Plane Conversations

What is General Aviation?  Mainstream media tells you that it is toys for the super-wealthy, chariots for the elite, excess for pampered executives.  Our purpose with Plane Conversations is to tell you that mainstream media is (we’ll be generous here) mistaken.  

We’ve shown you how corporate flight departments along with personal and chartered aircraft can save on the actual hard costs of travel.  We’ve demonstrated the savings you can find on a balance sheet.  We’ve talked how, yes, these are sometimes the toys of the very wealthy who have worked for the privilege of aircraft ownership.  But, we’ve also talked about the small business owner who uses his personal aircraft as an essential business tool.  We’ve demonstrated how general aviation contributes to mankind, specifically, how private aircraft were used to move tons of aid and NGO aid workers into Haiti.  Now, we’d like to tell you a little about how general aviation contributes on the ground here in Middle Tennessee.  

In the May 2010 floods in the Nashville area, Smyrna Air Center collected and distributed clothes, food, cleaning supplies, even televisions to hundreds of affected families.   McKenna Saunders, Director of Marketing, oversaw the collection and distribution of all items.  She said, “The most emotional moment for me was when I met a distraught mother who came into Smyrna Air Center to pick up donation items for her family. I helped her pick out boxes and boxes of goods as she tried to hold back tears, and when we came across a box of baby food, diapers, and wet wipes, her face lit up, and she started screaming with excitement! That’s when it really hit me that people are in desperate need of even the simplest of daily necessities.”  

The Smyrna/Rutherford County Airportis very active in community support projects like Meals on Wheels and clothing drives.  Each Fall, the airport collects new and gently used winter clothing for children attending the John Coleman Elementary School in Smyrna.  The school was originally constructed to serve the children of  personnel stationed at Sewart Air Force Base, which became the Smyrna/Rutherford County Airport.  Airport Manager Lois Vallance said, “When the Airport Authority was looking for avenues of community service, it only made sense to adopt John Coleman School.”  For the Meals on Wheels program, Vallance added, “Some Airport Authority employees and other volunteers are on a rotating weekly schedule to provide assistance to the Meals on Wheels program.  Whether its packaging the meals, delivering to a prescribed route–and sometimes staying to chat a few minutes–the volunteers are always as touched as those who receive the hot food.”  

CFM employee Shad Holloman (L) with a group working in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Employees at Corporate Flight Management are active in Habitat for Humanity builds and recently were able to volunteer helping out at Feed America First, which provides food to other relief organizations to distribute to rural populations that need a little help.  According to Executive Director Tom Henry, this Middle Tennessee facility will distribute some five million pounds of food this year to the hungry just in this area.  It was an eye-opening experience to see that we don’t have to look far from home to find people who need a hand.  Employee spouses and children also pitched in to repackage beans and rice.  Iowa native and recent Tennessee transplant Amber Sulzner said, “I thought this was a really good experience for us all to have a chance to give back to people who are less fortunate in our communities.  I wasn’t aware of how many families this organization helped and the amount of food that went in and out of the warehouse on a weekly basis.  Overall I felt this was a very good experience and I am now a pro at filling ziplock bags with rice. I also look forward to us hopefully helping this organization again and have even more volunteers.”  

So, what is General Aviation?  Are we an industry existing in the rarified air of the ivory towers?  Not even close.  We exist in local and global communities that experience disasters and need.  And we do our part to help in those communities whenever we can. 

(L-R) Amber Sulzner, Doug Cate, Jon Anne Doty, Jaegar Doty, Jeremy Gillard, Ken Dalton, Bill Allen, Tim Merenda, Melanie Howell, Annette Morton, Debbie Cate, David Augustin, Rachel Charlize, Jerome Vele Reece.

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There is an MU-2 outside my window right now and those Garrett engines are so loud that, in the words of my first grade teacher Sister Paula, I can’t hear myself think. 

Airplanes are noisy.  No kidding, right?  That’s hardly news and it’s certainly no surprise.  Since airplanes are noisy, it follows then, that places they frequent – airports – are noisy, as well.  Again, no surprise there.  What continues to be a surprise to me are noise complaints made by people who live near airports.

What would you say if I told you that I bought a terrific little house next to a railroad track and that I got it at a steal?  You’d probably question my sanity since there are sure to be really noisy trains barreling along the tracks at all hours, right?  Now what would you say if I told you that I was planning on petitioning or even suing the railroad company to make their trains quieter and to run them only during daylight hours?  Does that even make sense?  I bought a house next to a pre-existing railroad track, the existence of which I unquestionably knew, and now I demand that the railroad operate according to my preferences?  I would be laughed out of the courtroom.  Or would I?

This situation happens every day with airports all over the United States and Europe.

