with them or met them later in life and I am getting a lot of support from them in the form of written accounts and relics of all kinds.
This time I am bringing you the story of Margaret Sanders as told by our contributor Virginia. She in turn used Margaret’s obituary for some of the detail. Margaret passed away in June 2009 but if you read her story you will see just how resilient and flexible controllers really are.
Margaret Arlene Sanders was born in Canton, Kan., to parents Laura and Joe Anderson on Nov. 16, 1910. As her older brother, Curtis, used to say, “She is much smarter than I am, so she too must go to college.” Her father relented and Margaret graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in journalism.
After graduation she began a series of careers writing. She wrote a column for a newspaper under a man’s name, wrote advertising for department stores and the newspaper. She wrote a national award-winning ad campaign for the Kansas State Fair in the early ’30s, but when it came time for the award to be presented in Washington, D.C., her boss, a man, was sent to receive it. Margaret was the first woman to work as a “utilization specialist” for the Rural Electrification Administration, “selling” farms on the idea of using electric appliances in their homes.
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A Lifetime of Chances
On 11/04/2011, in Bookshelf, by steve
By Mary Chance VanScyoc
Publisher: Parkwood Press, Wichita, Kansas, USA
ISBN: 0-9649065-0-3
I do not know how many air traffic controllers have taken the trouble to write up their story (I guess there are not so many of them) but I am very happy that Mary did. Her book may look simple and the washed out photos on the cover may not look very promising but appearances are often misleading. After reading a few chapters you slowly realize that you are holding a rare gem in your hands.
She does not give up her secrets easily. You have to work for the privilege. On the first few pages of the book Mary takes you through her impressive family tree and you learn, among others, the origins of the rather unusual VanScyoc and Chance names. Her clipped and crisp style feels a bit rough at the edges but you soon acquire a taste for it and you start appreciating just how accurately this style reflects the rough and tumble life she had as a child in rural America. I do not know how she does it but those staccato sentences precisely convey the emotions, sights and even smells of her world… when she says Spring, you feel the gentle breeze and smell the fresh grass.
A girl who cares more for her pilot license than the new sheer nylons she was given as a present to make her “more lady-like” (a big mistake, she has never put them on), it was quite natural that Mary should try for a profession hitherto closed for women. She became an air traffic controller in an age where the skies were still filled with DC-4s and its kin and I wonder what she means when she says “traffic at our airport was quite heavy”… But then she mentions several times how they had to rely on the Aldis lamp to send light signals to the pilots, that military aircraft were also mixed in for good measure and you start to appreciate why, even if the numbers may not have been huge in absolute terms, the complexity of the traffic, to use a term born decades after her time, must have made it feel really heavy.
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Federal Airways Manual of Operations 1941 – Chapter C, Airway Traffic Control Section
On 28/03/2011, in Bookshelf, by steve
The Manual...
I do not know about you but I love old books. If nothing else, thinking about the many people and many hands that have owned and touched such an old volume feels like a travel back in time. But reading some of them and comparing the style and content to our contemporary reality is also an exercise worth undertaking.
It is a pity that so few professional books that were not sold in general bookstores remain. FAA forerunner CAA and other such organizations had many manuals and other interesting publications right from the start but it is rare indeed to find one these days that you can also obtain for your own collection.
It is for this reason that I was so happy when Virginia Volk kindly agreed to share with Roger-Wilco and the readers of our Bookshelf section a real and unique gem, the 1941 edition of the Federal Airways Manual of Operations. You can download the Manual here.
If you are familiar with the ICAO provisions applicable to-day and in particular ICAO DOC 4444, PANS-ATM you will no doubt find this Airways Manual of Operations familiar. This book dates from 1941 and the first edition of ICAO DOC 4444 (at the time called PANS-ATC) saw the light of day in 1946. One of the main inputs had been the material already used extensively in the USA and which you can now add to your treasured relics and ATC mementos.
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SESAR at ATC Global 2011 – Connecting vision with reality
On 09/03/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Roger-Wilco was given a special opportunity to interview SESAR’s Chief Program Officer on the occasion of ATC Global 2011 and in particular in connection with SESAR Release 1, being presented as the most important SESAR deliverable for the year.
Florian Guillermet talks to editor Steve Zerkowitz.
