Brent VanFossen, Engineer with a View

Speed New’s Aviation Glossary provides terminology, definitions, and a glossary of the words you may need to know about aviation. If you work in the industry, you might already know these words, but once in a while something might come up and you don’t want to let your co-workers know that you don’t know. You can look it up there. We won’t tell.

According to a new report from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), new research will improve the accuracy of medium-range weather forecasts in the Northern Hemisphere. This should seriously impact air travel as better forecasting means better air traffic control and navigation around storms.

NASA and NOAA scientists at the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) in Camp Springs, MD, came up with procedures to improve forecasting accuracy. The scientists worked with experimental data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

They found incorporating AIRS data into numerical weather prediction models improves the accuracy range of experimental six-day Northern Hemisphere weather forecasts by up to six hours, a four percent increase. AIRS is a high-spectral resolution infrared instrument that takes 3-D pictures of atmospheric temperatures, water vapor and trace gases.

The instrument data have officially been incorporated into NOAA’s National Weather Service’s operational weather forecasts.

“NASA is assisting the world’s weather prediction agencies by providing very detailed, accurate observations of key atmospheric variables that interact to shape our weather and climate,” said Dr. Mary Cleave, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “The forecast improvement accomplishment alone makes the AIRS project well worth the American taxpayers’ investment.”

According to the article, the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts began using data from AIRS in October 2003 and reported “an improvement in forecast accuracy of eight hours in Southern Hemisphere five-day forecasts.”

You can call the FAA 24 hours a day to report an issue on their Federal Aviation Administration - 1-866-TELL-FAA (1-866-835-5322) phone number.

While few of these relate directly to consumers, and are directed more towards the airline and aircraft industry, it’s worth knowing about. The issues they handle include:

• Safety-related Issues
• Maintenance improprieties
• Aircraft incidents
• Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) violations
• Aircraft noise
• Low-flying aircraft
• Problems with tower lights
• Transportation of hazardous materials by air

The FAA has just released a new Improvements to Cabin Safety Fact Sheet. It is part of the FAA’s continuing research to upgrade cabin safety requirements to “increase the likelihood of passenger survivability in aviation accidents.”

FAA cabin research is done conducted at The William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J. and the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City leads the FAA teams on cabin research. This report includes the following highlights of examples of advancements in cabin safety, based upon their research:

• Seat cushions must comply with a new regulation requiring fire-blocking layers. Air carriers replaced 650,000 foam seat cushions on the U.S. fleet.
• After research determined that floor lighting was critical for passenger safety and escape during a fire, by 1986, US and many foreign commercial airplanes were retrofitted with floor proximity lighting.
• With more research into heat and smoke emisions, interior materials were improved and upgraded with ongoing improvements to the thermal and acoustic insulation. Similar interior improvements for fire safety were made in the Class C and D cargo and baggage compartments, inclujding improved fire detection/suppression systems.
• While initiated in 1988, air carriers are still upgrading their air passenger seats to “16G seats”. Previously passenger seats were approved to a static 9g standard. The FAA is currently working on pushing harder for replacement of the old seats on all domestic airplanes.

Most of us engineers and air craft mechanics work overtime to keep planes that fly within the atmosphere of the planet safe and sturdy. Imagine building an airplane that will fly around Mars?

The Marsplane is being designed by Aurora to fly in the Martian atmosphere. While the design challenges are similar to other high-altitude aircraft, this airplanes literally needs to carry its own weight. The glider will be sent to Mars by rocket, folded up in a pod that will be dropped from the space capsule, unfold itself and fly around taking photographs of the Mars surface from within the Martian atmosphere.

The requirements imposed by an aeroshell less than three feet in diameter led to an innovative configuration and folding scheme for the aircraft’s wings and tail configuration. MarsFlyer™ was powered by a reliable and compact rocket propulsion system. In 1999, a rocket-powered prototype flew at low altitude, demonstrating the validity of the rocket concept. Later, many of MarsFlyer’s™ key features were integrated into Aurora’s latest Martian airplane design, which was the basis of NASA Langley’s Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey (ARES) proposal.

The ARES airplane is powered by a bi-propellant liquid fuel rocket. In addition to the science instruments payload of a magnetometer, mass spectrometer, point spectrometer, and high resolution camera, ARES will carry a tail-mounted video camera and the flight sensors required for control and navigation.

It is technological advances like this that will eventually filter through to the entire space program, as well as the terrestrial aircraft industry.

The National Transportation and Standards Board (NTSB) was part of the Department of Transportation. In 1975, it was branched off to act as an independent safety investigation organization. Its job is to “improve safety in all modes of transportation” including aircraft.

Here are some of the NTSB’s achievements over the past 30 years:

• Required anti-collision systems, called Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS), as standard equipment on passenger flying aircraft.
• In addition to in-air collision avoidance system, pushed for airport operators to install airport ground collission avoidance devices.
• Set up designated radio frequencies to allow for direct communications between airport fire and rescue crews and flight crews in the event of an emergency.
• For emergency purposes only, established standardized hand signals for when radio communications fail.
• Developed stronger fire safety standards for baggage and cargo compartments in large passenger aircraft.
• Pushed for increase use of “runway arrestor beds”, cellular concrete constructions that force an airplane to rapidly decelerate, avoiding runs off the ends of runways.
• The NTSB has continued to urge the FAA to “reduce dangers to aircraft flying in icing conditions, to eliminate flammable fuel and air vapors in fuel tanks, to stop runway incursions and ground collisions of aircraft, to improve audio and data recorders so that they retain at least two hours of audio, and to install video recorders in cockpits so as to give investigators more information to identify the often complex causes of aviation accidents.”

Air Cargo News: NTSB 30 Years - Lessons Learned

We just wanted to show you the first picture of the premier Boeing 888 just before the first test flight.

Okay, this came to us via email and I just couldn’t resist. It’s a great digital image of what “could happen”. Just think of the engineering possibilities - and nightmares. In this industry, anything is possible. Enjoy!

Want a look inside the Airbus 380? This cut-away view on a pdf page of the Airbus 380 is a great way to see the innards of this vast airplane.

Boeing Connexion announces ILFC Veteran as VP, Commercial Aviation. Lianne Stein will head Connexion’s Commercial Aviation channel, the group working on the high-speed Internet service for commercial airlines. Stein replaces Stan Deal.

Lost in the hype over the new Boeing 787, you might be thinking that the 737 is an “old” plane. Then this news might surprise you. Boeing booked $1.08B in 737-800 orders this month. Yep, the 737 is still selling.

Boeing Co. said Friday it booked big orders from U.S. and Indian buyers for its 737 aircraft.

San Francisco-based Pegasus Aviation Finance Co., a leasing company, ordered six Boeing 737-800 jetliners, and India’s Jet Airways ordered 10 of the aircraft. Deliveries of the jets will begin next year.

At list prices, the Jet Airways’ order is worth about $680 million, and Pegasus’ order is worth about $400 million.