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…
1 August 2011 – 100 year anniversary of first US woman with a pilot’s license
On 01/08/2011, in Anniversaries, by steve
Harriet Quimby was born in Michigan in 1875 and lived on the family farm until it went bankrupt. Around age 25 she moved to San Francisco, California where she got the stage bug and dreamed about becoming an actress. This was not to be however but her superb writing skills made her into a journalist and screen writer.
Soon she moved to New York where she practiced her journalism and was frequently in the public eye becoming the sweetheart of the Big Apple.
She got her pilot’s license on 1 August 1911 and subsequently went to numerous air shows in the US and Mexico, wearing a unique, purple flying suit of her own design, fabricated from a satin material. She set another record in 1912 when she flew across the English Channel as the first woman having done so.
On 1 July 1912 she was flying over the bay near Quincy, Massachusetts. With her in the plane was the manager of the air meet she was attending. While pulling a publicity stunt, both she and the manager fell out of the plane as it suddenly pitched forward. The cause has never been reliably established.
So ended the career of the first woman pilot in US history. Had she been given more time, she would probably be there with the biggest and brightest among US aviation pioneers.
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
Air France and Hungarian water-melons
On 13/07/2011, in Viewpoint, by steve
While Hungarians are being urged by their Minister of Agriculture to buy a few extra pieces of water-melons, thereby helping local growers, French politicians under the leadership of right-wing MP Bernard Carayon are proclaiming: “Air France is Airbus, not Boeing”. Excuse me?
Of course this incredible folly is a direct retaliation for the US Air Force’s decision to source their tanker aircraft from Boeing and not Airbus. At stake now is Air France-KLM’s fleet renewal involving the purchase or leasing of scores of long and medium range aircraft, a multi-billion euro investment decision.
I very much doubt that either Air France-KLM or Airbus is pleased by this ham-handed and totally uncalled-for political interference which, like all such interferences whether they concern water-melons or aircraft, ultimately will only hurt those it was supposed to help.
One can only hope that the French initiative will stop at being grand-standing and will not in any way influence the airline group’s purchasing decisions. Should this not be the case, the French MPs will have given an extra trump card into the hands of those who had opposed sourcing such a strategic asset as the US Air Force tanker fleet from a company under the thumb of a country known to have its own peculiar way of doing things.
In a post back in February this year, we commented: “I tend to agree with those who have said right from the start that a strategic asset like the tankers for the US Air Force should not come from anywhere else but the US. While from a commercial or even operational point of view an Airbus product may have its merits, having such a strategic asset being dependent on a foreign government (however friendly… ) is not a good idea.”
If (and I stress this is still a big if) Air France-KLM is “encouraged” by the French to buy Airbus rather than Boeing it would be easy to picture what might have happened if the US Air Force equipped with Airbus tankers and then found itself in a conflict somewhere in the world not to the taste of some French parliamentarians…
The French MPs should take the example of the Hungarians and if they feelt this urge to meddle, stay with water-melons.
There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky…
On 21/04/2011, in The lighter side, by steve
We have all seen pictures of witty sentences painted on aircraft fuselages or bombs and rockets but more often than not, we quickly forget them and when we too could insert a witty remark, they prove impossible to dig up from our memories. Krisztian, one of our contributors, has now provided a nice collection of such witty sentences coming mainly from the military. But they are true and applicable also in a non-military context.
Enjoy!
“AIM TOWARDS ENEMY.” – Instructions printed on US Rocket Launcher
“When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.” – U.S. Marine Corps
“Cluster bombing from B-52s are very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground.” – USAF Ammo Troop
“If the enemy is in range, so are you.” – Infantry Journal
“Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.” – General MacArthur
“You, you, and you panic. The rest of you, come with me.” – U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.
“Tracers work both ways.” – U.S. Army Ordnance
Click here to read the full article
Incredible story – or is it?
