Do We
Really Need
Asteroid Surfing?

From my early years, I have always been in awe of anything related to space. I was glued to the TV back on 20 July, 1969 when Neil Armstrong took "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," and today I remain fascinated about the coming onslaught of commercial space tourism.

At the center of all this has always been NASA, and I have plenty of respect for what they stand for, and what they accomplish. But when I read that they are actually thinking of landing an actual human onto the face of the asteroid known as 99942 Apophis, I can't help but to think such a mission is just plain ridiculous.

There are plenty of great articles and information out there that explains the remote threat that our planet from time to time will get smacked by very large, very fast-moving rocks from outer space. There are craters around the globe that are proof of this, so it is not outside of the realm of possibility that the threat exists.

The best source I could find is the B612 Foundation, which has a web site loaded with great information on just how we can and should go up and deflect the trajectory of inbound asteroids. A particularly good read is this report (pdf) NASA released to Congress on 8 March 2007.

But since our country is basically broke – having to borrow money to stay afloat and pay for things like Bush's war and his sham economic stimulus package – it seems crazy to try to fund this asteroid adventure, a story coming not from some whacked fringe web site with no credibility, but the highly-respected popularmechanics.com:

"It may not be exactly what we had in mind when we outlined five possible plans to stop the Apophis asteroid in Popular Mechanics’ latest cover story, but NASA is looking into sending a manned spacecraft to the near-Earth object. Scientists pinpoint 2029 as the year that the 25-million-ton, 820-foot-wide asteroid could hit Earth, wreaking havoc that puts our five future mega-disasters to shame. Odds are the asteroid will miss us, but if it hits a precisely located gravitational keyhole, Apophis would swing back around and put Earth in the crosshairs for a collision in 2036."

I couldn't find a dollar figure showing how much this asteroid surfing trip would cost, but one can only imagine the bill will be huge. Sure, why not just put it on our country's already maxxed-out credit card. Not a problem, as long as the mission is successful. But when you really think about what they want to accomplish, it is just plain crazy:

According to Wikipedia, Apophis is just 820 feet long, and is traveling at about 110,629 kilometers an hour. Let's compare that the the carrier USS Essex, which is also about 820 feet long and cruises the open seas at about 24 knots per hour. We aviators all know that without question, the most precise landings any pilot can make is a carrier landing – there is literally no room for error. And that is at about 27 mph! Try performing the same maneuver in space when the target is blasting along at well north of 68,000 mph! Even Tom Cruise can't grease that landing.

So for the sake of debate, let's say NASA succeeds on planting an astronaut on Apophis. Then what? They take samples, they take pictures, they feed live footage back to your TV, and America rejoices that NASA has saved our planet's future. But have they? Will this mission be a slam dunk success, or just a photo op for an agency that would really, really like to plant a guy on Mars?

I have scoured the B612 Foundation site this AM, and read whatever I could on the chances of a large flaming rock flattening my living room. It sure looks like the chance theoretically exists, but I would love to see the next President and his/her Congress – supported by the scientific community – require that NASA guarantee they can steer these asteroids away from Earth before we raid our children's financial future to let them try. It will not be enough to simple stand atop an asteroid and shout "we did it"...they need hard science that once there, the ship and crew will carry the equipment and expertise to do the job and save the day.

But, when you look at the asteroid's Wikipedia page, the threat may not really be that great:

As of October 19, 2006, the impact probability for April 13, 2036, is estimated at 1 in 45,000. An additional impact date in 2037 has been identified; however, the impact probability for that encounter is 1 in 12.3 million.

One in forty five thousand. I would stand in front of a Greyhound bus heading straight for me if I knew the chances of me kissing its windshield were just 1 in 45,000. Is that sufficient odds to justify dropping billions and billions on asteroid surfing? That is a question we can all debate until infinitum, or at least until Apophis beats the odds and slaps down Earth in a crash of biblical proportions.

And don't even get me started on Bush's yearning to send a manned mission to Mars, one that would require a filling station be built on our Moon first. We do not need men on Mars these days, we need adequate schools, no hungry children, and bridges that do not collapse. We need a health care system that isn't slowly killing off the middle class, we need to bring American jobs home from China, and we need emergency legislation and funding to find alternative fuels so we can tell the Saudis where they can stick those $100 barrels of oil.

Until any President can fix those broken parts of our great country, the very last thing we need is to pump billions of imaginary money into NASA for anything beyond required trips to deliver the groceries to the International Space Station.

Are You as Sick
of This as I Am?

The FAA staffing crisis is very real, and is very bad. Anyone who does not want to believe that can keep their head buried in the sand until two airliners meet tragically in the sky. I hope this issue never gets to that point, but these releases from NATCA are not hogwash, and offer a look at a broken system that the MSM is just now picking up.

These NATCA controllers are not the janitors that clean the TRACON at night, they are the only men and women in this country with actual hands-on experience with this problem. Anyone – ANYONE – who chooses to ignore their pleas for help can be considered an accomplice to whatever happens if the staffing levels are not immediately increased to NATCA's recommended levels.

Here is just a taste from today's inbox:

Air traffic controllers at both the Northern California Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) and the Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center, who have seen a large rate of attrition and a rise in unsafe incidents in the skies, today have declared a staffing emergency and are calling on the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation to act immediately to stem the loss of veteran controllers. This marks the sixth major area of the country where NATCA has declared a staffing emergency. In the past two weeks, NATCA highlighted serious staffing and safety concerns in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York and Southern California.