Roger-Wilco: Looking at the details of SESAR Release 1, one sees that this is basically a very big and complex validation exercise. We have seen such things, even if possibly not on this scale, in past programs like EATCHIP and ATM2000+.Regrettably, not much came from those… What is the difference now, what makes everyone confident that this time things will work out better?
Mr. Guillermet: There are three important differences compared with past exercises:
• Clearly defined scope
• Clearly defined time-frame
• Close control by the SJU
Let me explain. The operational concept of SESAR is very ambitious and it can only be achieved if there is a clear focus on what has to be done and in what time frame. The elements of Release 1 have been carefully selected to ensure an initial maturity level that lends itself to development to a pre-industrialization state. This selection process was carefully controlled by the SJU so no pet-projects, be it on an organizational or personal level, were allowed in if they did not meet the agreed, stringent selection criteria.
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Women in ATC – Echoes from the past
On 20/02/2011, in Women in ATC, by steve
The subject of women in air traffic control is dear to my heart for several reasons one of which is that I did play a small role in setting the scene for girls to be eventually accepted as ATC cadets in Hungary. The real achievement belongs to the ladies themselves who completed the fight but I do have fond memories of the first steps we took and which were anything but easy.
Anyway, with this background it was only natural that my blog should also take up the subject and it is with real pleasure that I noted just how much interest there is for it amongst you.
This time I would like to share with you some material kindly provided by one of our readers, Evon Russell, who is distinguished by being the daughter of one of the first women air traffic controllers while her dad was also a controller!
Her mom, Marian McKenna flew west several years ago and she was recently followed by another woman controller, Mary Elizabeth Chance VanScyoc who passed away on 9 February. These two ladies are special because they were the first and second female controllers in the US. It is commonly thought that Mary was the first but Marian often said to her daughter that she was in fact the first, even if the difference had only been a few days or weeks. I have no means to ascertain the facts and in a way this is probably not too important anyway. Or is it?
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FAA Funds ADS-B for JetBlue
On 04/02/2011, in NextGen, by steve
Low-cost carriers are not known for their willingness to pay for extra equipment that may be required to improve air traffic management. In this respect they are very much similar to their legacy brethren… Even when there is a clear business case, the mad rush to equip is usually conspicuous by its absence. There are exceptions to rule though. Southwest had announced earlier that it will equip all its fleet with RNP capability and the news is out now that US low-cost carrier JetBlue is equipping 35 of its Airbus A-320 aircraft with ADS-B Out capability, including the ACSS SafeRoute suite of applications. The catch? This is a demo project funded by the FAA to the tune of 4.2 million dollars.
Once equipped, JetBlue’s aircraft will be able to fly more precise trajectories under ADS-B surveillance from Boston and New York to Florida and the Caribbean although this latter will have to wait until 2012 as there is no ground ADS-B infrastructure there just yet.
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The Story of Alpha Mike (Part 2)
On 04/02/2011, in Women in ATC, by arminda
The Road to Becoming an En-route Air Traffic Controller
To continue with my story, let me just go back to that time when, in 1981, I received an Order transferring me to the Manila Area Control Center (ACC), eight years after I graduated from an air traffic control training course. The ATC staffing crisis – brought about by the exodus of ATCs to the Middle East for better pay – had given way to my dream of working as an air traffic controller; this time, the ATC units are more welcoming when it comes to accepting women in the workforce. I began my certification or rating process only a few weeks after I reported for work, it seemed that there was a rush to put ATCs into jobs that require years of training.
Arminda with the first Manila radar
Back then, the Manila ACC had no radar systems yet; separation of aircraft was done using procedural or conventional control – where ATC’s main tools in controlling traffic were just paper strips mounted on plastic strip holders, a ball pen, and a radio transceiver. The flight progress strips, as they’re called have all the information ATCs need – aircraft call-sign, type of aircraft, airspeed, route to be flown, and altitude, among others (all handwritten); color of strips depends on the direction of flight – white strips for eastbound, buff or yellow for westbound traffic. You don’t have to have a high IQ to get this job done; it’s more of imagination and guts you need. Imagination in this case means being able to make a picture in your mind of what’s going on up there as you look at those information on paper strips with a map or chart already ingrained in your mind, as if seeing aircraft moving across the skies; and have the guts, as you separate aircraft from each other though not actually seeing them; then, based on this mental picture you either climb or descend aircraft converging or on opposite direction – with no doubt in your mind that they had indeed passed each other after you clear one through the altitude of the other; that your mental calculations were correct when you make split second decisions.
