Brent VanFossen, Engineer with a View

Recent airplane crashes within the European Union has increased the enthusiasm for legislative action to create a blacklist of airlines which don’t meet safety and security standards set by the EU. The goal of the Airline Blacklist would be to use a “shame and blame” publicity campaign to force conformity with safety regulations for standard and charter flights. It would also provide information to other countries on the status of airlines’s safety records and make the skies safer.

The European Commission proposed the EU Airline Blacklist in February. EU governments and the European Parliament must approve it across the 25-nation bloc, a time consuming effort. The airplanes crashes which killed over 300 people in August has put more pressure on the EU to pass the legislation.

Under the plan, an airline banned in one EU nation would be barred from providing services to and from any other. The list would include European and non-European air carriers.

Compiling an EU blacklist and making it public will require the approval of all EU governments and the European Parliament. In the past, the EU executive commission and EU governments have disagreed about the wisdom of publishing the names of airlines with questionable safety records.
USA Today News Report

There is a great deal of disagreement on what the criteria for such a blacklist would entail. The various governments’ agencies, usually the Transportation Commission, oversees much of the airline industry but the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has responsibility for most of the safety certification and regulations. Each of these groups are split between national and European government bodies, adding to the network of problems to determine criteria and standards.

In Britain, the Department of Transport publishes on its website counties and airlines whose aviation standards fail to meet those set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, a UN agency.

The countries denied permits to operate in the UK are: Tajikistan, Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The website also says that permits have been refused to Air Mauritanie and Thailand’s Phuket Airlines because of safety concerns.
Guardian UK News Report

To add to the confusion, airlines are demanding to know why they are or may be on the list even if they have no record of an air crash.

The EU transport spokesman, Stephaan De Rynck, said, “We are operating in a very safe environment, but of course the tragic accidents we have had have to give us a push to improve safety standards even further.”

He said the “incoherence” of country-by-country rules was highlighted in May by a Turkish airline that was banned from four European countries but simply started flying to Belgium, which had not banned it.

The EU approach is partly intended to replace a country-by-country approach that has already created confusion when one country bans an airline and another country does not.

In addition, some banned airlines have complained that they never had a crash, and demanded to know what criteria were used to declare them unsafe.
International Herald Tribute News Report

According to many, the blacklist does nothing to encourage airline safety. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) of Geneva introduced a voluntary safety audit in 2003 to standardize airline safety ratings. Many say this is a much better route to take than creating a public blacklist.

“There is something wrong with the system that allows (some countries) to certify an airline that we (in Europe) don’t think is safe,” AEA spokesman David Henderson said. He said a blacklist would be helpful if it were followed up by checks with authorities in the suspect airlines’ countries to make sure standards were raised.
USA Today News Report

This is a key point. National governments can set standards for airlines flying out of their countries, but regulations are needed to check and verify safety standards on airplanes arriving in their country. Even then, random checks should be allowed by an EU agency to make sure airlines meet safety regulations no matter where they fly.

According to a new online brochure by the EASA called “The Safer Skies Brochure”:

A uniform system will bring advantages throughout European society. Citizens and passengers can be further reassured that all civil aircraft have been designed, built, and maintained to the same high standards, no matter where they are based.

How does the US set safety standards for international airlines? The International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency, sets country based standards rather than airline specific. On the domestic front, the FAA has very high standards and regulation for safety, often setting the standard for other government agencies worldwide. Still, FAA representatives and aircraft engineers are closely watching to see how this turns out and how it will affect the airline industry in general.

Based on an interesting survey by SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques), Flt Tech Online reports “Survey Indicates Airline Industry Divided on Information Technology”. The study finds that some international regions are far ahead in embracing Internet and wireless technologies while others are very far behind.

SITA’s annual airline IT (information technology) trends survey indicates that “pace-setting airlines” are embracing new IP (Internet protocol) and wireless-based technologies that enable new applications, such as e-ticketing and self-service kiosks, while “a significant minority of airlines are still lagging behind.”

Science Daily reports that the USF Deploys Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Katrina Rescue Operation. The University of Southern Florida’s Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) has developed two types of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for rescues as a response of the hurricanes which frequently hit Flordia. These small vehicles can help rescue workers locate survivors and detect structural damage in hard to reach areas.

