Future of Aviation

Pilots, Aviation & The Paradox of Progress

January 30, 2017 by Scott Spangler

A statement or situation that seems contradictory or absurd but may be true in fact is a paradox. “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!” is the paradox for mariners adrift in any ocean. For aviators, the paradox is that progress in technology that makes their flying lives easier is also reducing the number of seats for them in the pointy end of airplanes.If the paradox is not clear, it is the fact that as more and more machines replace human workers the population has increased, meaning more and more people are competing for fewer and fewer jobs.

Ultimately, “automation” summarizes the paradox of progress in a single word. It started with the Industrial Revolution and it continues today. There’s work, work, everywhere but not a job to be had because it’s all being done by machines that are more efficient and, in the long term, more economical.

Technology’s replacement of people is easily seen in aviation. It wasn’t that long ago that commercial aircraft had flight engineers, and before that navigators and radio operators. Looking forward, it should be easy to see a single person managing a commercial aircraft system, first from the aircraft itself, and then from a ground station.

Some will surely say they’d never fly on an aircraft managed in this manner. But aren’t we today cramming ourselves into commercial aircraft systems managed by the two operators who sit up front? To see the future, look back and connect the dots of technology from bonfires to beacons to satellites and from blind flying instruments to autopilots to flight management systems.

Hump Day: EAA AirVenture Part 2

July 27, 2016 by Scott Spangler

When Mother Nature cooperates, Wednesday is traditionally the day that those who arrived at EAA AirVenture last weekend leave town, and those who will go home this coming weekend arrive. That sort of happened today, but Mom’s rainy tantrum demanded some modifications (and patience).

The good news is that the clouds lifted enough for the air show to happen, and the best part of it was the second flight of the Martin Mars. As it did on its first flight during Monday’s show, it dropped about 7,500 gallons of Lake Winnebago on the grass next to Runway 18/36 on Wittman Regional Airport. Fortunately, the woman in front of me didn’t need her umbrella.

The photographer, who apparently thought it would be a good idea to try and capture an image from directly under the Mars’ flight path, on the other hand… Whoever was narrating the drop noticed the shooter and exploded in honest laughter. The camera that fed the flight line jumbotron and zoomed in on the photographer who was wading through knee-deep water.

Unfortunately, I was otherwise occupied for Wednesday’s drop, but instead of using a photographer as an aiming point, they set off some pyro for the Mars to extinguish.

Wednesday’s changing of the guard is a good time to see what’s new in the four main exhibit hangars. Nothing jumped out at me except the half dozen hawkers that wanted to clean my glasses with their magic juice that not only cleaned my lenses but protected them from finger smudges and fogging. Most of them were in Hangar D, which is next to the Fly Market, and it must be the portal to inside exhibit space for these vendors.

Aviation vendors in Hangar D were far and few between, and this seems be a sign that the aviation industry continues to shrink. And we’re getting older. Roughly half of Hangar D’s East wall was a carpeted rest area lined with comfy chairs and love seats, and most of them were occupied. It was another reminder of my mortality, so I went in search of the next generation of aviators.

As expected, I found them at the Drone Cage at the EAA Gateway Plaza. What I did not expect was that the Drone Center was half the size of last year’s facility. Not only was it larger last year, it was filled with vendors, on Wednesday a year ago, it was it was just a few fish shy of sardine occupancy. This year there was room to roam with distraction with little chance of bumping into someone.

Going out the back door of the Drone Center led me to the Innovation Center, where I saw the coolest thing ever — the Wyp (pronounced whip) Aviation Wingboard. Think wakeboard for an airplane. Yup, an airplane. Wyp Aviation’s website has some interesting videos of its aerodynamic tests. Not that I’d every want to give it a try, but the Wingboard is still the coolest thing I’ve seen so far this year, after the Martin Mars in action, that is. — Scott Spangler, Editor

It Takes a Community to Promote Aviation

December 21, 2015 by Scott Spangler

Promoting aviation to ensure its future viability and growth is something important to most of us who are involved with it personally or professionally. Individuals and organizations have promoted and pursued programs dedicated to inviting newcomers to the fold, and the results have often fallen short of those promised. Yes, there have been a number of one-on-one success stories, but the challenge is making this successful personal approach work on a larger scale.

The Raisbeck Aviation High School, a leader in science, technology, engineering, and math education is a worthy model for all to consider because it unites aviation’s many communities in pursuit of a common goal. Founded and operated by Highline Public Schools (District 401), RAHS serves 27 different school districts in the Washington’s Puget Sound region.

Its campus is located at Boeing Field’s Museum of Flight, making it the only aviation themed college-prep school that shares resources with an aerospace museum. And it receives an inspirational assist from the 200 or or so aviation related businesses that surround the school. But it goes beyond that, said Steve Davolt, RAHS’s coordinator of work-based learning. “Mentorships and internships have been an integral part of the schools since it was started 12 years ago.”