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Women in Air Traffic Control
On 03/02/2011, in Women in ATC, by steve
My original article about the difficult road women wanting to become air traffic controllers (and commercial pilots…) faced in the early days seems to have struck a chord in several parts of the world. First there was Aminda’s lovely contribution from the Philippines then Evon Russel contacted me on Facebook with a link to an article at the Wings Over Kansas site which talks about whet they claimed was the first American female controller, Mary Van Scyoc.
Evon wrote something very interesting. She said that her mom, Marian McKenna Russel was also a controller in the 40s and that she had said to her that she believed she preceded Mary by a little bit. Unfortunately Marian has departed to the world where airports do not know delays and so it is not easy to verify the claim.
I did decide to follow this up and sent an email to the Kansas Aviation Museum where Mary van Scyoc could be reached according to the article quoted above. A day later while I was on the motorway in France the director of the museum called and explained that Mary was very sick and it is not possible to interview her any more. He did promise that the museum’s historians will help with my quest…
On learning Mary’s fate, Evon again helped by pointing me to a book Mary had written, entitled “A Lifetime of Chances”. She said the book should shed some light on Mary’s life as a controller.
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ICNS 2011 – May 10-12, Herndon, VA., USA
On 02/02/2011, in Events, by steve
Renovating the Global Air Transportation System
The 2011 Integrated Communications Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS) Conference addresses long term research and development as well as early implementation of integrated CNS technologies needed to enable NextGen and SESAR.
The Conference is focused on providing an understanding of CNS programs, longer term plans, standards development, research, and ICNS technologies. As we launch the second decade of the ICNS Conference, we focus on the renovation of the communications, navigation, surveillance, and information technology infrastructure underpinning the migration to a true next generation global air transportation system.
Each day begins with a plenary session.
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Airfield expansion and renewal – Maximizing benefits while minimizing costs the key
On 21/01/2011, in Life around runways, by steve
Jeffrey Gagnon, a speaker at the Airfield Engineering and Asset Management Conference, talks to Bryan Camoens on the issues airfields are facing across the globe, as well as the challenges and solutions for airfield expansion and renewal projects.
Bryan Camoens:
What are some of the issues that airfields are facing across the globe?
Jeffrey Gagnon:
Airports have to become “greener” currently and in the future by using “green” technology in both existing and future development of both vertical and horizontal work. The issues of sustainability and sustainable practices in both design and construction and the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) all fall under the umbrella of “Green” technology. Another issue which will be quickly effecting airfield pavements is the increase in aircraft tire pressures of future aircraft and those aircraft about to enter into the commercial fleets from Boeing and Airbus, in-particular the B-787 and A-350 where tire pressure are increasing from 218 psi to over 250 psi. Industry is unsure how these new aircraft will affect the life of the current pavements in place at numerous airfields and if current mix designs for asphalt pavement are sufficient for these new aircraft.
The other issue these new aircraft are affecting is the ICAO load rating system of Pavement Classification Number (PCN) and whether this classification system should be reviewed and revised to meet the future needs of the aircraft manufactures and airport authorities (owners).
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NextGen in trouble?
On 04/01/2011, in NextGen, by steve
Why is it almost a given that new air traffic management programs, big and small, usually end up in trouble, fail to deliver their promised benefits or drag on for years swallowing money like there was no tomorrow? We could count on one hand the number of truly successful ATM projects of any significance.
Doubts are now rising about NextGen, the FAA’s flagship project, and if Calvin L. Scovel III, the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General is to be believed, there is major turbulence ahead.
In a letter sent to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the IG concludes that the FAA’s slow progress in implementing the recommendations of the RTCA NextGen Mid-Term Implementation Task Force and the start-up problems with ERAM (En-route Automation Modernization) make it doubtful whether the agency will in fact be able to meet the mid-term goals of the NextGen implementation program.
Reaction to the letter was swift. “Tighter oversight of the FAA is a must and delay in delivering NextGen benefits is not acceptable” countered John L. Mica, the incoming House Committee Chairman.
