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I was wondering what were the most important developments of the Decade. So perhaps for starters I will ask all those out in the blogosphere. What has been the essence of it all for the world, the West, the East and the developing world? In Oz it has been as usual a hectic end of the year but not too much pivotal stuff in the last month of Aviation. In the decade, lots of stuff but still sorting it out. Efficiency, Security (much madness still about) the end of piloted planes etc. Much to think about. More to come. Tell me your thoughts.

There is a saying that if one slowly heats a pot of water with a live frog in it the frog will go to sleep and not get out and so get cooked whereas if he is dropped into a hot pot he will leap out. So it is in many situations in life. We have it in aviation where slowly evolving situations get way past a point where some action should be taken because each development is incremental and not so different from the last situation. So it is with Airbus pitots and standby instruments and now with Flight 188 overflying its destination I think we have the same thing. It does not really matter if they went to sleep or lost track of time there was considerable potential for trouble. Much has been made of the poor match of the human physiology and performance and yet steadily the man is being taken out of the loop in flying so that such things can happen. An extraordinary number of RPT flights pass uneventfully but where a trend emerges it should be addressed. Ground control is now possible and studies should be made, discussed and decisions taken. Pilots do not have to leave the cockpit. It is just another logical progression. The Helios tragedy where apparently a cabin crew member was walking about with a portable O2 system but unable to enter the cockpit is another situation where ground control could have saved hundreds. The reasons why this has not happened are many and various and to do with how aviation has evolved a rigid and inflexible regulatory process. Vested interests are many but it is mainly a sort of general inertia and no one has had the courage really to say come on guys wake up or more to the point, hear those who have been saying such. As usual there will be wails of technical difficulty and cost but it seems clear that it is going to be a small cost in the long-term and long over due for considerations. Maybe the risk of different sort of hostile take over is behind the resistance but we seem to find ways to trust our fellow men in many other situations. Why not? Read more…

Today the Bow Bells will chime 350 times to mark an International Day of Concern about Global warming. Might take quite some time. And hopefully give many pause to think. Many are left more than a little bemused by the various claims made about the climate and who is doing what to whom. The press in an allegedly high minded attempt to achieve balance seems to print back to back articles by doom sayers and climate skeptic which serves to confuse rather than inform. Some actually seem more bent on inflaming the debate than informing or analyzing. An example is the local Australian Provocateur Andrew Bolte in the Sun Herald.
For what it is worth I have been running thru the literature with a view to reaching some sort of understanding. My qualifications are: an interest and a rather stale PhD from a good university in an unrelated field of Science so make of this what you will.
Once one start trolling thru the literature it emerges that there is a consensus that is truly impressive. The globe is warming and man has contributed to this. The closer the area of expertise of the sources is to climate the more there is the agreement. When the arguments of the skeptics are examined they seem to all be readily shot down. The longer it goes on the more the persistent skeptics seem to be willfully blind and self serving (IMHO). Read more…

It is perhaps time to consider this topic. One of the problems with having weapons is that the time comes when there is an opportunity to use them and there is also a time when they should be used. The two may not be the same occasion. We have seen repeated episodes of tragedy arising out of this quandary. the British police in their shocking and tragic pursuit of an illegal immigrant whom they had erroneously concluded to be a terrorist was the victim in part of a genuine concern about a threat but in part a recently introduced doctrine. This was the doctrine of “rapid neutralization” or “CNS shut down” to use two of the euphemisms for filling someone’s head with as many bullets as one can so as to ensure their dying twitch does not allow them to set of a bomb. It is disturbingly likely that this horrible technique was so fascinating that whether they knew it or not the Police were waiting for a chance to demonstrate that they could do it.
There are regrettably lunatics who somehow think it is right to kill people they don’t know, who have never and never would, do harm to them and theirs in the name of one cause or another and authorities have a duty to protect the populace against them. It is an aweful responsibility that has to be faced.