Anyone have the balls to ignore THAT? What part of "staffing emergency" does Washington D.C. not understand? Maybe this will help convince them:

At the NorCal Tracon (NCT), there are just 130 veteran, fully trained controllers left on staff working air traffic today. NATCA believes that 196 is the appropriate safe staffing level for this facility. NCT is responsible for all airline, commercial, business and general aviation in airspace around Sacramento International Airport, the three major Bay Area airports and 60 other smaller airports. And at Oakland Center (ZOA), the facility currently has 164 fully trained and certified controllers on board, and there are 94 trainees on staff, which has made for a ratio of "Controller-to-trainee" in excess of the FAA’s stated goal for training. Just three years ago, the national ratio for certified controllers to trainees was over 12-to-1. Today, at ZOA, it is less than 2-to-1.

After two terms under the thumb of this GOP administration, our country is broken in more ways then just financially, unless if you're a fat CEO at a company that sells anything to the Pentagon or brews gasoline for thirsty SUVs. Then you're literally rolling in piles of fresh $1,000,000 bills licking a fine 1870 Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac off the supple stomachs of scantily-clad hookers. Yes, life is sweet for those one percenters, but the other 99 percent of us are hanging on by our fingernails, hoping W doesn't do to us what he's done to NATCA's controllers.

I have had it today with this administration, and this chart will show you why.

Can General Aviation Keep Growing in a Recession?

Just about everyone involved in manufacturing airframes, avionics or pilot supplies has been enjoying significant growth through 2006 and 2007, and from Cessna to Cirrus to Mooney, order books are jammed and deposit checks are in the bank.

But as our economy slows in 2008 into what an increasing number of analysts are calling a full-blown recession, the resilience of every aviation business will be tested. Pressures on the market from artificially high fuel prices mixed with the busting real estate market and anemic dollar overseas will try and challenge both aircraft owners and future buyers to re-evaluate the value of private aircraft ownership. The outcome of that challenge may surprise analysts not familiar with this sector.

Let's take a look at what aviation business can expect in 2008:

New aircraft manufacturers: The last couple of years have been very good for anyone who builds and sells new piston or turbine-powered aircraft, and throughout 2008, expect that trend will continue. Why? Because of the high acquisition costs of any new aircraft, the baseline for personal wealth to afford new birds remains high. In the piston market where you can easily drop half a million dollars on a beautiful new Cirrus, even the entry level models are pushing $200,000. The majority of new four passenger and up aircraft require a buyer with a substantial amount of disposable income.

In the turbine sector, the good times of recent years will show no signs of letting up, due in part to the reason listed above, times ten. While most of the newest"personal jets" are still on the drawing boards of Piper and Cirrus, the makers of "very light jets" and the larger cabin business-class jets cannot build them fast enough. Even if the U.S. economy tanks, serious buyers that can afford even the cheapest twin jet will need such an enormous amount of cash on hand that a they will be part of a "recession proof" pool of customers that will just keep growing. And forget about a recession slowing the assembly lines down where they build the $10 million and up ships...those buyers might never even KNOW there is a recession. All they want is to lunch in NYC and party in Cabo, in the same day.

Avionics: Two factors drive the avionics markets, OEM installations in new aircraft (see above) and retrofits into the existing fleet of pistons and turbines. Makers like Avidyne and Garmin will still feed the "all glass" movement in new planes, while their innovation will continue to bring glass to just about any make or model. I believe a day is coming very soon when a guy like me that owns a 1964 Piper Cherokee 235 will be able to completely rip out his steam gauge panel and drop in a full glass replacement at a cost south of $40,000. Would that be viable for my $70,000 plane, no, but for a guy with a $150,000 Baron or Cessna 210, these future panel swaps start to make great financial sense.

A recession might slow the sale of $15,000 Garmin aftermarket boxes to guys like me, however. I am a prime example of an aircraft owner with enough cash to operate my trusty vintage plane, but not enough spare change to upgrade my panel. In a recession, pilots like me - the vast majority of owners - will hold off on that new Garmin stack, and milk a high-time engine for another year to see if the Democrats can deliver a solution to this mess in 2009.

FBOs and Airport Services: There will not be any less planes flying in a recession, except at the flight schools where middle income people will have trouble coughing up the $7,000 or more it now costs to get your private ticket. Light Sport student starts will grow in 2008, but in a recession, that growth will be slowed.

But the guys with the big fast birds will still be up flying in a tanked economy, and business aircraft will continue to beat down the airlines on convenience. Fixed Based Operators that do maintenance might see a slip in revenue as low-end owners avoid repairs until annual, and recreational aircraft rental operations certainly will see less weekend flyers chasing that $100 hamburger when a recession pushes the cost of your favorite slab o'beef to $156.73.

Charter and Air Taxi: You would think that the high cost of private aircraft charter would push business flyers in a recession back to the airlines, but you would be wrong. That's because as I type this, the game is changing big time in the charter market, with more and more affordable options for business and pleasure flights on your schedule.

Yesterday, charter was for the jet set, those Hollywood types who flew around in Gulfstreams and paid $7,500 an hour to do so. But today, smaller operators such as Stratus Alliance Air Charter Network are arranging private air charter flights aboard shiny new Cirrus SR22 aircraft for as little as $395 to $495...for the whole plane! With fares this low, much smaller corporate clients can now send middle managers out to compete via chartered aircraft, and families can travel with kids or Fido with much less hassle then the airlines.