One of the UAVs is a small winged airplane like vehicle equipted with video and termal imagery. It can fly from 100 to 1,000 feet, permitting a wide overview of the area. The other resembles a minature helicopter, also carrying a camera with a zoom lens to fly around roof tops and “look in windows”.

“The platforms, which require less than 10 minutes to set up and fly, were designed to be easily carried by responders as they hike into the debris,” said Robin Murphy, CRASAR director. “The UAVs were provided in partnership with a National Science Foundation industry/university consortium that focuses on new safety, security and rescue technology.”…”We learned that seeing whether people were trapped on their roofs just beyond sight along a flooded road was critical,” said Murphy. “It takes too long for manned helicopters to get there - if the radios are working.”

While is this the first known use of these small UAVs for an actual disaster, they have proven their worth through extensive testing and scientific and engineering data. Within two hours of the first test launch, “the responders had the data form the UAVs showing that no survivors were trapped and that the flood waters from the cresting Pearl River were not posing an additional threat.”

CRASAR was responsible for the introduction of small ground mobile robots into emergency response at the World Trade Center in 2001.

Aero Space News reports on tests and research being done by NASA on how to make aircraft quieter.

Scalloped edges on engine exteriors and toboggan-like fittings on landing gear are some of the high tech ideas being tested to reduce aircraft noise. Experts at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and industry team researchers developed advanced noise reduction concepts. They used wind tunnels and computer simulations to initially test the concepts…The researchers are using a large, specially equipped 777 passenger jet provided by Boeing. The test facility was outfitted with sophisticated microphone arrays and other measurement devices to record noise levels….

“The new design tailors the chevrons to take into account the air flow and acoustic differences that occur when the engine is installed on the aircraft,” said Charlotte Whitfield, NASA’s Quiet Aircraft Technology manager of airframe system noise reduction…Laboratory tests show the advanced chevron shape will reduce noise as much as four decibels during take-off and when flying at cruise altitude. Results of the flight tests may lead to changes in aircraft configurations, future airplane engine and landing gear designs.

Plans are in the works to apply this new technology, if it works, to new Boeing 777. According to the report, this effort is an attempt to reduce “perceived aircraft noise” by 75 percent in 25 years in steps.

For more info on the project, see: NASA Aeronautics Vehicle Systems Program and Quiet Aircraft Technology.

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The Seattle Times reports that China’s various airlines have ordered an additional 42 Boeing 787 planes for their various airlines: Air China, China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, and Xiamen Airline. In January, six Chinese airlines signed an agreement to order 60 787s for $7.2 billion. This latest announcement comes as Chinese President Hu Jintao begins his visit to the United States with a stop in Seattle.

To date, Boeing has received 185 firm orders and 91 additional commitments for the long-range 787.

Both Boeing and Airbus have boosted sales efforts in China, where airlines have made a series of major aircraft purchases in recent years as they build up fleets.

Boeing says it expects China’s airlines to spend $183 billion on aircraft over the next two decades as its 1.3 billion increasingly prosperous citizens take to air travel.

Boeing Randy Baseler, VP of Marketing, annouced UPS ordered eight 747-400 freighters in August.

The air cargo business is booming. In the second quarter of 2005, UPS reports that its export volume grew more than 18%, and that Asia export volume gained nearly 40%, with China alone rising 99%….our forecast for air cargo calls for a 6.2% annual growth rate over the next 20 years. What this means in terms of airplanes is that the world freighter fleet will more than double from 1,760 to 3530 airplanes by the year 2024!

The demand for air cargo transportation is definitely increasing as the Internet marketplace grows and people order more and more of their products online. These need to be shipped somehow, and fast, and demand for air freighters is growing fast.

Military examines “beaming up” data and people reports SFGate in an article about how close engineers are to developing teleportation.

Not for want of trying, though. Last year, the Air Force spent $25,000 on a report, titled “Teleportation Physics Study,” to examine possible ways to teleport humans and objects through space…In recent years, many physicists have become excited about a phenomenon called “quantum teleportation,” which works only with infinitesimally tiny particles. It might lead to new ways of transmitting cryptographically secure messages, some speculate, but not human beings for a long time to come, if ever.