On 23/03/2011, in Shop floor talk, by steve
Imagine an American opening his daily paper and finding an article about Boeing Commercial Airplanes that ran something like this.
“It was announced to-day that Boeing’s VP for Customers was leaving the company even before its CEO and COO are to swap places later this year as called for by the agreement between the State of Washington and the State of Illinois. The place swapping is taking place for purely political reasons since both men have performed in their current positions to the satisfaction of shareholders and employees alike. The departure of VP Customers is especially painful for a company which had to survive the departure of two CEOs within a hundred days in 2006. It was the now departing VeePee who kept the company’s customers from giving up on them…
As if this politically motivated change of guard was not enough, Chrysler, one of the aircraft maker’s biggest shareholders has indicated that they want to get rid of their part in the company. The automaker has the same share in Boeing as the US government. The rest is held by a consortium of banks and the State of New Mexico. But, to add insult to injury, the banks also want to sell and this would leave the US government the biggest shareholder, something that will never be accepted by New Mexico. Not surprisingly, the Democrats and the Republicans are divided over the issue with the Republicans not exactly charmed by the idea of the government owning even part of an aircraft maker.”
Without a doubt, the guy reading this would call his broker and sell his shares in the Boeing Company…
Do you think this nightmare scenario could ever come to pass in the United States? No, I do not think so either.
And in Europe? What did you say? No? Wrong!
Replace Boeing by Airbus, The US Government with the France, Chrysler with Daimler and the political agreement as being between Germany and France… and forget about New Mexico. The rest is true. It is happening as you read this. It is happening because of the peculiar company Airbus still is. Compared to Boeing, Airbus is still very much a political football and their decisions are heavily influenced by the power plays of the big European states.
In the circumstances it is a wonder that they manage to build such great airplanes…
Jamming GPS – No bad guys needed, the FCC will do it for you!
On 16/03/2011, in Satellite Navigation, by steve
Whenever a discussion is started about whether or not we should entrust aircraft navigation to GPS, there will be at least one person raising the issue of jamming. This is the specter of a single bad guy with a little black box purchased on eBay for a few bucks creating havoc in air navigation by jamming the signals of the GPS satellites. As you know, these signals coming from space are extremely weak and the system disengages and stops guidance the moment there is even the slightest doubt about their integrity. Hence the possibility of mischief with just the simplest means.
Losing GPS will not make any aircraft fall immediately from the sky but not having the precision guidance on which the new GNSS procedures rely is akin to having the ILS pulled from under you in Cat III conditions. It is survivable but traffic will be severely handicapped until the service is restored.
It looks now that we will not have to worry about the bad guys. A much bigger threat comes from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a company called LightSquared. Worse, if LightSquared has its way, scores of other companies rushing to satisfy mobile broadband services might all become potential threats to GPS. So what is the problem?
Companies like LightSquared provide mobile satellite services and there is of course big money in this. In order to increase the capacity of its service, LightSquared is planning to set up a huge number of terrestrial base stations that will operate in the part if the L-band just adjacent to the L1 frequency used by all GPS receivers. These ground stations (effectively a kind of cell-phone operation) transmit at powers that can effectively overload most GPS receivers.
How could something like this come to pass?
Click here to read the full article
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?
Click here to read the full article
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.
Are ATM operational concepts the cause of failure?
On 03/09/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
I have known Jean-Marc Garot, the former director of EUROCONTROL’s Experimental Centre in Paris for a long time. A forward thinker and in many ways a visionary, he retired from EUROCONTROL in 2005. He has now published an interesting article in The Controller magazine with the title “What is an ATM concept?”
I think everyone in Europe and in the US who has ever been involved in the development of operational concepts for air traffic management should read this article. Not because it is so good or so full of revelations from which we can learn but to see just how poorly we have communicated our efforts and how completely things have been misunderstood on various levels of the ATM world and at different ATM organizations.
