AviTech Reader

Those of us ho have ever flown past or to mountainous destinations or regions can hopefully smile as they read through this article…even though some will be disappointed because it is not yet in their country. Still, if you have had your flight diverted to some town you did not like going to due to turbulence then just hold on for this. Here I Kenya, I advise the KCAA and KAA to work together and bring this system to JKIA-though it is not that prone to turbulence anyway.

What is this I am blowing trumpets and vuvuzela’s about all around without explaining just what it is? I am talking about an advanced airport system developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research(NCAR) and installed at Juneau in July 2012. I heard about it in TWIE episode 121 where I liked the way Vince Penman presented the system. I then followed it up and read more about it here. It provides information that pilots can use to control aircraft to evade catastrophic turbulent spots. It is based on a network of instruments and computational algorithms to analyze the ever-precarious atmospheric parameters.

The system was launched at Alaska’s Juneau International Airport and research is on to tailor-modify the system for use at other airport hit by turbulent at frequent intervals e.g airports in Northern California and the Mountain West to New Zealand and Norway. The predecessor to this system is a similar one designed by the same company and used at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok Airport.

At the Alaskan Airport, it is known as the Juneau Airport Wind System(JAWS). The system has not only reduced flight delays but has literally almost done away with the turbulence risk of flying into and out of Juneau. One of the scenarios is when there is a lot of turbulence and it simply highlights a nice path for landing and take off.

Something else I learnt was that the system did not just come to pimp up the airport. There was a time when turbulence has led to closure of this airport at some times when it is so risky to come in or go out. But then, this was not the best way to do things when we know that the only way out of this place was by airplane or boats. This necessitated that the problem be surmounted by all means. The NCAR team that worked on this used research aircraft and computer simulations to investigate the different wind patterns and effects of glacier in addition to anemometers and wind profilers that really help accumulate a lot of data for this project.

Rarely do we concentrate on entertainment as a major part of the Avionics in an aircraft. Just until recently, when global trends force us into it. Nowadays, portable computers, can be tablets, laptops or whatever have become the norm and this has been observed as a way of attracting customers. What am I saying…you may wonder-it has been observed that airlines are trying their best to claim their market share by providing passenger with something special, internet connection.

Many aircraft today, both private and commercial have antennae than communicate with satellites or towers that help access the internet. Even though most of the equipment are towers(on the ground), satellite sources have recently been hugely adopted and these increase in use has pushed their prices lower enough for more affordability. From an article I read in the SAE Aerospace engineering issue of 15^th August 2012, In-Stat predicts that by 2015, 6100 commercial planes will have internet access-3 times the number that had last year(2011). In USA for example, Gogo has been doing the tower thing which has been nice and reliable domestically but airlines go past country boundaries hence the need for satellite services. Comparatively, Satellite services are more expensive, but again it is not pragmatic for many aircraft to carry both types of antennas-the drag caused will be too high. Also, Air-To-Ground (ATG) networks are time consuming to set up.

This obliges airlines to pick one connection, as does not sound politic to have both, neither is it better to bounce between ATG’s and satellite connections. Another issue is that though satellite connections seem a viable solution, an aircraft on a trans-continental or trans-ocean trips will not be able to track one satellite all through. It needs to connect to at least three of them and the switching is not as easy as a cell phone switching between towers as one travels in a car. There is need for attention to some minute details (like Doppler compensation depending on speed) for a successful re-orientation and precise focus on another satellite to facilitate a continuous connection. Another pothole to look out for is to ensure that satellite communication does not overshadow the link between the air traffic controllers and the pilots.

So far, most of the links to satellites use Ku-band, a well-established technology-though many are anticipating the Ka-band links that will have a larger bandwidth.

The other challenge is a design one, because many passengers will be accessing the internet and doing may be 4-5 things, facebooking, listening to music, watching a movie…you see. You can imagine most of the passengers using the internet and the situation is not the same as that in a local cyber café because in an aircraft there are power consumption and weight that we will be adding just by adding few more routers to make the internet connectivity more efficient. Also, it won’t be a good idea if passengers have to wait every time the system is switching from one satellite link to another.

This calls for a very good Real Time Operating System (RTOS). Bombardier, working hand to hand with satellite provider Inmarsat, is among the companies that have surmounted all these challenges and established a very nice internet access system.

Sometime ago, the U.S Air force advanced 23 million dollars to Boeing to finish the second phase of the B-1 laptop-controlled Targeting Pod software upgrade. The second phase enables the bomber’s targeting pod to find stationary targets and transmit GPS co-ordinates using its avionics system to the weapons- a process that was very manual and used to introduce many errors. It will also complete the integration of the Sniper pod with B-1 programs enable single-moving –target kill capability using laser technology of the Guided Bomb unit.

ESP PC-based visual simulation for better pilot training is also provided to ensure pilots are best equiped with knowledge and practical exposure of the combat missions with less expenses for faster learning.

War fighter pilots stand to highly benefit from this massive resource to hone up their skills in battle. This is after Lockheed Martin and Microsoft Corp. signed a license agreement to continue development of Microsoft’s ESP PC-based visual simulation software platform. Lockheed Martin, now with access to the ESP technology portfolio, will be able to build more economic simulation solutions for customized training of the various customers.

With that in mind, testing and learning has been accelerated in recent times and is nearly done, and may lead to the Air Force's Air Combat Command plans to approve sending pod-equipped bombers on operational missions by mid-summer. With the powerful software, the Pilot in command can easily cross check co-ordinates and visual locations of targets before dropping weapons and would be very profitable for combat for example in places like Iraq and Afghanistan where the B1 Bomber has been used in the past.