“Experts in the field can foresee using teleportation in the area of data encryption but not (at least not in the near future) for the purpose of ‘beaming’ macroscopic (e.g., human-size) objects across” space, said Phil Schewe, a physicist, chief science writer at the American Institute of Physics and author of a forthcoming book, “Bottled Lightning,” on the history of the American electrical grid…On one hand, he concluded that “Star Trek”-style teleportation faces enormous obstacles, partly because it would require the development of extraordinarily high-speed computers and would consume mind-boggling amounts of energy. Also, it would encounter all kinds of physics headaches generated by the principles of quantum physics. For example, the computing-encoding of the entire contents of a human body would require 10 to the 28th (the number one followed by 28 zeroes) kilobytes of computer storage capacity. It would take 100 quintillion of the world’s best commercially available hard drives “to store the encoded information of just one human being.”…Also, “it will take more than 2,400 times the present age of the universe (about 13 billion years) to access this amount of data” from the computers, Davis writes. And “to heat up and dematerialize one human being would require . .. the energy equivalent of 330 one-megaton thermonuclear bombs.”

It seems that the Chinese are working on this technology, too. While it might be deemed wasteful and fantasy, in the next decade or so there could be a teleportation race as the demand to move goods and services faster across the planet heats up. Who knows - but the idea is exciting.

In addition to the article, there is a copy of the full Teleportation Physics Study via Evan Poll’s blog or from the Federation of American Scientists site for a PDF file.

There is little doubt that the airline and aircraft industry have benefited tremendously from their brother, the space industry. I, among many engineers, are thrilled that the Mars rover, Spirit, continues to dazzle us with results and images from the Mars surface. Areo-News Net report, “NASA’s Durable Spirit Sends Intriguing New Images From Mars”, says:

Working atop a range of Martian hills, NASA’s Spirit rover is rewarding researchers with tempting scenes filled with evidence of past planet environments.

“When the images came down and we could see horizon all the way around, that was every bit as exhilarating as getting to the top of any mountain I’ve climbed on Earth,” said Chris Leger, a rover planner at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.

The images are amazing. While Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Southern Gulf Coast of the United States, NASA released animated images of another storm of dust devils spinning around on the Mars surface.

You can keep up with the lastest news from the Mars Rovers from the NASA website.

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Boeing Reveals Some Aspects of B-787 Flight Deck, reports FlightTechOnline. High-tech dual HUDs (head-up displays) and dual EFBs (electronic flight bags) and larger display screens come with many other new technological advances in the new 787 Dreamliner. It should be similar to the B-777, the report goes on, to maintain commonality, but it will be more streamlined and reliant on the lastest computer technologies.

The 787’s display system includes five 15.1-inch diagonal LCDs (liquid crystal displays), each of which has 546 square inches of display space – twice that of the B-777 – to give pilots easier access to more information. Two displays are situated in front of each pilot, and one is placed in the center control stand that emulates the pilot’s CDUs (control display units). The entire integrated system utilizes cursor control devices and multi-function key pads for data entry and retrieval.

These displays will allow for several new formats including airport moving maps and a vertical situation display to graphically depict approaching terrain and other pertinent information.

Rockwell Collins is also developing the aircraft’s control system, including auto throttles – using a modular design to simplify installation and maintenance – as well as their interfaces to the aircraft’s fly-by-wire systems.

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Spirit AeroSystems unveiled its first developmental nose section of the Boeing 787 airplane. Using the lastest in advanced-composite materials, the nose structure measures 19 feet in diameter and 24 feet long. Spirit AeroSystems, in Kansas and Oklahoma, has the design and build responsibilities for the forward section, pylons, and fixed and moveable wing components for the 787 airplane.

“Today is a historic day for Spirit AeroSystems,” Jeff Turner, President and CEO of Spirit AeroSystems, told a gathering of hundreds of employees, airplane partners and media at an on-site roll out ceremony.

“The 41 Section on display here today is the first major piece of airplane hardware completed by Spirit AeroSystems. It also is a marvel of modern technology and an example of industry-leading teamwork and innovation on behalf of the employees of Spirit AeroSystems and our entire supply chain. Because of the knowledge and skills of our excellent team, I am confident many more modern marvels will follow.”

A 787 production forward section is expected to be produced in Wichita next year, complete with flight deck and systems installations. It will ship in 2007 by a special, modified 747 cargo airplane to The Boeing Company’s plant in Everett, Wash., for final assembly.