Mentorship pairs an RAHS student with an area aviation professional, he continued; both individuals make a one-year commitment, but many of them continue three or four years, until the student graduates. Every summer, nearly half of the 425-member student body participates in a 10-12-week internship, 60 percent of which are paid.

Dayton NAHA: A Model for the Rebirth of Aviation

October 5, 2015 by Scott Spangler

When the National Aviation Heritage Alliance, a coalition formed by the leaders of the 19 sites that comprise the National Aviation Heritage Area (both served by the NAHA acronym), invited me to its inaugural Aviation Writers Summit in Dayton, Ohio, I accepted without expectations. My anticipation of the event, which concluded last Friday afternoon, was eager because we would visit many of the sites that have long been on my aviation to-do list. But the symposium held a subtle surprise worth much more than tick marks on my selfish list of places I want to visit and things I want to do. It is a lesson for everyone in aviation that might hold the key to the industry’s rebirth.

If there has been a common denominator to the countless aviation media events I’ve attended for nearly three decades it is that the effort is focused on enlarging a single slice of the shrinking aviation pie. In a larger context, one could argue that the summit’s goal was the same, but scaling generalizations works in both directions. With 19 NAHA sites represented, not once during our daily interactions with their leaders at receptions or dinners, did any conversation, participatory or overheard, deviate from the shared goal of improving the lot of everyone involved. In many cases, the conversations delved into the ways the larger members, like the National Museum of the United States Air Force, have, are, and will support the whole.

The symposium (its participants here with Amanda Wright Lane and Smithsonian aviation curator Tom Crouch at the 1905 Wright Flyer) was elegantly organized and efficiently run, and the defining example of it was the announcement to all during the reception at the National Aviation Hall of Fame before we all adjourned to the adjacent Air Force Museum for dinner. Explaining that when mixing different groups people tend to congregate with those they already know, to integrate the aviation writers and the individual NAHA site leaders the evening’s emcee, Susan Richardson, asked everyone to sit at the table indicated by the number on the back of our nametags. I was at No. 4. This resulted in a thoroughly enjoyable dinner conversation with the nine other people at the table because no single facet of aviation dominated it.

Promising to write about any of the NAHA sites was not a requirement for accepting the Aviation Writers Summit invitation. They would be thrilled if that happened, naturally, and they openly hoped that we aviation word merchants would become their advocates, which is the hope of every media event organizer. And they made one of me, but not because of my to-do items it ticked, but because of how it was organized and presented. That a diverse group from the aviation community on any scale can focus on efforts to sustain and improve the activities of all is evidence that aviation, at least at its birthplace in (as its residents call it) “Dayton O.” has a future. — Scott Spangler, Editor

Delusions Impede Aviation Future

July 6, 2015 by Scott Spangler

Airbus recently flew the first production version of its Voltair E-Fan 2.0, a two-seat electric airplane. The realization of this aviation technology is something we should all celebrate because it is another important step toward aviation’s future. Offsetting this step is that the realization of this technology is being hailed, at least by the Wall Street Journal’s special feature’s section, as a the possible fulfillment of a “dream of science fiction writers for years for everyone to have their own personal flying machine parked next to the car in their garage.”

Dreamers have been pursuing this immortal delusion since its birth during the optimistic aviation future following World War II. Celebrating the possibilities of this maturing technology is but another unfulfilled dream because it doesn’t consider—or address—the realities of life in the wide awake world.

First, getting a driver’s license, let along a car, is a declining desire in the next generation of pilots and aircraft owners. As reported by Forbes magazine, federal census and highway administration data show that 27 percent of 16 year olds get their driver’s licenses today; in 1983, it was 47 percent.

Some of the reasons offered by the Forbe’s article include lack of time for driver’s education and the lack of money needed to buy a car. Given this data, it seems safe to assume that many in this generation would not invest many thousands of dollars and many months of training necessary to earn a pilot certificate and instrument rating necessary to operate in most weather conditions.

Another practical reality is airspace capacity in the United States and Europe, the two largest aviation markets. Unless you live in the boonies, you have to get in line to get airborne, and most people who live in the boonies can’t afford to pursue such expensive dreams. And, I wonder, what about the roadways that connect an airplane in every garage to an airport, the portal to the kingdom of the sky?

Dreamers should not surrender their pursuit of any technology in the face of such realities, but at the same time they should not support this work with science fiction dreams because it is counterproductive in a world no longer shaped by mass market mentality. Perhaps a better path would be that being blazed by medical gene therapy that customizes treatment to an individual’s specific needs. — Scott Spangler, Editor

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