Aviation Systems: A Look Into the Future

NASA asked the world's top aircraft engineers to solve the hardest problem in commercial aviation: how to fly cleaner, quieter and using less fuel. The prototypes they imagined may set a new standard for the next two decades of flight.

BOX WING JET, LOCKHEED MARTIN

Target Date: 2025

Passenger jets consume a lot of fuel. A Boeing 747 burns five gallons of it every nautical mile, and as the price of that fuel rises, so do fares. Lockheed Martin engineers developed their Box Wing concept to find new ways to reduce fuel burn without abandoning the basic shape of current aircraft. Adapting the lightweight materials found in the F-22 and F-35 fighter jets, they designed a looped-wing configuration that would increase the lift-to-drag ratio by 16 percent, making it possible to fly farther using less fuel while still fitting into airport gates. These future jets are incredibly sophisticated - much like the pitot static testers and air data test sets that Laversab produces.

They also ditched conventional turbofan engines in favor of two ultrahigh-bypass turbofan engines. Like all turbofans, they generate thrust by pulling air through a fan on the front of the engine and by burning a fuel-air mixture in the engine's core. With fans 40 percent wider than those used now, the Box Wing's engines bypass the core at several times the rate of current engines. At subsonic speeds, this arrangement improves efficiency by 22 percent. Add to that the fuel-saving boost of the box-wing configuration, and the plane is 50 percent more efficient than the average airliner. The additional wing lift also lets pilots make steeper descents over populated areas while running the engines at lower power. Those changes could reduce noise by 35 decibels and shorten approaches by up to 50 percent.

SUPERSONIC GREEN MACHINE, LOCKHEED MARTIN

Target Date: 2030

The first era of commercial supersonic transportation ended on November 26, 2003, with the final flight of the Concorde, a noisy, inefficient and highly polluting aircraft. But the dream of a sub-three-hour cross-country flight lingered, and in 2010, designers at Lockheed Martin presented the Mach 1.6 Supersonic Green Machine. The plane's variable-cycle engines would improve efficiency by switching to conventional turbofan mode during takeoff and landing. Combustors built into the engine would reduce nitrogen oxide pollution by 75 percent. And the plane's inverted-V tail and underwing engine placement would nearly eliminate the sonic booms that led to a ban on overland Concorde flights.

The configuration mitigates the waves of air pressure (caused by the collision with air of a plane traveling faster than Mach 1) that combine into the enormous shock waves that produce sonic booms. "The whole idea of low-boom design is to control the strength, position and interaction of shock waves," says Peter Coen, the principal investigator for supersonic projects at NASA. Instead of generating a continuous loop of loud booms, the plane would issue a dull roar that, from the ground, would be about as loud as a vacuum cleaner.

The future is looking bright.

Aviation Safety Management System

Many industry and regulatory "experts" suggest that implementing a Safety Management System (SMS) is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

A rational, empirical mind will disagree - and Laversab Aviation Systems is of the same sentiment.

Ask yourself this question: Are your safety management activities complex and expensive? If the answer is "yes," you’re doing something wrong.

Managing safety is ultimately about managing risk – a simple concept that is often lost in academic models and 300-page safety manuals. Managing safety is not about making things complicated and "user unfriendly." An effective SMS that actually adds value while elevating the level of safety within an organization, is easily understood and "user-friendly."

I’ve had the opportunity to review the SMSs of several types of operators – large, small, international, domestic, private non-revenue (part 91), non-scheduled commercial (part 135), scheduled commercial (part 121) – and the most effective SMSs are not complex; instead, they are streamlined and easy to understand. An example of reducing unnecessary complexity is an operator who utilizes a single report form, rather than three different forms, for 1) the reporting of hazards/threats, for 2) any recommended changes employees want to suggest, and for 3) any unintentional errors employees have committed. This is sort of a "one-stop shopping" concept. The operators with an ineffective SMS seem to focus more on managing the complexities of their SMS rather than managing safety itself. An example of complexities is the method an employee uses to access safety information. The safety information should be readily available and easily accessed for the front-line employees. Employees should not be forced to perform several steps just to get the safety information in front of them to read. Also, the safety information itself should be as brief and to-the-point as possible. The above is as important to safety as the pitot static tester or the air data test set is to Laversab.