The article starts off with a nice and even funny summing up of how, it is claimed, experts for concept work are/have been selected. There is indeed some truth in the description and it is also true that there have always been people on the concept groups coming from airlines, ANSPs, industry and what have you who could only think in terms of their own particular activities with little regard for anybody else’s. But those were always a minority. Troublesome yes, but hardly determinant for the final product.
The overwhelming majority of experts in concept work knew what they were about and it was quite common to have airline reps with an ATC background as well as the other way round with ATC folks who were flying on the side.
The article correctly points out that some of the documents produced were indeed overly voluminous… It is a pity that in the very next paragraph 4D Trajectory Management, System Wide Information Management (SWIM) and even air/ground digital link are listed as mere hypotheses, ambiguous descriptions that everyone can agree to and which therefore assume the status of certainties, no longer questioned and on which benefit expectations can be built… without much justification.
Click here to read the full article
Aircraft based tools in the fight against runway incursions
On 06/04/2010, in Life around runways, by steve
Aircraft-based airport surface traffic indications and alerting systems
This is an edited version of the presentation made at the recent ESAVS 2010 conference by Doug Arbuckle of the FAA. Coauthors of the paper were David E. Gray of FAA, Peter Moertl of Mitre Corporation and Jim Duke of SAIC. You can download the original text of their paper here and the slides here.
Introduction
As discussed before, runway incursions and collisions is a major area of concern world-wide. There are on average more than two runway incursion events per day in Europe alone and the situation in the United States is similarly serious. The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has on its most wanted list a system to “give immediate warnings of probable collisions/incursions directly to cockpit flight crews.”
In our previous two articles we covered the visual tools for preventing runway incursions (RWSL and FAROS) and the communications related causes of runway incursions. In this third article we will look into aircraft based airport surface traffic indications and alerting systems being developed in the US as a further line of defense against runway incursions.
The background
As you may be aware, in the US two different data links have been adopted for ADS-B: 1090 MHz Extended Squitter (1090 ES) and the 978 MHz Universal Access Transceiver (UAT). Given that the international community has agreed to the use of the 1090 ES link, most air transport and international business aircraft are expected to equip with this link; the UAT link is expected to be primarily used by general aviation aircraft whose operations are confined to the US. The US is implementing uplink services on both links. One such uplink broadcast service is Traffic Information Service-Broadcast (TIS-B). TIS-B derives traffic information from one or more ground-based surveillance sources and uplinks this traffic information to ADS-B-equipped aircraft, enabling them to receive position reports about non-ADS-B-equipped aircraft; this service supports the transition period to full ADS-B equipage in the NAS. ADS-R is another uplink broadcast service which rebroadcasts ADS-B messages received from aircraft on one link to nearby aircraft broadcasting on the other link, making it possible for all ADS-B-equipped aircraft to receive the information being transmitted on the other link.
Click here to read the full article
8.33 kHz Channel spacing – what is this?
On 04/03/2010, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
The radio spectrum, a scarce resort
One of the most basic activities in a cockpit is tuning the radio to the assigned frequency of whoever we want to talk to. Contacting ground control, the tower or one’s own company is done by turning a few knobs until the right numbers show in the radio control panel display and we can talk.
Air traffic controllers see the same thing slightly differently. They do not normally have to tune their radios. The proper frequencies for their sector or other working position are pre-set and need no further attention.
With the matter being so pedestrian and the actions so routine, few of us realize that the ability of pilots and controllers to talk to each other is in fact dependent on one of the scarcest resources in aviation, namely the radio spectrum allocated to aviation use.
Many other disciplines have their own radio spectrum and we all guard jealously what we have been given and for good reason. With so many users wanting to use the radio waves, the incumbents better watch or the use it or lose it principle kicks in. Luckily, the frequencies most widely used by aviation (118 – 137 MHz) are not coveted so strongly by others. Our problem is different but not in the least less serious.