In a recession, rich people will be fine, and low income people will suffer most, this we know. While flying in your own airplane or booking a private charter or air taxi ride can be done with great value today, it in no way can be called cheap. Flying via any other method then the airlines is expensive, but thankfully the majority of these general aviation customers will weather the 2008 recession without flinching.

As an airplane owner, I suspect there will be many moments like this in the future...those wonderful few minutes when you get to leave the crust of this planet in your own flying machine and touch the sky. When you can do this with someone who sincerely appreciates the experience, it is just that much sweeter.

A few months ago, I had one of those moments.

With dark, ominous clouds perched at the four corners of the sky, the air over EUG was crystal clear and cold, just the kind of air Katy loves best. After Michael – one of my two stepsons – and I strapped in, the 235 started before two blades has passed the windscreen. It was as if Katy had something to prove to Mike.

Run-up and taxi-out was run-of-the-mill, but with one twist. Because Mike is looking towards a future pilot's license, I spoke every element of the pre-flight, run-up, radio setup, everything. In fact, this verbalization would be the theme of these short few laps around the patch:

As we taxied out to 34R, I pointed out a large Hawk standing aimlessly at the side of our taxiway. He had apparently just finished a snack of fresh ground squirrel, and as we cruised by, he took off right in front of Katy, his big wings flapping directly at our twelve. This was Mike's first intense moment in the flight. The next was my demonstration of the short field capabilities of the Piper 235, or what happens when you mate a Cherokee Six Hershey bar to a 180 fuselage and hang two hundred and thirty five ponies on the nose. With two notches of flaps, Katy leaped skyward before I could even get the throttle screwed in all the way, this blew me away. As her wheels parted company with Earth, Mike called out the time from a dead stop to "flight". It was eleven seconds.

As I made two laps around closed traffic, I called out everything as I did it. "My descent is increasing now, adding power," or "gonna back the power off, trim nose up now to shed airspeed." It was a great learning experience, I know this because way back when, another pilot I rode along with – ironically in a Cherokee 235 – also spoke everything he did on the flight. I picked up more on that flight then any airplane ride previous to it.

Going around the patch proved fun, sure, and it did keep us out of the many dark clouds creeping ever so slowly towards the field. But as the afternoon sun set, it cast an eerie orange hue across the ceiling of scattered clouds lingering over the Eugene metro area. I decided to switch this flight up a bit:

After notifying EUG tower, I peeled out of closed traffic, and pointed Katy to the east, right over town. With the deck lowering below the reported 3,700 MSL, I selected a safe altitude that would put me legally above the houses but well below the clouds. As we powered along, Katy was "clocking" close to 140 KIAS on a 090 heading, despite the wind being 350 at 15. The rush of visual input as we slipped between downtown and the bright orange clouds was incredible. This is what flying should feel like.

As Katy purred up to the front of my hangar, I continued to verbalize the shutdown process. As I switched off the master and the plane began to wind down, Michael calmly stated, "man, that was intense."

Yes, it was.

No 100LL Fuel
Dilemma in OR

There has been lots of buzz lately about House Bill 2210, which Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski signed into law last year. The law mandates that a 10 percent ethanol blend for gasoline sold in the state be put into effect very soon, which means Northwest Oregon on Jan 15, 2008, Southwest Oregon on April 15, and Central/Eastern Oregon on September 16.

On the surface, this new law has sparked much debate in aviation circles, with my aviator and non-aviator friends asking just what I'm going to do when "they take my hundred low lead away."

When people start talking about cutting off our fuel supply, rumors can get fired up in a hurry. As a new airplane owner, the last thing I need is for someone with good intentions writing some sort of law that screws with my fuel. So this week I went in search of answers to all kinds of questions:

Q: Am I going to lose the ability to buy 100LL for my Cherokee 235?
Q: Can my Lycoming 0-540 run on a concoction of 90% dead dinosaurs and 10% distilled corn?
Q: If the supply of avgas goes away in Oregon, will it spread to the rest of the country...and if that happens, what will happen to the value of my Cherokee if fuel is not readily available?

After a few hours scouring the Internets, I found some good data from EAA that answered some questions but raised others. Frustrated, I decided to just go to the highest level and ask the top person for the straight scoop. In this case, that person was Dan Clem, Director of the Oregon State Department of Aviation. If he didn't know what was going on with our fuel, then I guess we'd really be in a pickle. So I shot off a quick email, and guess what, I got immediate answers that to me, slams the door on those nasty "we're gonna lose our fuel" rumors for good. Here is Clem's reply, published with permission:

"The Oregon Department of Aviation has drafted clarifying text for inclusion into the final version of the administrative rules of House Bill 2210 to make it clear that the ethanol-blending requirement does not affect fuels used for aviation purposes, including gasoline. Hence, 100LL and Jet-A are not affected by the legislation. The effect of this legislation is that unblended Premium-grade gasoline (purchased by owners of small airplanes certificated or required by manufacturer’s specifications) at local gas stations will likely no longer be available, as distributors may not see enough volume potential for unblended gasoline at a retail station. Most definitely, 100LL is not affected by this legislation."

There you have it, straight from the top. Director Clem also sent me the exact language his department has sent up the food chain to amend HB 2210 that clearly shows our 100LL is in no danger of having its formula changed to anything other then what is spelled out in ASTM D 910, the "Standard Specification for Aviation Fuel" as written in the FAA directives for aviation fuel.

