Open Skies

This Sunday -- March 30, 2008 -- the Open Skies agreement between the United States and the European Union will take effect. The liberalization process has been in the works for over 15 years and currently involves more than 120 bilateral agreements. And this one between the U.S. and the E.U. has probably the greatest potential for economic impact. With this agreement, U.S. and E.U. airlines will be able to choose their own routes and set their own fares as they choose. Before Open Skies, scheduled air carriers were subject to any and all restrictions placed on them by the countries to which they flew. Governments of any country allowing international flights were required only to adhere to regulations set forth in the original Chicago Convention, which in 1944 led to the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The current edition (7MB pdf) of this convention, which Open Skies will augment, provided basic guidelines such as:

• "The contracting States recognize that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory."
  
  
• "No state aircraft of a contracting State shall fly over the territory of another State or land thereon without authorization by special agreement or otherwise, and in accordance with terms thereof."
  
  
• "No scheduled international air service may be operated over or into the territory of a contracting State, except with the special permission or other authorization of that State, and in accordance with the terms of such permission or authorization."
  

It is the purview of Open Skies to allow airlines to fully compete in a free market. Whether or not this will benefit air travelers remains to be seen.

Image: KLM Cargo

Next-Gen Aviation - Coming sooner than later?

Photo courtesy of ITT

The poor conditions of our air traffic control towers is nothing new. People have been talking about the next generation of aviation for quite some time, but Aviation Week reports that Next-Gen systems might be closer than before:

Better late than never -- even if never was never really an option -- regulators are moving to define and accelerate the shift toward surveillance and navigation based on satellite systems. The United States is further along on the surveillance part, known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) Out, with FAA's proposed rule (O&M, Nov. 2007, p. 19), while Europe's SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) group is further advanced on datalink communications. Both Europe and the U.S. clearly are moving toward the same goal, although the pace and emphasis during the transition to next-generation traffic management still must be worked out.

The article goes on to describe a number of factors pressuring the industry to switch over. As oil prices continue to rise and more people are starting to worry about carbon emissions and global warming, any Next-Gen system should increase system efficiency and reduce fuel costs and flight times.

Menus Online!

Northwestern University's Library has announced today the launch of a Web site of 381 airline menus from the 1950s to the present, at http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/tranmenus, reproduced in their entirety in high resolution. The "Clug Calypso" menu pictured at right is from a 1968 Air Canada flight to the Bahamas.

According to Northwestern's Wendy Leopold,

In 1966, a passenger flying BOAC economy class from London to Tel Aviv enjoyed a lunch of foie gras, fresh Scotch salmon, salad, cheese, fruit and coffee, followed by afternoon tea. And one had only to ask for a complimentary Martini -- sweet or dry -- and free in-flight cigarettes in plain or filter tip.

TWA travelers flying first class from London to Chicago that year chose their cocktails, whiskies, highballs or champagne from a menu in the form of a scroll that doubled as a souvenir. Their dinner of curried squab chicken or Maine lobster Newburg began with fresh Malossol caviar, and was capped off with assorted French cheeses, pastries or ice creams. Diners with less rarified tastes could substitute a hot dog and malted milk.

Green Aviation Fuel on the Horizon

News@Princeton is reporting today that a Princeton University research team is working on developing an environmentally friendly jet fuel. The team, led by Professor Fred Dryer will creade a jet fuel combustion simulator with funding from the U.S. Air Force, and a grant from NetJets will study development of near-zero net greenhouse gas emission jet fuels.

DREAMLIKE DREAMLINER DISASTER CONTINUES!!!

Both NPR and the prestigious New York Times are reporting today on the new six month delay for Boeing's new 787 'Dreamliner' aircraft. Boeing's original announcement is here. This new delay supplements a host of other concerns, as outlined in the Times article:

Earlier this year, Boeing warned that a worldwide shortage of fasteners that hold the plane’s fuselage, wing and tail sections together was slowing down assembly of the first test aircraft. Last month, the company said that in addition to the fastener shortage, Boeing and its production partners had run into unanticipated snags involving the availability of certain specialized parts for the plane as well as the programming of its flight-control software. Mike Bair, general manager of the 787 program, conceded at the time that these problems had added “increased risk” that there would be delivery delays.

Could Dan Rather's spurious reporting record on George Bush's sterling past finally be vindicated through his predicted failure of the Dreamliner's fuselage?

Founder of Ryanair passes on

The career of Irish airline tycoon Tony Ryan, founder of the low-cost passenger airline Ryanair is recounted in an obituary in London's Independent newspaper. Probably Ireland's most successful entrepreneur, Ryan revolutionized the European airline industry and made his country an important player in commercial aviation.

A New Way To Push Tin

The Daily Cal reports that ITS Berkeley a grant from NASA to improve the nation's air traffic control system. From the article:

The campus Institute of Transportation Studies will receive $502,000 for each of two years to evaluate possible methods of relieving the nation’s overburdened aviation system.

Mark Hansen, professor of civil and environmental engineering, will be the principal investigator for the project, along with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Maryland, College Park.

Hansen said that currently air traffic controllers are often unable to predict exact arrival times of aircraft, leading to delays and causing aircraft to circle above airports because of traffic backup on the ground.

“We are studying a new case in which each airplane arrives at the airport at a specific time,” Hansen said.

There have been many criticisms of the current air traffic control system: It's out dated because they still use strips of paper (ACM, registration required). It's overburdened. Some also say the current system can be unsafe.

In response, the FAA has announced the launch of a GPS based air traffic control system. A GPS based system is certainly safer than a Buddhist based system.

Flying cars and airborne saucers

A page from the BBC highlights the research of aviation engineer Dr. Paul Moller and his prototype of a flying car, which he sees as an answer to traffic congestion. The small VTOL craft ascends to just ten feet off the ground. Moller, based in Davis, California has been building and researching unusual aircraft for many years. In 1967 he developed a saucer-shaped hovercraft, as shown in a page from the Transportation Futuristics online exhibit.

(Picture courtesy of the BBC)

Paul McCready, aviation pioneer

National Public Radio has a web page with interviews, photos and audio celebrating the life of Paul McCready, Jr., the pioneer of human-powered flight who has died at the age of 81.

This photograph shows the Gossamer Albatross, powered and piloted by Bryan Allen, as it crosses the English Channel in 1979. Mr. Allen is interviewed on the NPR site.
(Photo courtesy of Don Monroe)

Feds to Stop Baller Blocking ATC

NPR reports that the United States federal government has approved a US$1 billion spending package to "begin modernizing the nation's air traffic control system." If you have Ebsco you can view a more detailed explanation of what those in the know call ADS-B (short for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast). Wikipedia has a pretty extensive article on the matter as well.

I myself will remain skeptical of the claims that by modernization and consequent increases in capacity there will also be an improvement in on-time performance.

First A380 Tickets Up for Auction

Seats on the first flight of an Airbus A380 will be auctioned off starting today on Ebay. The flight will be from Singapore to Sydney on October 25 and tickets are expected to fetch upwards of $2,550.00. Every seat on the Singapore Airlines A380s will be equipped with a PC running Redhat Linux -- and those PCs in first class will come with a 23" monitor.

Aviation innovation

An aviation idea that may require further R & D.

Buy a (Non-flying) Piece of Aviation History

Bidding on eBay has reached more than $3,000,000 for an unflyable, undriveable M400X Skycar prototype from Moller International of Davis, California. The brainchild of Paul Moller, it's been in development for years but is still neither sky- nor road-worthy. Flight tests have tantalized some investors, however, and the company has successfully spun off research into rotary engines using ethanol.