In October—the month when NBAA-BACE would have been held if not for the pandemic—AIN is producing in-depth coverage of business aviation that celebrates the industry’s resilience, value, and innovation. Along with these weekly dedicated newsletters sent to you every Thursday this month, we will be holding a series of business aviation-themed webinars and publishing content on a dedicated landing page, culminating in a special-edition print issue of NBAA Convention News.
Bizav Community Digs Deep in Covid Humanitarian Response
In the maelstrom of the Covid pandemic’s impact on business aviation, it has been hard to find space to reflect the personal toll it has taken on those working in the industry, but also their extraordinary response to this unprecedented public health and humanitarian crisis. What’s clear is that across the industry, companies, and individuals have tapped two important reserves that have sustained them in previous times of hardship: self-belief and a desire to demonstrate aviation’s special ability to support those in dire need even when, or perhaps especially when, times are exceptionally tough.
What makes much of this all the more remarkable is that these above-and-beyond efforts were being made at a time when the industry faced an existential crisis with business and personal travel all but completely suspended for weeks on end. In the early stages of the Covid crisis, the scramble for medical supplies and equipment was paramount and several business aircraft operators and support providers rose to the challenge.
Aircraft were dispatched wherever they were needed to move key personnel and supplies to where they were needed, and multiple manufacturers rapidly shifted gears to produce equipment that was far removed from their usual output. As scheduled airline service started to evaporate, business aircraft were increasingly called into service to repatriate those displaced by travel restrictions and also retrieve Covid patients.
Keeping the Pilot in the Loop on Flight to Autonomy
Recently issued FAA Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin AIR-20-15 perfectly captures the conundrum that faces pilots flying modern aircraft: automation can easily dupe a pilot into letting the airplane decide which way to go instead of the pilot ensuring that the airplane is doing what the pilot believed was specified. The SAIB summarizes a problem with the avionics in the Boeing 787 where the autopilot flight director system (AFDS) fails to capture the localizer when the airplane intercepts the beam at angles greater than 40 degrees.
The SAIB points out that the flight mode annunciator showed exactly what the pilot expected—LOC—but the AFDS elected not to capture the localizer but continued beyond the beam at a 20- to 30-degree angle while also capturing and initiating a descent on the glideslope. Obviously, this is a safety risk, with the airplane descending on a heading different than the localizer.
Automation is helpful when it works properly and does exactly what the pilot expects, but subtle breakdowns like the one mentioned in the SAIB can be hard to detect. And the more automation is added to aircraft, the more pilots need to be vigilant to spot such problems.
Thus, AIN posed questions to the big three avionics OEMs—Garmin, Honeywell, and Collins Aerospace—about their automation design and philosophy to get more insight into this rapidly expanding technology.
I could write a book about the NBAA Convention, which I had attended from 1980 to 2015. One of my show experiences that stood out involved Hurricane Katrina.
On a Sunday, the late great Jan Barden woke me at 5 a.m. to advise that she was being evacuated from her home near New Orleans—Hurricane Katrina was coming with great force. The NBAA Convention was scheduled to be in that city in eight weeks. That afternoon I received two more calls, from Kim Showalter and Pat Epps, offering help. NBC's Brian Williams appeared in waders on Canal Street with water up to his hips, and I will never forget the look on NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen’s face as he appeared in my doorway on Monday.
After calling the few cities able to host the convention, we were on a plane to Orlando. Although our normal East/West building was occupied throughout the fall, the newly built North/South was available. Linda Peters and Roxanne Ebbers reworked the 1,000,000-sq-ft show floor, Deb Hanson moved 30,000 hotel bookings, and Joe Hart worked with the Showalters to layout the 150 display aircraft at Orlando Executive Airport. By Friday, we were able to tell the NBAA board that the convention had been successfully relocated from New Orleans to Orlando within eight weeks of the event—a monumental task. It was the Friday before Labor Day, and they told us to take Monday off.
—Kathleen Blouin, NBAA senior v-p of conventions and forums (retired)
In the absence of this year’s NBAA-BACE, AIN has reached out to industry leaders to share their favorite memories and thoughts about past shows. The responses are highlighting how the annual event resonates throughout the industry. These memories are being accumulated here.
Sustainability remains one of the foremost topics in aviation, and indeed most believe that in order for the industry to grow, it is crucial for it to embrace more environmentally-friendly concepts.