I think this information puts this issue to rest for me, so I won't worry a second more about the availability of avgas here in Oregon. But even though the supply looks intact, that doesn't mean I won't occasionally still bitch about the price.

Media Frenzy Over
Hillary's "Flight
Attendant Moment"

First out of the gate, let me say to my readers, this post is NOT about Senator Hillary Clinton, the candidate. It is about the crazy way our mainstream media is covering her campaign. I personally have no problem with Hillary or her candidacy – my guy is Senator John Edwards – so please do not translate this into some sort of hatchet job on Clinton.

Yesterday, a few stories started surfacing around the Internets about how Hillary played flight attendant aboard her campaign's newly-chartered 787-800. She grabbed the mic in the front of the cabin, and in her best flight attendant voice, addressed the media on board with a few quips, found below. It was a moment of silly humanity for Hillary, known possibly without justification as some sort of cold woman with no heart...not the case I am sure. There is video of it here on youtube.

As the plane was departing Las Vegas en route to Reno, Hillary said this over the intercom in the cabin:

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard the maiden flight of Hill Force One. My name is Hillary and I am so pleased to have most of you on board. FAA regulations prohibit the use of any cell phones, Blackberries or wireless devices that may be used to transmit a negative story about me. In a few minutes, I am going to switch off the 'Fasten Your Seat Belt' sign. However, I've learned lately that things can get awfully bumpy when you least expect it — so you might want to keep those seat belts fastened. In the event of an unexpected drop in poll numbers, this plane will be diverted to New Hampshire. If you look out from the right, you will see an America saddled with tax cuts for the wealthiest and a war without end. If you look out from the left, you will see an America with a strong middle class at home and a strong reputation in the world. Once we've reached cruising altitude, we'll be offering in-flight entertainment: my stump speech. Once again, thank you for joining us on Hill Force One. We know you have choices when you fly, and so we are grateful that you chose the plane with the most experienced candidate."

See, just a little fun out on the campaign trail to liven up the atmosphere. But instead of just having a chuckle, the obviously story-starved MSM went into overdrive releasing this bit as if some starlet had strapped her kids to the top of her Bentley with bungee cords and was speeding down Hollywood Boulevard drinking Jack Daniels and screaming obscenities out the window. I am sickened daily when I see vicious mobs of paparazzi stalking celebrities, fighting one another to snap a photo of Britney or Lindsay or Angelina shopping for socks or picking their nose:

But you would think the media "professionals" on Hillary's campaign plane are above that same "feeding frenzy" mentality that has all but ruined the respectability of most if not all mainstream media outlets today. The fact that any one of them ran with the story of Hillary's moment of humor was surprising, it was not news, it was life happening before their news noses. But as is the case with the MSM these days, the minute one wire service or TV channel releases a story first, all others go freakin' crazy trying to copy that news and "one-up" the originator of the story, going "in-depth" or "behind the scenes" or shouting BREAKING NEWS across the crawl at the bottom of their screens.

Today, Google News uncovered 5,081 stories for "Hill Force One", an unbelievable amount when you look at the troubling times we live in. Maybe if the MSM stopped reporting every second of every day of every candidate as "news", we could all focus on some serious issues facing our country. That is, at least until Britney gets caught without undergarments again, in which case there will again be film at 11 of this massive BREAKING NEWS event.

UUUURRRGGHHHHH!

Wise Words from
the Middle Seat

One of the columns I love to read is Scott McCartney's "The Middle Seat" on the Wall Street Journal's online version. Because of his clout writing for WSJ, McCartney is able to get inside any aviation story, and brings a great amount of accuracy to the many debates swirling around the world of Big Airlines today.

In his 01.15.08 column, McCartney explains why the proposed mergers coming our way from the likes of Delta, United and Northwest could be both good and bad. First, with his permission, let's set the stage:

Some corporate mergers have little effect on customers. But when big airlines merge, it changes life for travelers, leading to higher ticket prices, poorer service and maybe even a switch in the credit card you carry. Airline mergers can mean headaches for travelers. For the fractured airline industry, where nine big airlines fight coast-to-coast, removing large competitors and bulking up flight schedules could be a way to better survive high oil prices and recession instead of the bankruptcies and turmoil of past downturns. That's why Delta Air Lines Inc. may be considering formal merger talks with either UAL Corp.'s United Airlines or Northwest Airlines Corp., and why analysts think multiple major marriages could lie ahead.

I agree with this writer's logic...airline mergers can and WILL mean headaches for you, the airline customer. Consider the following:

Just consider what happened after US Airways Group Inc. merged with America West Airlines. The two carriers now have a stronger network and have seen a boost in revenue they can generate through higher fares and a better mix of business travelers. But consumers have paid a huge price beyond more-expensive tickets. When the two carriers finally moved to a single reservation system, customers discovered some itineraries had been lost and computer troubles led to long lines at airports, widespread flight delays and disruption. America West managers, who took over larger US Airways, have struggled to fix an inadequate baggage-handling operation in Philadelphia that produced piles of lost suitcases during busy times. US Airways on-time performance plunged; customer complaints soared, according to the Department of Transportation. And the carrier still has to deal with its fractured pilots union, where original US Airways pilots are unhappy about how their seniority was affected by integration with the former America West pilots.

