Flight Safety Information December 27, 2012 - No. 256 In This Issue Aviation Won't Face Immediate Threat in Budget Stalemate Audit casts shadow on India's air safety Airlines Fear Pilot Shortage Amid New Federal Safety Rules FAA Expands WAAS, ADS-B Services PROS IOSA Audit Experts Commercial Hypersonic Aircraft Still Decades Away China confirms it's developing large transport aircraft Boeing Assigned Patent for Onboard Aircraft Weight and Balance System Fit for Flight? Space Tourism Lacks Medical Standards Aviation Won't Face Immediate Threat in Budget Stalemate By Alan Levin The U.S. aviation industry won't face immediate disruptions if political leaders can't reach a deal to avert automatic budget cuts due to start Jan. 2, a senior Transportation Department official told employees. The Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies under the department would have the remainder of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 to adjust to budget decreases, John Porcari, DOT's deputy secretary, said in an e-mail obtained by Bloomberg. "This means that we will not be executing any immediate personnel actions, such as furloughs," Porcari said. The effect of the automatic budget cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff, a phrase used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke in testimony to Congress in February, is different from the partial FAA shutdown in 2011 after Congress failed to reauthorize the agency's funding, Porcari said. That action forced the FAA to halt payments for airport construction and furlough about 4,000 employees for 16 days. Still, if budget cuts occur over a prolonged period, the agency won't escape so easily, according to Porcari and acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. Aviation groups have predicted that cuts may force thousands of furloughs that could lead to flight delays and billions of dollars in economic losses. The FAA would have to reduce its budget of $15.9 billion by $1.04 billion, or 6.5 percent, if lawmakers don't come to terms on a tax and spending package, according to an Office of Management and Budget report. Dire Forecasts "Cuts of this magnitude cannot be implemented without a significant impact in operations and capacity," the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing about 15,000 controllers, said in a report earlier this month. The automatic cuts, known as sequestration, would cause a "very drastic" reduction in agency services, Huerta said in a speech Sept. 24. The agency would be forced to reduce air- traffic staffing, slow technology upgrades and disrupt certification of new aircraft, Huerta said in the speech. "They would result in significantly less efficient and less convenient air travel service for the American traveling public," he said. Porcari didn't rule out job reductions in his e-mail. "Should we have to operate under reduced funding levels for an extended period of time, we may have to consider furloughs or other actions in the future," he said. The agency hasn't taken any of the steps required before beginning job cuts, Kori Blalock Keller, spokeswoman for the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said in an e- mail. The union, representing FAA technicians, must be notified before furloughs, Keller said. Cuts Possible A study funded by the Aerospace Industries Association, an Arlington, Virginia-based trade association, predicted airline and cargo flight reductions of as much as 10 percent or cuts to air-traffic technology projects that could trigger flight delays for decades. As many as 132,000 jobs could be lost across the U.S. and economic losses could reach $40 billion a year by 2021, according to the study. Even a short period in which the FAA reduced air-traffic service would cause difficulties for airlines and cargo haulers and trigger ripple effects, Stephen Mullin, senior vice president at Econsult Corp., a Philadelphia economic research firm, said in an interview. No Guidance "You could have some potentially tough disruptions for some segments," he said of such a scenario. Mullin was the lead author of the aerospace industry group's report. Even without the most dire outcomes, the threat of cuts will take a toll, Louis Dupart, executive director of the FAA Managers Association, which represents 1,600 employees, said in an interview. "We will manage with the resources given to us, but the current significant uncertainty will manifest itself in delayed personnel actions and contracting," Dupart said. So far, the FAA hasn't given the industry a clear idea of where it would cut and what effect that would have, Debbie McElroy, an executive vice president with the Airports Council International-North America, a Washington-based trade group, said. "It's hard to make any assessment," McElroy said in an interview. "We understand that day-to-day operations won't change dramatically on Jan. 2, but we remain concerned about the potential impact on airports and passengers," she said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-26/aviation-won-t-face-immediate-threat-in- budget-stalemate.html Back to Top Audit casts shadow on India's air safety India fares worse than countries such as Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan when it comes to following air safety regulations, an audit has revealed. According to documents accessed by HT, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) - the global policy maker for air safety - which conducted the audit, was not satisfied with most parameters set for effective implementation of safety norms. The parameters where India performed badly