The aviation community has its own version of this dilemma but so far has avoided the tragedy that is waiting, of a well meant and indeed commanded shoot down of an innocuous aircraft deemed to be a terrorist threat.
As time goes by without much public debate it seems possible that the time will come. It is now known that Cheney the VP approved the Military to shoot down civilian aircraft under certain circumstance in the wake of 911. There has been a sort of denial arising probably out of the unreality of the situation but the latest incident in the US where a Mooney pilot became unresponsive and eventually crashed raises this important question again. let us have a bit of a think about this
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There has been a deafening silence in the general press about the AF 447 tragedy of recent times. What with drones running round in various places bombing baddies with the occasional bit of collateral damage generally agreed to be regrettable by the responsible (what a way to use the word) parties and regular suicide bombings not to mention ferries turning over and NSW Cabinet Ministers being laid low by spurned lovers it does not take long for even such a monumental tragedy to fade into the background but those of us who fly are worried and will not rest until some sense can be made of it.
At present the official position is that we do not know the cause but suspect a perfect storm of events starting with a sensor failure led to a loss of control. The more time passes the more this seems pretty thin. If this could be the case then thousands are daily in danger. I expect that behind the scenes this is being taken very seriously and I also suspect that given the propensity for litigation currently prevailing loose lips sink financial ships is guiding the dissemination of information i.e. what you don’t know wont hurt you (or more accurately in some cases wont hurt the company).
It seems we have reached the point predicted frequently by experts where systems too complicated to be completely analyzed have been created and are in daily world wide service.
In the design philosophy of the Airbus et al a very serious effort has been made to build in protection by redundancy but as reports come in more and more evidence of startling failures emerges of the type which warrant drastic action.
I have collected reports of a total of 52 incidents in which malfunctions of automated flight systems with computers at their core have created situations where there was a serious risk of the loss of an aircraft and all aboard. As my research has not been exhaustive likely ther are many more. Two of these situations did lead to the loss of aircraft. In one case, the crash of a B2, the crew were able to eject but the bomber worth about $250 mil was lost while in the other case – AF 447, the aircraft and all on board were lost.
Why are we continuing to fly them? In the case of the Air force and B2s the failure was diagnosed and corrected but in the case of the AF447 it is clear that in actual fact the risks are regarded as acceptable in the face of the cost of the only rational action which is to stop using these aircraft till we understand what is going on. Or am I just just being alarmist?
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Did he jump or was he pushed? Personally I have been looking for the rolling heads in the Dreamliner program for some time as I have formed the opinion, surely widespread that there is more management than technical problems at Boeing and a scapegoat would be found somewhere. All the usual flatterning things are being said about Scott E Carson who has been in charge of the Boeing commercial plane programs since 2006. It does look as if enough is enough for him either in terms of butting his head against a brick wall or simply pushing a pile of unpleasant material up hill with a pointy stick but what ever is the real reason Carson is leaving early. Read more…

WW 1 and to a lesser extent WW2 caught the US and Europe unprepared for conflict and with an industrial base of modest proportions. Despite many warning signs political decisions were it seems based on what government officials hope to be the case rather than what experts were warning to be the case. As the sage said those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. There are some commentators who see a similar situation developing again. World War I caught the U.S. military unprepared, and although Congress was quick to order a massive buildup of guns, tanks and planes, with “virtually no defense industrial base … the war was over before U.S. industry could deliver any of them.” Today’s Pentagon budget cuts risk a return to the same situation. Read more…

The recent tragic loss of a DHC 6 twin otter in PNG with the loss of at least 13 lives has brought out into the open all the usual suspects. The pilot a young PNG National has callously and unreasonably been dubbed inexperienced and the aircraft affectionately know to many as The Twatter described as poorly maintained. With these and other stories such as that the co pilot had been “forced” to fly on his day off all coming from no where it seems likely that after the ususal shock horror tsk tsk reaction an enquiry will be called and what is already is known will be pointed out (flying in PNG is very difficult, aviation infra structure has been allowed to decay to a point which would be unacceptable in many other places in the world etc) and then a few people will be blamed preferably I suspect people outside PNG such as Australia or the EU and nothing will change.
I surely hope not. It is technically possible to avoid such incidents and relatively cheap and simple so to do. Augmented GPS approaches and rotary wing transport would transform such operations as the Kokoda one with a much lower level of risk. The Augmented GPS component of this solution is available now and should be put in place with dispatch. I suppose there will be a fight over who will pay for it. Couldn’t the interested parties do it now and decide on final distribution of costs later? It would cost much less than a Stealth bomber or an AWAC.

Another mid air collision occurred this Sunday in America but this time there was no miracle over the Hudson river. The helicopter and private PA 32R plane involved crashed with the death of nine people.
See and be seen has been for many years the accepted AND ONLY form of collision avoidance in the majority of aviation traffic situations and the obvious risks involved has always been accepted for the lack of alternatives.
An accident such as this latest one surely tells us this is no longer acceptable. The time has come for urgent and thoughtful action.
A technological solution must be found and there are several potential routes to a solution.
European and Australian gliding use the FLARM technology (Flight alarm) which uses GPS technology to provide aircraft to aircraft proximity warning. Examples of this device cost of the order of $1000 and provide distance and azimuth information with an audio signal and a visual display.
The purpose of this is to enhance the normal see and be seen by providing a timely alert so avoidance after visual acquisition of the target can take place.
It may be that this is not regarded as suitable for the higher velocities of general aviation aircraft.
There may be other ways of achieving the same goal but why not use this one for the time being?

As has been widely reported the Boeing Dreamliner program is in further trouble with the current structural problems turning out to be more difficult of solution than had at first been thought (Or admitted?). It beggars belief that a team of such demonstrated competence could not see this coming so it has to be assumed that some in the company knew full well that they were going to miss the mark and that others dared not let them publicly admit it. When this has happened repeatedly surely the industry as a whole must be starting to doubt the entire public face of the company.
Will head roll? will changes be made or is it case of tough it out and hope as all involved have too much to lose to change directions?
Maybe it is a case of Management to destruction.