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Anniversary – TWA midair collision over New York 50 years ago
On 19/12/2010, in Anniversaries, by steve
16 December 1960 started like any other December day in New York City. It was foggy and the holiday preparations were in full swing. As the Friday early morning commute went into overdrive, few people suspected that the deadliest air disaster in US history to that date was about to happen right over their heads, turning Christmas joy into mourning for the relatives of the 134 people who would perish in the midair collision.
It was just after 10.30 a.m. local time when a United Airlines DC-8 and a TWA Constellation collided in flight over Park Slope, New York City. The DC-8 hit city streets while the Constellation crashed into a military air base on Staten Island.
Back than air traffic control was in many ways in its infancy and controllers were tracking planes on their radar scopes using “shrimp boats”, plastic strips marked with grease pencils to identify them. They had no means of seeing altitudes, everything was based on what the pilots reported. In any case, radar had been in use in NY for about a decade only and the technology was far from perfect.
On this fatal day, the DC-8 flew 11 miles beyond the point at which it should have entered its assigned holding pattern… one of its navigation radios was not working and the error was not recognized. Subsequently it hit the TWA constellation which was manoeuvring to land at La Guardia airport.
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FAA video on NextGen
On 08/12/2010, in Picture stories, by steve
If you go to the FAA’s NextGen web-site, a wide banner tells you that this is about “Giving the World New Ways to Fly”. The banner is of course the link to the NextGen 101 Video. I clicked and watched for the next ten minutes or so… At the end of it I could not but wonder: who commissioned this thing and who accepted this product?
Boooooring is the understatement of the century if the term is applied to this “video” which is in fact little more than a rather poorly constructed series of slides with little movement and even less impact. The voice over says all the right things although that too could have been made at least half way exciting… but it wasn’t.
Of course seeing something as low quality as this video, one can start all kinds of mental games. What did they have in mind when they created this video? Who was the target audience? OK, big bosses need simple explanations but this is rather overdoing it…. Kids in kindergarten need more action or they will fall asleep. The population in-between? No, they do not watch this kind of video.
What about the company who made it? Did they get a specification that had called for the most unimaginative presentation in the world? If so, they have succeeded brilliantly. If they did not, did they decide all on their own to propose this horror to the FAA? How did they convince the guys with the money that this was exactly what you needed to promote NextGen?
Did the company not feel obliged to tell whoever was ordering this product that it would need to be something vibrant, fresh, innovative and informative, something different from all that has gone before… but in a positive sense of course.
Luckily this not the only NextGen video and the others are markedly better. Just as well, NextGen deserves better!
Watch the video here.
Equipping for NextGen – where does the cash come from?
On 24/11/2010, in NextGen, by steve
If anything, the LINK2000+ program in Europe has shown what a bit of free cash can achieve. Equipping aircraft for Controller/Pilot Digital Link Communications, the raison d’être of LINK2000+, was proving difficult as in the initial phases those who spent on the required avionics would see few benefits and hence there were no takers. Then, with part of the money coming from EC funds things suddenly took off and some 700 aircraft got promoted to CPDLC-enabled status.
But the funds needed to equip for NextGen (and SESAR for that matter) far exceed the budget of LINK2000+ yet the vicious circle of low initial benefits, reluctance to equip is exactly the same. It now looks that at least for NexGen, a novel solution is being offered for funding avionics upgrades.
Click here to read the full article
Near midair at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport (MSP)
On 24/09/2010, in Life around runways, by steve
On the morning of September 16, at around 06.49 a US Airways Airbus A320 (N122US) operating as flight AWE 1848 was cleared for take-off from Runway 30R bound for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with five crew and 90 passengers on board.
At the same time, Bemidji Aviation Services flight BMJ46, a Beech 99 cargo flight with only the pilot aboard, was cleared for takeoff on runway 30L en route to La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Weather conditions at the time were reported as a 900-foot ceiling and 10 miles visibility below the clouds.
Immediately after departure, the tower instructed the US Airways crew to turn left and head west, causing the flight to cross paths with the cargo aircraft approximately one-half mile past the end of runway 30L. Neither pilot saw the other aircraft because they were in the clouds, although the captain of the US Airways flight reported hearing the Beech 99 pass nearby. Estimates based on recorded radar data indicate that the two aircraft had 50 to 100 feet of vertical separation as they passed each other approximately 1500 feet above the ground.