It is a myth that SMSs are better suited for large organizations. Smaller organizations actually have an advantage when it comes to incorporating an SMS because the smaller the operation, the easier it is to communicate and implement the steps needed to run an effective SMS. Regardless of the size of the operation, all successful SMSs will include four basic elements:

• Top-level management is committed to safety.
• Systems are in place to ensure hazards are reported in a timely manner.
• Action is taken to manage risks.
• The effects of safety actions are evaluated.

Experience has shown that effective SMSs make good economic sense. An effective SMS not only allows an organization to become more proactive in identifying and avoiding major threats/hazards but also reduces the number of minor incidents an operator will experience over time. An effective SMS will lead to improved communication, higher workplace morale, and increased productivity.

If your SMS is just sitting there and not really doing anything to make your operation safer and more efficient, then you need to take a hard look at how your organization is really managing safety. Chances are, your safety management activities are too complex and more reactive than proactive.

Effective safety management depends on the involvement of everyone within an organization. In order to get everyone within an organization involved in the activities of an SMS, the SMS must be easily understood and transparent.

An effective SMS has credibility which leads to everyone’s involvement. Employee participation is inversely proportional to the complexity of an SMS. As complexity increases, participation decreases.

Without participation, an SMS can never be effective.

Aviation Systems: Core Concepts (Part 2)

In late July, an excursion into the aggregation of the core aviation systems concepts had begun. The intention: to get a better understanding of the discipline. And to get a firm grasp of what pitotic static systems are and what they are for, a basic, rudimentary knowledge of the relevant concepts is necessary. Terms such as air data test systems and RVSM test equipment cannot be understood from the get-go.

Civil aviation

Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying that represents non-military aviation, both private and commercial. The majority of countries around the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), working together to establish a consistent and universal set of standards and recommended practices for civil aviation through that agency. The two major categories encompassing cival aviation are:

• Scheduled air transport. This includes every passenger and every cargo flight operating on regularly scheduled paths and routes.
• General aviation (or GA for short). This includes all other civil flights, either commercial or private.

Even though scheduled air transport is the bigger operation in terms of the number of passengers, General Aviation is greater in terms of the actual number of flights in the United States of America. In the United States of America, General Aviation carries over 166 million passengers every single year - more than any individual airline, though far less than every single airline combined.
A good number of countries also make a regulatory distinction. This is based on whether or not the aircraft are flown for hire like:

• Commercial aviation includes almost all flying that is done for hire, particularly scheduled service on airlines.
• Private aviation includes pilots that fly for their own purposes (recreation, business related reasons, etc.) without receiving pay.

International Civil Aviation Organization

The International Civil Aviation Organization is a United Nations agency that serves to codify and develop the principles and strictures that best ensure safe and orderly growth in the domain of air navigation. These recommended principles and areas of focus include but are not limited to: flight inspection, prevention of unlawful interference, and facilitation of border-crossing procedures for international civil aviation. The International Civil Aviation Organization was founded in 1947. Its headquarters are located in Quebec, Canada.

Aircraft

An aircraft is a machine that has the capacity to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity either by using static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil. In a few cases, though, an aircraft counters the force of gravity with the help of the downard thrust from jet engines.

Lift (force)

A fluid flowing past the surface of a body exerts a force on it. Lift is the component of this force which is perpindicular to the flow coming from the opposite direction. In contrast, draft force is the component of the surface force that is actually parallel to the flow direction. if the fluid is air, the force is known as an aerodynamic force. In water, hydrodynamic force.
Lift is the force that's generated by propellers and wings to get an aircraft in the air and keep it there. Animals such as birds, bats and instects have exploited lift for millions and millions of years. The manmade flying machines are an extraction and application of many of the same laws and principles used by said animals.