One very good point McCartney makes is what mergers might do to our airspace, which is growing more congested by the day:

Mergers also can mean bigger airplanes on some routes if a combined carrier with a larger customer base can substitute a full-size, mainline jet for a 50-seat regional jet. Some transcontinental and international flights could see larger aircraft -- wide-body jets instead of single-aisle planes -- as well. An analysis of a Delta-United combination forecast a 10% reduction in regional-jet service for customers of those two airlines, and about 15 jets worth of additional mainline flying. Such a consolidation of airplanes could help ease some congestion in the skies.

With that in mind, I can only hope JetBlue, Virgin America, Alaska/Horizon and Southwest can jump on some big holes left gaping by the mergers of Big Carriers into Mega Carriers. McCartney sums it up:

Historically, mergers open up opportunity for new entrants and discount airlines that fill in gaps left by service cuts and find new opportunity when bigger incumbents raise prices. One of the biggest beneficiaries of past airline mergers: Southwest Airlines Co., which has expanded in cities affected by mergers and has capitalized on bigger-airline service woes and higher ticket prices. US Airways acquired PSA and AMR Corp.'s American Airlines acquired AirCal to give them intra-California flights, but Southwest dominates those markets today. The latest examples of that opportunistic strategy are Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where Southwest has expanded as US Airways has contracted.

As I read about these mergers, I wonder how stupid the Big Airlines think we – the flying public – really are. Trust me, it makes no difference what name is painted on the side of the jet, crappy service is still crappy service.

The best way to stay up with McCartney's columns on WSJ online is through their RSS feed. If you don't know about RSS, it is clearly the best way out there on the Internets to stay informed.

Endless Information
at Your Fingertips

I have just discovered an Internet site that simply blows me away. It is not just focused on aviation, but there are plenty of good aviation articles and bits of information in their seemingly endless database. The site is called Associated Content, aka The People's Media Company.

What makes this site so unique IMHO is that just about every aspect of your life is covered here, with articles written by everyday people. This is what you get when you set out to develop a site that counters what the mainstream media is doing:

Associated Content (AC) is a platform that enables everyone to publish their content in any format on any topic and then distributes that content to engaged audiences through its website and content partners. Those who contribute to Associated Content's ad-supported collection of original text, video, audio and images gain exposure and often earn cash for their participation. Since AC was founded by Luke Beatty in 2005, The People's Media Company has grown exponentially. Today, with its vast library of unique multimedia content, diverse community of Content Producers and scalable platform, Associated Content provides consumers, brands and publishers with a wide range of quality content.

I cannot tell a lie, I have been picked up as a Content Producer for AC. Becoming an AC Content Producer means I have to heavily research my articles, and format them exactly as they wish. It has not been an easy learning curve, but I'm getting there.

After doing my homework, I believe their site offers a great deal of increased exposure for general aviation. If I can snag a few non-flyers to stop and read about GA long enough to make then drive out to the little airfield at the edge of town and ask around about starting flying lessons, my job will have been done.

So stop by Associated Content and run a few searches and have a blast. I am very excited to have discovered this site, and I suspect you will be too.

FAA Can't Win
for Losing

Not a day goes by when we fail to hear the cries, moans and whining of the flying public complaining about flight delays in and out of our large cities. I have to throw myself into that group too, it can be very frustrating flying the airlines these days.

Our FAA has been trying to solve the congestion problem by avoiding to build new airports and more runways, without much success. So on December 19th of 2007, they announced the first overhaul of jet routes along the Eastern seaboard in decades. In a nutshell, instead of funneling all traffic off the end of the runways and out over the least populated part of the departure zone, they now would let jets fan out in all directions immediately after launching to increase takeoff capacity.

That's a great idea...on paper, but it looks like quite a few of the people underneath those new departure routes are screaming bloody murder about increased noise. Aero-News Network gets it right on when they make the point that these complainers are also the same people complaining about flight delays.

But one high profile politician goes way, WAY too far off the deep end with a statement on the situation, published both on ANN and AP:

In Elizabeth, N.J., the changes will mean that some planes will fly straight over the center of the city. "The FAA plan will do more harm to the city of Elizabeth than any terrorist incident," said Mayor Chris Bollwage.

Are you kidding me? This is clearly lips moving before brain engaging, because as ANN also points out, EWR has some haunting history with terrorism:

How soon some forget that United Airlines Flight 93 departed Newark Liberty International Airport on September 11, 2001... her crew and passengers soon murdered at the hands of real terrorists.

AP details some of the heat FAA is taking over this plan:

At least 12 lawsuits have been filed so far in an attempt to stop the plan. Congress ordered the Government Accountability Office to examine the FAA's method for choosing the new routes. Top lawmakers from several states have demanded changes. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., threatened to block Senate confirmation of acting FAA administrator Robert Sturgell if the agency doesn't halt implementation.

A group calling itself the Alliance for Sensible Airspace Planning has been established to fight the new jet routes, and a visit to their web site showed the following:

The FAA has developed an airspace redesign plan [PDF here] that will re-route flight paths in the New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia regions over several communities in Connecticut and New York. The plan is intended to reduce flight delays at regional airports. But it was developed without undergoing the approved review process for airspace plans. In fact, the FAA violated the federal charter governing environmental review, failed to consider the impact on affected communities, and has created serious concerns about air and ground safety, environmental impact, and quality of life in our communities.