include flight operations, air regulation and accident investigation. The audit has a universal methodology wherein the ICAO asks the aviation safety regulator, in India's case the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), to respond to a list of protocol questions. Of the 12 parameters, the DGCA was unable to satisfy even one completely. The performance was particularly bad in areas such as implementation of training programmes wherein the auditors were satisfied with just eight of the 42 responses. Similarly, the DGCA gave satisfactory responses to only 16% of the questions on air accident investigation. "The ICAO audit portrays the true picture. If the ministry and DGCA want to be transparent, they should permit the ICAO to place their audit findings on the open page," said Captain Mohan Ranganathan, member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council, an independent air safety panel set up after the Air India Express crash at Mangalore. Also, none of the responses to the 40 questions asked on air navigation system satisfied the ICAO. Barring personnel licensing and training, close to 70% responses on other technical parameters were also not satisfactory. DGCA chief Arun Mishra did not respond to calls. http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Audit-casts-shadow-on-India-s-air- safety/Article1-981266.aspx Back to Top Airlines Fear Pilot Shortage Amid New Federal Safety Rules Starting next summer, aspiring commercial pilots will need 1,500 hours of flight training before they can be hired. This dramatic increase, among other factors, is making airlines worry that there will not be enough pilots to maintain current service. Some airlines - especially the smaller ones - worry they won't have enough pilots. They're a number of factors in play, but they point to new federal safety rules as a big part of the problem. In February 2009, a Colgan Air commuter jet crashed, killing 50 people. Investigators cited inadequate pilot training; Congress responded with new legislation. Beginning next summer, those who want to pilot commercial jets will need dramatically more hours of flight training before they can be hired. "The issue here is this arbitrary 1,500 hours," says Roger Cohen, head of the Regional Airline Association. He notes the new regulation is roughly triple the number of hours many commuter airlines require today, and he says it will mean lots of otherwise qualified pilots won't be able to get jobs. "These people have already invested incredible amounts of time and an incredible amount of money investing in their aviation education. They have just been told you have to go back out and fly around in circles at your own expense just to get hourly experience," Cohen says. Cohen says most people now in training programs can't get enough hours in before the deadline, so the pipeline for new pilots will be smaller. Any impact would be felt largely at the regional or commuter airlines, because that's where pilots often begin their commercial career. Cohen can't say when the regional airlines might face an acute shortage of pilots, but warns that when they do, flights will be canceled and service to some communities will be cut. But others say Cohen is overstating his case. Still, there's no question the industry is facing headwinds with respect to pilots. "The retirements start tomorrow," says Kit Darby, an aviation industry consultant. Darby says thousands of pilots are closing in on the mandatory retirement age of 65. And military pilots who used to flock to the nation's airlines are staying in the military longer or not leaving at all in part because of their pay. "It's quite a bit better than it used to be, and it's competitive. It's a good base pay. You're going to be up in the $75,000 range. But then there's all kinds of bonuses that could raise that well up over a hundred," Darby says. And that's a lot more than new commercial pilots make. Another source for commercial pilots is also shrinking: The number of people getting private pilot licenses has fallen sharply. Education and training is expensive and getting more so. What's more, Kent Lovelace, chairman of the well-regarded aviation program at the University of North Dakota, says the allure of being a pilot isn't what it used to be. He says in the past, 75 percent or more of his students aspired to be commercial pilots. Now, it's only about half. "They value friends, family. Those kind of lifestyle issues in many ways are more important than money. So they look at the challenge of being away from home roughly half the month, and they don't look at it as a positive," Lovelace says. And Capt. Lee Moak, head of the Air Line Pilots Association, says those who do want to fly commercial jets are increasingly being wooed by foreign airlines. "We have a lot of our newly trained, nearly certificated pilots coming out of school and going overseas because the pay is better there. We haven't seen that before," Moak says. Some industry officials are now pushing the federal government to put more money into pilot education. And airlines are beginning to consider subsidizing flight training in exchange for a commitment by the students to go to work for them. http://www.npr.org/2012/12/26/168067560/airlines-fear-pilot-shortage-amidst-new-federal- safety-rules Back to Top FAA Expands WAAS, ADS-B Services Free traffic and weather information can now be provided to pilots in seven new terminal areas, the FAA Safety Team announced recently. To receive these in-flight services, aircraft must be equipped to use ADS-B and to display traffic information. The new services are