The US Airways aircraft was equipped with a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) that issued climb instructions to the crew to avert collision. The Beech 99 was not equipped with TCAS and the pilot was unaware of the proximity of the Airbus. There were no reports of damage or injuries as a result of the incident.
NTSB and FAA investigators conducted a preliminary investigation at the Minneapolis airport traffic control tower on September 18th and 19th and are continuing to review the circumstances of this incident.
EGNOS is here now – should you care?
On 08/09/2010, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Few other new aviation systems have generated as much controversy and opposition from the airspace user community as EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service.
Like the US Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), EGNOS enables precision approach procedures to be implemented using only space-based signals. As such, it is one possible future replacement of ILS.
On 1 July 2003, an airspace user position paper signed by AEA, IATA and others stated bluntly:
“Finally, the airspace users would like to recall that they have resisted the development of the European Geostationary Overlay System (EGNOS), which has been mainly developed for political reasons and for which all attempts to build a credible aviation business case have failed. As a consequence, public funds have to be provided to fund the entire EGNOS system (development costs as well operational costs). Reference is made to the AEA, IATA, ERA, IAOPA, IACA joint position paper on the European Commission’s Communication COM(2003)123final) on the Integration of EGNOS into Galileo.”
The above position paper would suggest that had there been a business case, opposition to EGNOS would have been less or non at all. Unfortunately that was not true either. For systems where there was a business case (like air/ground digital link for example), it was promptly refused as unrealistic… Unfortunately, in some cases like Mode S Enhanced Surveillance, this was even true and such cases did not help the other projects where the benefits on the level claimed were actually there.
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Multilateration – Executive Reference Guide
On 13/08/2010, in Bookshelf, by steve
Multilateration (often shortened to MLAT) is a surveillance technology that promises to satisfy surveillance requirements in most circumstances and it is seen as the best option in the transition to ADS-B based surveillance. It is no accident that organizations around the globe are turning to this technology, not least because it offers a solution that is much less expensive than conventional radars.
ERA Corporation, one of the premier suppliers of MLAT solutions, is behind a new guide developed to provide an easy-to-read reference for air traffic management, airport and airline professionals to answer the numerous questions they usually have about multilateration.
It is a cute, compact volume which sums up things pretty nicely and even hardened veterans may find it useful when they need a quick fact or other reference for presentations or general papers. For others, it is a must have item.
Download your copy here.
There is also a web site dedicated to the subject, which you can access here. The site has a few rough edges but those will be ironed out in time I am sure.
Christophe Hamel in new job with the FAA – Congratulations!
On 13/07/2010, in Just to let you know..., by steve
It is always with pride and great pleasure that we bring news of the successes and achievements of our contributors and experts featured in our articles. This time it is Christophe’s turn. We introduced him recently in the “Interesting People, Unusual Flight Plans” series and now we can bring you the happy news that Christophe has accepted a position with SAIC for the FAA that will be a continuation of his previous contribution to the CNS/ATM world in the EU and the US. He will be working at FAA Headquarters in Washington D.C.
The tasks of the Senior Regulatory Analyst (as his new post is called) include:
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Aerodrome control towers of the world – McCarran International, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
On 12/07/2010, in Towers of the world, by steve
American aviator George Crockett, a descendant of frontiersman Davy Crockett, established Alamo Airport in 1942 on the site currently occupied by McCarran International. In 1948, Clark County purchased the airfield from Crockett to establish the Clark County Public Airport, and all commercial operations moved to the site of this airport. On December 20, 1948 the airport was renamed McCarran Field for U.S. Senator Pat McCarran, a long-time Nevada politician who authored the Civil Aeronautics Act and played a major role in developing aviation nationwide.
The LAS control tower
The control tower at McCarran International presides over an airport that has a number of unique features apart from being the gateway into gamblers’ paradise. One of these is that more than 85 % of traffic at the airport is origin and destination (O&D), more than at practically any other airport in the USA. Another quirk is that only 12 % of the passengers passing through McCarran live in the Las Vegas area, the lowest figure for any airport in the United States.
Controllers in the tower need to get used to foreign accents too, as more and more direct flights from Europe and Asia operated by non-US airlines are becoming part of the regular schedule.
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