So with the ATC staffing crisis now in "emergency" status according to NATCA, the funding debacle stalled in Congress because Bush refuses to back down from getting a tax break for his airline CEO buddies, and NextGen still a fable without an end, now FAA has opened a completely new can of worms with their redesigned jet routes. I guess this is the kind of government we get, from the administration that brought us Katrina and the Iraq occupation.

Is it 01.20.09 yet?

Dumb Question
of the Year:
Will the 787
Be Hacker Proof?

The wires have been feeding the Internets a story the last few days debating whether the passenger Internet access in the lavish cabin of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner will be vulnerable to hacking. Apparently, this urban myth is spinning out of control, making people actually think that some pimple-faced 13-year-old can decode Boeing's security, crash through the airliner's firewall, and with a few keystrokes, send a planeload of souls to their deaths.

Yes, hell does freeze over occasionally, and pigs really can fly.

Here's a sample of the urban myth, as it's being circulated:

Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet may have a serious security vulnerability in its onboard computer networks that could allow passengers to access the plane's control systems, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. The computer network in the Dreamliner's passenger compartment, designed to give passengers in-flight internet access, is connected to the plane's control, navigation and communication systems, an FAA report reveals.

That wired.com story makes one think Boeing would actually build a network in the 787 that is connected to the seats in back. It makes me wonder how anyone would think that Boeing – easily the smartest airplane manufacturer on this planet – could be stupid enough to rig up such a crappy third-rate network.

But then the damn myth started appearing in the seemingly endless newspapers and Internet sites that subscribe to Associated Press feeds. Here is a taste:

Before Boeing Co.'s new 787 jetliner gets the green light to fly passengers, the aircraft maker will have to prove that offering Internet access in the cabin won't leave the flight controls vulnerable to hackers and hijackers. Boeing claims it has engineered safeguards to shut out unauthorized users, but some security analysts worry navigation and communications systems could be vulnerable.

Now with all respect due AP, they did present all sides of this debate, including some quotes from Boeing, which seem to directly contradict the entire premise for the story in the first place:

Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter said 787's aviation electronics "are not connected in any way to the Internet." She said there is "not any place where the passenger interface to the Internet shares hardware" with the plane's aviation electronics, and that "there are multiple layers of hardware and software" that ensure "data cannot pass from the passenger entrainment network to the other more secure networks on the airplane."

See, here's the deal. Boeing makes very large objects full of people...FLY. That feat alone requires engineering that surpasses that of any IT guy out there who builds secure networks. Not to 'dis the IT world, they do amazing things daily that I cannot and should not ever attempt. But rigging up a Wimax network to hook laptops to The Google just can't compare to riveting together a bunch of aluminum, hanging two fire-spitting GE's under each wing, expecting the contraption to launch skyward with actual people strapped down inside.

I may eat my words later, but I must say without a doubt that there is no way that Boeing's in-cabin Internets access will be connected in any way to their flight control computer systems. No Way.

Flight control systems in today's fly-by-wire aircraft are so seriously redundant that even if some world-class hackmeister did break through a secure firewall and bring down the system, before an aileron would even wiggle, three more systems would take over and knock the compromised one offline. Just because some hacker without a life can figure out how to cheat World of Warquest doesn't make him/her an expert on the intricacies of a modern day computerized flying machine.

Hellooo, Washington,
Anyone Listening?

Week after week, the ATC staffing crisis in this country grows, and each day, I launch my browser expecting to see a giant headline screaming that the FAA has announced a major labor agreement with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) that provides generous pay increases and working condition improvements for the men and women who keep our aircraft from trading paint.

Of course, that headline hasn't been written...yet. Maybe FAA is too busy trying to conjure up some whacked user fee system to think about staffing issues, But according to a recent NATCA press release, the sky really IS falling:

The nation’s air traffic controllers, faced with a 10 percent loss of their workforce in the last year, a record pace of new losses this year and worsening stress and fatigue levels that have drawn the critical eye of two major government watchdogs, are declaring a staffing emergency in four key areas of the country with some of the busiest airspace in the world: Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Southern California. A staffing emergency means that controllers do not have enough trained and experienced personnel on the ground to safely handle the volume of traffic in the air and at major airports.

Now there can be no disputing the fact that in all the phraseology we pilots embrace, the word EMERGENCY is top of the heap. Nothing else should get FAA's attention quite like that word, when used to describe this:

NATCA is projecting that by Feb. 3 – just one-third of the way into the 2008 fiscal year – 500 controllers will have retired already, with 2,200 more controllers able to retire by year’s end. There have been 357 retirements so far since October 1, 2007, including 201 on Jan. 3 alone. Another 130 have told NATCA they intend to retire by Feb. 3 due to the lack of any incentive to stay on the job. The current trend, if it continues, will shatter the FAA’s projection of 695 retirements this fiscal year and perhaps even the record of 856 retirements set in fiscal year 2007.

NATCA's President, Patrick Forrey spells this out in clear English that anyone at FAA ought to be able to understand:

“An already dangerous situation is about to get worse. “An additional 2,200 experienced controllers will be able to retire by the end of this year, thinning the already-depleted ranks of the workforce at a time when the skies have never been more congested. The GAO has already stated that the risk of a catastrophic accident on our runways around the nation is high. Without an adequate amount of rested, well-trained controllers in towers and radar facilities, the risk of an aviation accident now includes the airspace as well as the ground.”