Click here to read the full article
Environment. The Copenflop – Is aviation better off now?
On 27/12/2009, in Environment - Without hot air, by cleo
We all remember how seriously aviation had been preparing for the UN environmental conference held earlier this month in Copenhagen. Led by IATA, the aviation industry arrived with concrete proposals and plans which were seen by several non-aviation experts as templates suitable also for other industries.
Once the conference kicked off, aviation experts must have felt like adults thrown into a kindergarten with a very poor teacher at the helm. Kids shouting all over the place, getting into fights, leaving the playroom when not granted their favorite toys… Those who ventured outside to escape the worst of the circus fared no better. There was another kind of kindergarten out there, albeit with destruction and tear-gas thrown in to increase the fun.
Of course the kids inside were the same politicians who are convinced that electric cars charged from a public utility produce virtually no emissions and also who had promised to shutter nuclear reactors while having no idea how to replace their generating capacity. It was no surprise to see them come together after having brandished the environmental flag at home and then fail to agree on the time of day, let alone actual environmental action.
Click here to read the full article
BluePower CDM Toolbox– The perfect tool for airport Collaborative Decision Making
On 31/10/2009, in CDM, by steve
Originally Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) was a simple concept indeed. Realizing that a lot of problems in air traffic management came from the simple fact that many of the partners simply did not talk to each other, it was easy to reach the conclusion: make them work together, stop decisions being made in isolation, improve decisions by making them the result of a collaborative endeavor.
It was not easy at first and people invented all kinds of reasons for not doing it… most of the reasons given were simply not valid. We will be bringing you a short history of CDM later and you will see why I am saying this. To a large extent thanks to a small group of enthusiasts (the famous original CDM group in the US), more and more airlines and airports realized that working together was far more beneficial than hiding behind ill-defined concepts of commercial sensitivities.
Click here to read the full article
Station calling – Visiting StuckMic
On 29/10/2009, in Station calling, by steve
Our concept for Roger-Wilco is to make it different. You will judge how successful we are in this endeavor but in the meantime we like to believe that we provide value to our readers in a form and with content that does distinguish us from other, aviation related sites.
This does not mean that we consider the other, sometimes long established, sites inferior in any way. Far from it! We believe that most of them are excellent and provide real value in their specific areas of interest. We also believe that Roger-Wilco is then more of a complementary place, the watering hole you will visit to read up on interesting stories and subjects of common interest either before or after visiting other sites.
In this spirit we are starting a new category called “Say again” where we will bring you news about and from those other places so that after having visited us, you may fly around the internet with a bit more focus. This is in fact the second article in the series; the first one was about an aerial photography site which you can read it here.
But now I would like to tell you about my visit to StuckMic, a site that claims to be the biggest ATC site in the world. Their choice of name is really cute. A stuck microphone (that is what “stuckmic” means) is something both pilots and controllers know all about and hence it is easy to remember.
Click here to read the full article
What is common between SUVs and business jets?
On 27/10/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
Nothing you will say. But wait a second. These are not normal times…
Some of the people with the environment close to their hearts take to the streets every now and then and stab the tires of big, ugly and expensive SUVs. They are sending a message to the owners of the offending vehicles to improve their ways. Exchange them for bicycles… Never mind that some of those SUVs generate less green-house stuff than a host of smaller cars, they are a great object to turn their hate towards. Stabbing the tires does more damage to the environment than leaving them alone, but that is beside the point.
In aviation, business jets have suddenly become the SUV. Latent hate must have been there for a long time… anyone crammed into seat 59A who has seen a G650 taxi by must have felt the bile rise in his or her stomach. Those big, ugly, expensive business jets and the rich people riding in them… nothing short of a scandal.
Of course, it was the auto guys who finally ruined everything when they flew to Washington in their business jets to pick up a few billions in taxpayer money doled out by the US government. Who would think of driving their SUV to the social security office to pick up their unemployment check?
Click here to read the full article