available for Fairbanks, Alaska; Lansing, Mich.; Pasco, Grant City, and Yakima, in Washington; Waterloo, Penn., and Youngstown, Ohio. More details about the services can be found online. The FAA also said recently it has published more than 3,000 new WAAS approaches, which make it possible for pilots to fly instrument approaches using GPS. More than 60,000 aircraft are certified to use WAAS, the FAA said, which means they are capable of using Performance Based Navigation (PBN), a key component for the FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation System. The use of PBN frees aircraft from the old "highways in the sky" that are dependent on ground-based beacons, allowing for more direct and fuel- efficient routes. It also provides options for avoiding bad weather or unexpected air traffic congestion. WAAS first was made operational in 2003. http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/FAAExpandsWAASADSBServices_207907-1.html Back to Top Back to Top Commercial Hypersonic Aircraft Still Decades Away, Says NASA Aerospace Engineer Artist's concept of the X-43A Hypersonic Experimental Vehicle, or "Hyper-X" in flight. The X- 43A was developed to flight test a dual-mode ramjet/scramjet propulsion system at speeds from Mach 7 up to Mach 10. Like some hypersonic carrot, the idea of breakfast in Paris; breakfast in New York; and late night cocktails in Tokyo - all within the same 12 hour workday - has been dangled in front of the flying public for so long now that any mention of Mach 7 aircraft may trigger involuntary eye-rolls. Hypersonics using rocket propulsion is a staple of the space age, but hypersonics using air- breathing aircraft engines is something altogether more challenging. Such technology involves aircraft designed to traverse the atmosphere at speeds at least 5 times that of sound - (3300 mph at altitude). The key to making it happen are scramjets (supersonic combustion ramjet engines), which allow for supersonic airflow through the engine's combustion chamber. That's a feat currently not possible or advisable on commercial turbofan engines - like those used on most commercial airliners. Although scramjets were first conceptualized in the 1950s, no one has yet achieved the development of a sustainable and reliable hypersonic aircraft propulsion system. But, to date, NASA currently holds the world jet-powered speed record for its X-43A experimental aircraft which hit Mach 9.68 on November 16, 2004. For perspective, Forbes.com turned to James Pittman, an aerospace engineer and Senior Advisor for the Fundamental Aeronautics Program, at NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia. What is hypersonics biggest hurdle? The critical challenge is the aero-heating, caused by the friction of air rushing over the vehicle's solid surface at extreme speeds. Aero-heating dominates every aspect of hypersonic vehicle design: materials, vehicle shape, and internal heat management. It's generally not a significant problem at speeds less than or equal to mach 2. But at hypersonic speeds [aero- heating] can cause extremely dangerous temperatures of up to two to three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That can melt aluminum and titanium. Temperatures like that are a threat to the vehicle and anything inside it. Is there any technology on the horizon that could solve this heat problem? Ceramic matrix composites could take those temperatures. Manufacturers are looking into developing these composite materials to integrate into a turbine engine's core. But General Electric is probably the industry leader in investigating these matrix composites' use in conventional turbine [aircraft] engines. What about the U.S. military's own involvement in the development of hypersonic aircraft? The Air Force and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) are following along with a similar configuration called the X-51A. They have had three attempts. One [test] got 143 seconds of scramjet power. But the second and third flights did not achieve scramjet combustion. But the U.S. Air Force is leading the way in terms of developing scramjet technology in this country. http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2012/12/27/commercial-hypersonic-aircraft- still-decades-away-says-nasa-aerospace-engineer/ Back to Top China confirms it's developing large transport aircraft China is developing Y-20 large transport aircraft to meet its military modernization drive, a Ministry of Defense spokesman said Thursday. "We are developing large transport aircraft on our own to improve the capability of air transport," spokesman Yang Yujun said at a monthly news briefing held days after photos of a Y-20 appeared online. The advanced long-range carrier is being developed to serve the military modernization drive, as well as to meet demands in disaster relief work and humanitarian aid in emergency situations, he added. The spokesman did not say when the Y-20s will be fitted out in force, only saying "the research and development of the large transport aircraft is going forward as planned." There will be a series of steps before the carriers are fitted out, "as the technology is complicated," he added. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/752637.shtml Back to Top Boeing Assigned Patent for Onboard Aircraft Weight and Balance System ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 27 -- Boeing, Chicago, has been assigned a patent (8,340,892) developed by Michael A. Long, Freeland, Wash., and Geoffrey E. Gouette, Stanwood, Wash., for an "onboard aircraft weight and balance system." The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An onboard system and method for determining the instantaneous weight and balance of an aircraft simply, reliably, accurately, and requiring a minimum amount of calibration includes a memory for storing previously determined breakout friction data of the aircraft's landing gear shock struts, sensors for sensing the pressures in the struts, the vertical loads exerted by the landing gear on the aircraft, and the attitude of the aircraft relative to the horizontal during loading or unloading thereof, and a computer for computing the vertical load in each of the landing gears from the stored calibration breakout friction data and the shock strut pressures, landing gear vertical loads and aircraft attitude sensed during the loading or unloading. The computer then computes the gross weight of the aircraft and the location of its center of gravity (CG) using the computed vertical loads in the landing gears." The patent application was filed on Nov. 19, 2010 (12/950,983). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,340,892&OS=8,340,892&RS=8,340,892 http://www.avionics-intelligence.com/news/2012/12/27/boeing-assigned-patent-for- onboard-aircraft-weight-and-balance-system.html Back to Top Fit for Flight? Space Tourism Lacks Medical Standards U.S. spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi, the world's first repeat space tourist, floats in the Harmony node of the International Space Station during his 2009 spaceflight. The rise of space tourism is going to bring a new headache to doctors' doors: whether or not to approve their patients for spaceflight. Worse, a new paper cautions, there is no established protocol in place to judge a person fit for making the trip. The new study stops short of suggesting rigid regulation, saying that too much of it would hurt the space tourism industry before it even gets off the ground. Rather, the researchers encourage doctors to "consider developing a resource file for future reference." Lead author Marlene Grenon said her team's recent paper in the British Medical Journal was designed to make doctors aware of potential health issues related to spaceflight. How to set medical standards, and the implications for insurance, are matters for further research, she said. "The question is, should there be standards set or not?" said Grenon, an assistant professor of vascular surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. "If you start [restricting] the number of people who are going to fly to the healthiest people, you're not going to encourage the market to develop." [Photos: The First Space Tourists] More data needed Aerospace is one of the most highly regulated industries in the world. In the United States, pilots and crewmembers must pass strict medical exams authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The military has its own set of exams for Navy aviators and Air Force pilots. Standards are even more stringent for NASA astronauts. Laser eye surgery is permitted when an astronaut is selected, but only if it was performed more than a year ago. The ability to cope in small spaces, under high stress, is extensively tested. Nutrition, exercise and mental health are constantly evaluated and recorded in the years of training before an astronaut launches. Physicians have plenty of data about these super-healthy space travellers. But there's little advice available for more ordinary specimens - people with health issues such as osteoporosis, for example. Only a handful of space tourists, politicians and other non- specialized astronauts have journeyed into orbit. Doctors aren't fumbling completely in the dark, though, as they already know many of the effects of weightlessness on the human body. Microgravity hardens arteries, affects eyeballs and weakens bones. Astronauts also can get motion sickness, accumulate large doses of potentially dangerous radiation and experience kidney stones. Kidney stones are never pleasant, but they can be particularly problematic on orbit. In 1982, the Soviet Union planned to evacuate an astronaut with a severe case from its Salyut 7 space station but ultimately decided against it. Setting a standard If a potential space tourist were to pop in Grenon's office today and ask for medical approval, Grenon said her primary tool would be standards set by the company flying the astronaut. This leaves medical procedures in the hands of Virgin Galactic and other private companies, meaning that physical exams are not necessarily subject to government regulation. Doctors are working to fill the gap. In June, an FAA-sponsored medical group suggested guidelines for flight crew and spaceflight participants. The 23-page document suggests pre-flight measures such as medical questionnaires, screening for certain mental health conditions, and chest X-rays and electrocardiograms. The guidelines are not binding, and the FAA's center of excellence for commercial space transportation cautioned that it does not necessarily endorse the recommendations. But Grenon said this effort is the best one put forth so far. Medical tests will matter even more during lengthier space missions, Grenon added. On the first flights, tourists will "only be in microgravity for a few minutes. But as we step more into space and we go into a space hotel, those [conditions] are all things that will need to be better understood." Grenon's co-authors have affiliations with the Canadian Space Agency, Virgin Galactic and several Canadian and U.S. medical schools. One has even been to space - Millie Hughes- Fulford flew on the space shuttle's STS-40 mission in 1991. www.space.com Curt Lewis