Those who think this is all just grumbling by disgruntled controllers might want to consider the leading reasons why controllers are declaring a staffing emergency in selected cities:

ATLANTA - At Atlanta Center, the nation’s busiest facility, there are 279 fully certified controllers on staff, down from over 400 five years ago. Approximately 70 are eligible to retire this year. Overtime is mandatory and total dollar amounts have doubled FAA projections this past year.

CHICAGO - There were a record 56 close calls at Chicago Terminal Radar Approach Control in Elgin, Ill., due to controller error in 2007. The previous high was 28 in 2006. And in a reply to a Congressional inquiry, the FAA stated it had only 76 fully trained and certified controllers on staff at Chicago TRACON, 21 below the FAA’s own staffing target of 97, and only 46 fully certified controllers at O'Hare Tower, 25 short of what is needed.

NEW YORK - The number of fully trained and certified controllers at JFK Tower has dropped 42 percent since 2001 while traffic has increased 40 percent. There are now just 22 fully certified controllers on staff. Of those, eight must retire this year and another four will reach retirement eligibility. Controller errors at the New York TRACON, rose 27 percent last year from fiscal year 2006, and at New York Center, controller errors hit a three-year high of 66, including 10 that occurred during on-the-job training.

SOCAL - At Los Angeles Center, one out of every three controllers is a trainee and many are getting less than an hour per week of on-the-job training as they move through a 3 to 4-year process to become fully certified as a controller. LAX has just 33 controllers in the tower today, compared to 46 in the years when fewer close calls occurred.

What will it take for BushCo's FAA to wake up and push this staffing crisis to the very top of their priority list, above user fees, NextGen, raising the pay of their managers or buying original art for their lobbys? And what happens when two airliners full of souls meet inbound to ORD and we have Tenerife right here in our crowded skies.

Three words...Heads. Will. Roll.

The
Value of
Simulated
Realism

I have written before that I'm an X-Plane flyer, and have never launched into the Wild Blue Yonder via Microsoft Flight Simulator. I say that because I am not sure if that other program has the following capability:

X-Plane's application package comes with something called Planemaker, which allows a sim pilot 100% access to the code behind the aircraft that comes with the program. This includes every aspect of every system, and offers major tweaking opportunities. You can move the gear two inches to the rear, make a two-blade aluminum prop into a three-blade composite model, convert a normally-aspirated Cessna into one that is fuel injected, or modify every square inch of the wing. Planemaker gives you complete control over your flying machine, and brings out the aerospace engineer in all of us.

So what happens when you turn an aviation fanatic like me loose on powerful software like that? Well, you get some pretty far out birds:

After learning the basics of Planemaker doing simple mods to a Cessna 172, I thought I would stretch my envelope, just a bit. So I took a Douglas DC-3 that I had downloaded from x-plane.org and yanked those troublesome radial engines of the wings. In their place, I put two turbine engines, each spinning five blade constant-speed props. Oh, did I mention I also bumped up the shaft horsepower on each P & W to 2,000? With four thousand ponies pushing the Gooney along, it got off the runway in about the length of a big Cadillac, and blasted through the sky at speeds that sent the airspeed indicator spinning wildly.

O.K., I had a little fun, no harm, no foul. But what happened next defies description, but I will try:

Not satisfied with the nutz factor of the turbo-Gooney, I downloaded a Cessna Agcat cropduster and immediate pulled its radial off the nose. Up on the top wing, I welded a gargantuan GE turbojet pumping out 8,000 pounds of takeoff thrust. This Frankenplane was just barely controllable, and would accelerate so fast, the graphics card in my rather fast dual processor Macintosh couldn't even keep up. Unless I flew the Jet Agcat at 25% power or less, X-Plane would freeze and crash.

But with all that computing power in Planemaker, there MUST be a good use for it, right? Oh yeah, baby:

This week, I found out that the background panels in X-plane are just rather simple .bmp files, easily editable in Photoshop. So I took the panel of the plane I've been using to practice during my IFR training and modified it to match the exact – and very much non-standard – configuration on my 1964 Cherokee 235. In Planemaker, I moved the avionics around to match my real panel. Now, when I practice on the sim, I am scanning a panel that is an identical replica of my actual plane. In the first few minutes with this new set-up, I quickly realized that my scan was vastly improved.

So when people tell you flight simulators are toys, mere games that are more fun than function, it will be instantly obvious that they've never flown X-plane. Because if they had, and spent any time under the hood, they'd know as I do that this wonderful (and extremely affordable) creation of Austin Meyer and his team can improve any licensed or student pilot's skills greatly.

Even when it's snowing outside and the freezing level is zero feet AGL.

Lost in
Translation

As a copy writer and ad agency owner, I absolutely love Jay Leno's "Headlines" bit he does on NBC's The Tonight Show. I especially love the often weird translations he uncovers when Chinese copywriters attempt to translate their language into ours. So it was simply hilarious that I found the following on chinadaily.com:

Hands Needed Urgently
to Propel the Wings

The funny-looking headline trumpets a story on a massive Chinese pilot shortage that their airlines are struggling with. See, that's what you get when their country manufactures all of our stuff...billions of middle-class Chinese workers and executives now have the money to fly commercial, even when many families of laid-off workers in our nation's Steel Belt do not.

So with so many Chinese flying, it appears that Airbus and Boeing have had their sales team over there with order books in hand. According to chinadaily.com, Airbus alone is expected to deliver 372 planes to Chinese airlines from December 2007 to 2012, while Boeing is expected to supply another 335 aircraft.