In 2009, the business aviation community, through its representative organizations, announced three goals to mitigate its effect on climate change: achieve carbon-neutral growth by 2020; improve fuel efficiency by 2 percent per year from 2010 to 2020, and reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2050 relative to 2005. The adoption and use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a key pillar to achieving that goal. “Without sustainable aviation fuels we will not meet our goal,” said David Coleal, former Bombardier Aviation president and chairman of GAMA's environmental committee.
In September an industry coalition held its first online summit on how best and quickly to ramp up use of SAF. Speaking during the event, Joel Szabat, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs, noted that, “In the first half of 2020, the aviation sector uplifted more than three million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel, a 100 percent increase over the entirety of 2019. This is all the more impressive when you consider that this increase in fuel usage is happening against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic."
Forget yesterday’s focus on monitors, cabin management systems (CMS), and cabin accessories like digital device holders and wireless chargers. The buzz in business aircraft cabin electronics this year is the hum of current powering the expanding fleet of Wi-Fi-equipped aircraft, and the excitement behind the software, hardware, and services driving an ever better onboard online experience.
“In-flight connectivity is one of the most in-demand features on today’s business aircraft,” said Dori Henderson, executive director for business aviation and digital solutions at Collins Aerospace.
Now that hunger for connectivity has spread beyond the large and even midsize cabin market. “Wi-Fi has become one of the most important features requested by our customers,” said Tom Aniello, marketing v-p at Pilatus Aircraft, which has added a Wi-Fi option for its PC-12 turboprop single and PC-24 light twinjet.
Meanwhile, next-generation satellite and terrestrial networks now coming online hint that connectivity will dominate business aviation’s cabin electronics realm for some time.
Collectively, what I look forward to the most at the NBAA convention is seeing all my friends and colleagues in the evening off the convention floor. Like so many others in our industry, one received more reception invites than could possibly be attended, so it is a fun challenge how many receptions we can hit in one evening at NBAA. I think my wife Patty and I have a personal record of seven receptions in one evening.
We always loved to end our Tuesday evenings closing down the Nordam reception, which was always absolutely top-notch. A few years back they had rented Elvis’s suite on top of the old Las Vegas Hilton. We were the last guests there with many of the Siegfried family just telling stories around a big table sipping very good wine when all the sudden they said they had rented the Elvis suite for a 24-hour period and none were staying the night in the suite, so they offered it to Patty and me. Excruciatingly, we had to pass up the unique opportunity because we had an early flight out the next morning. All I could think about was missing out on that gold plated huge jacuzzi bathtub looking out at the lights of Vegas.
—Pete Bunce, president and CEO of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association
In the absence of this year’s NBAA-BACE, AIN has reached out to industry leaders to share their favorite memories and thoughts about past shows. The responses are highlighting how the annual event resonates throughout the industry. These memories are being accumulated here.
NBAA, AOPA Survey Pilots on Pilot Database Proposal
NBAA and AOPA are surveying pilots and corporate flight departments on the time and resources that would be necessary to comply with proposed new proposed electronic pilot records database (PRD) mandates.
The FAA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on March 30 calling for new electronic pilot recordkeeping and reporting requirements. The proposal would extend the record-keeping requirements to corporate operators for the first time and define a corporate operator for the first time. It further would call for the submission of details such as comments from check pilots during pilot training in the PRD. These records would be used for the hiring of commercial pilots.
While the comment period for the NPRM closed on June 29, Doug Carr, v-p of regulatory and international affairs for NBAA, said there will be other opportunities to present the cost data they are gathering to key agencies as the proposal continues through the rulemaking process. In particular, Carr noted that when the FAA drafts its final rule, it will have to go through DOT and Office of Management and Budget reviews.
Because OMB looks at the rule from an economic basis, “We think there's potentially going to be some cost-benefit data that will be helpful for that discussion. That will be one of the agencies that would be of interest for such cost data,” he said.
Airbus claims that its new ACJ TwoTwenty business jet stands alone in a new market segment, but how does what it offers compare with rivals such as the Gulfstream G700, Bombardier Global 7500, Embraer Lineage 1000E, and Boeing Business Jet? We take a look at at this latest private jet derivative of an airliner, launched at the height of the Covid crisis.
AINalerts News Tips/Feedback: News tips may be sent anonymously, but feedback must include name and contact info (we will withhold name on request). We reserve the right to edit correspondence for length, clarity and grammar. Send feedback or news tips to AINalerts editor Chad Trautvetter.
AIN Alerts is a publication of The Convention News Company, Inc., 214 Franklin Avenue, Midland Park, New Jersey. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is strictly prohibited.