With so many new jets going across the Pacific to enter service, just who the heck will fly them? Good question:

The air transport industry has been growing at an annual rate of 16 percent, according to the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC). In 2006, the authorities estimated that the country would need 9,100 more pilots by 2010 to fly the new Boeing and Airbus planes being added to Chinese carriers' fleets at the rate of 100-150 a year. That precisely is where the problem is because pilots can't be trained to keep pace with the demand. The gap between the demand and supply of pilots is likely to be 2,000 by 2010. The problem is that no matter how many pilots are trained every year, each new plane that is delivered needs five pilots and five first officers to ensure a smooth operation, CAAC's Flight Standard Department has said.

O.K., so you think this is a problem...in China, so why worry about it? Because it's happening here too, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel:

The aviation industry is facing a crisis, in which demand for pilots could soon outstrip supply. More than 30,000 pilots will reach mandatory retirement age in the next 10 years, and aviation-industry officials predict the need for as many as 18,000 new pilots annually through 2024. There are 1,765 student pilots in Central Florida, according to FAA records – the lion's share of them are enrolled at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. Embry-Riddle has graduated an average of 280 pilots from its aeronautical-science program annually since 1998. Delta Connection produces about 150 pilots a year.

If "aviation industry officials" say we will need 18,000 new pilots each year to enter their systems, what do you suppose is keeping huge waves of hot, young pilots out of the left seats of the regionals? Hmmm, could it be that they are grossly underpaid, earning not much more then the greeter down at Wal•Mart?

For years, starting pay for FOs has been an insult to their training and intelligence, a slap in the face to someone who has the same basic line training as the guy/gal in the left seat, but has not yet amassed the hours. We all know the airlines do this simply because they can, knowing that these new hires MUST build time if they ever want a chance at earning a living wage as a Captain. But that way of thinking appears to have now bitten them in the ass.

The airlines will continue to have a pilot shortage until their CEOs with their seven-figure salaries wake up and realize that if you want kids to think about a career as an airline pilot, you had better make those first few years pay significantly better then what the burger flippers earn at McDonalds. When twentysomethings considering flight school realize they can drag down forty grand in their first year as an FO, we might actually see enrollment numbers swell and the pilot shortage shrink.

Yeah, like that's ever going to happen in Corporate America.

Boeing's 787
Program Passes
a Big Milestone

From the very first day we all laid eyes on Boeing's sexy and sleek 787 Dreamliner, we knew it would be a white hot success. The dramatic lines of that "to die for" cockpit up front, with the cabin of tomorrow carrying lucky passengers in a well-planned environment the likes of which have never taken to the skies.

Soon after Boeing's forward-thinking board of directors granted authority to offer the 787 for sale in late 2003, Boeing began cashing deposit checks and scribing buyer's names in their order book. The first major player that came on board was All-Nippon Airways, doing so in 2004. From that point, when the Dreamliner was only still a far-off dream, orders steadily came in as more information and photos began circulating about the drop-dead gorgeous jetliner.

Since those early years when buyers began claiming those coveted early 787 delivery positions, more and more orders have been placed for Dreamliner. So it is not with any sort of surprise the program has surpassed a big, big mark:

Boeing and London-based British Airways have finalized an order for eight Boeing 787-8s and 16 787-9s, raising the total number of 787s ordered worldwide from 766 to 790 and taking the 787 order book past the 787th mark.

Can you believe that...passing the 787th order mark, without even a test flight? That speaks volumes for the faith the world commercial aviation community has placed on Boeing and the Dreamliner design team.

So what made the Brits drop major dough on more 787s? Good question, and a press release from Boeing has the answers:

The 787 will help British Airways meet aggressive environmental performance targets. It will reduce CO2 emissions and has a noise footprint that is more than 60 percent smaller than those of today's similarly sized airplanes. Common elements between the 787 and British Airways' 777 flight deck will allow for 777 pilots to train for 787 certification in only five days. The 787 also offers more cargo-revenue capacity than the 767 and similarly sized airplanes.

With 790 orders in only three years, the Dreamliner remains the most successful airplane launch in aviation history, according to Boeing. And while you thought you know everything about the 787, I'll bet most people don't know this:

Because of advanced manufacturing techniques, 60 miles of copper wiring have been eliminated from the 787. Much of that reduction came during the 800,000+ hours computing time on Cray supercomputers that the design team used worldwide. On the first barrel section alone, the use of composites – which makes up 50% of overall materials on the 787 – allowed for parts count reductions of 1,500 aluminum sheets and as many as 50,000 fasteners.

O.K., now for the few of you out there who want to remind me that the 787 program is behind schedule, I offer the official release from Boeing on that issue, from October 2007:

The Boeing Company today announced a six-month delay in its planned initial deliveries of the 787 Dreamliner due to continued challenges completing assembly of the first airplanes. Deliveries of the strong-selling Dreamliner are now slated to begin in late November or December 2008, versus an original target of May 2008. First flight is now anticipated around the end of first quarter 2008.

Whether they make that date is not what this post is about. With 790 orders in their 787 book, you can be assured Boeing has pulled out any stops and are pushing hard to get that first Dreamliner flying.

And Oh Baby, when that day comes, will be huge. The minute Dreamliner #1 breaks ground, a new era in commercial air travel will begin. Go ahead, ask me if I care that it is a few months late.