Developers buy undesirable land near noisy airports, build houses all over the land, and sell the houses at attractive prices.  The new homeowners, forgetting the reason they got such a good deal on the house, then demand that the airport conform to their preferences – and the city councils and courts support the homeowners.

Airports don’t exist in a vacuum - I know that - and we all need to “go along to get along.”  However, there must be some consideration for the airports which were in existence prior to development and the economic contributions of those airports.  For instance, Atlanta’s DeKalb-Peachtree airport started it’s life in 1941, operated as a Naval Air Station as well as a general aviation airport and is currently the second busiest airport in the state of Georgia with 246,002 operations recorded in 2009.  Housing development in the area saw massive increases in the 1950s, after the airport was established.  At this time, the airport has a “voluntary” curfew between the hours of 11:00 PM and 6:00 AM.  I emphasize voluntary because it is clear from the airport’s own literature that the county would make the curfew mandatory if only the FAA would let them.  Exemptions are made for medical flights but, any other flight operating at the airport during curfew hours will receive a letter inviting the operator “without compromising safety.. [to] review its operating practices and perhaps modify its procedures to keep this from happening again.”  Basically, they invite the operator not to come back during curfew, reserving the right to invite the the operator not to come back at all.

Perhaps the most aggressive noise abatement policies are in Santa Monica, California, and in Naples, Florida, which were among the first (if not the first) to prohibit certain types of aircraft from operating into their fields at any time of day.  Naples, which is a public airport operated by the City of Naples Airport Authority, has its hands full these days dealing with an anti-airport group.  The situation has become emotionally charged and really contentious there.  The airport receives federal funding, yet the neighbors want to dictate how and when the facilities may be used.   Try doing that with an interstate or railroad. 

The Mu-2 is gone, but my ears are still buzzing; so, I sympathize with people who live with the noise.  However, because I know that airplanes are  noisy, I didn’t buy a house right next to an airport.  And I don’t have sympathy for the people who did, then proceeded to complain about a situation they entered into voluntarily.

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In college, I took a class called International Strategies and Security.  I believe that I may have been the only non-military student in the class which, for a civilian, turned out to be like a Tom Clancy novel – only it lasted for a whole semester.  We discussed technology that just blew my mind.  I had no idea the things that were possible and I’m sure that what blew my mind then is Stone Age compared to what is possible now.

So yesterday, we talked a little bit about test flights Alaska Airlines is conducting to be greener both environmentally and economically.  I think that there is a lot to celebrate with that.  My one concern with their reliance (and more, with NextGen’s reliance) on satellite technology is the increase in solar storms projected over the next few years.  I am curious to see how the technologists will handle it.

Since the systems do rely on satellite communication, they will be vulnerable to solar flares and storms, the kind we discussed back in March, which brings me back to the same concerns I expressed then.  With so many new pilots being trained using only glass cockpits and satellite approaches, what happens when those systems are compromised?  Worse, what happens when those systems are compromised and the pilots don’t know it?  NextGen, RNP, OPD and RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum) are all designed to increase efficiency by tightening up the airspace.  This precision puts more aircraft into smaller spaces.  Well, if a pilot was flying along a flight path ten years ago, he might have encountered another aircraft along the same path; but, since neither of them was flying with today’s degree of precision, there was still likely to be a safe distance between the aircraft.  However, with todays’ greater precision, the space is greatly reduced.  If all systems are operating as advertised, that’s no problem.  In fact, it’s positive situation.  However, if solar flares contaminate the positioning information, an aircraft may be hundreds of feet off position and not know it.  If two aircraft are in the same situation, but are separated by only a few hundreds of feet to begin with, well, you do the math.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently awarded $125 million to Boeing and other companies to develop greener aircraft, fuels and technology.   As aircraft become more advanced and the Gee-Whiz factor in them increases, by definition, they get further away from the simple, stick-controlled Stearman.  I love the advances, don’t get me wrong.  I just know that a great many young pilots are learning on advanced equipment and may not be learning some of the manual basics of their predecessors.  For now, the young group still has access to pilots trained without all of the gizmos.  Those pilots are available to act as mentors and assist the younger generation of aviators in gaining some wisdom, an invaluable asset, as Billy Minkoff pointed out last week.  His example of the new, accessible very light jet and microjet is perfectly appropriate here.  As precision flying gets more precise and pilot training gets further removed from non-precision equipment, without mentoring, how do we avoid the dangers of corrupted satellite data?

What technology and training do we develop to slow or halt the current trend as expressed by CFM Director of Operations Dwayne McMurry, “It used to be that the last words on a cockpit voice recorder were ‘Oh, (explicative)!’  What you hear these days is, ‘What’s it doing now?’ “

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Starting in 2004, UPS began systematically saving money on fuel and reducing emissions, in part, by planning their routes and reducing the number of left turns in them.  About 15 minutes after the policy was first reported, the first skeptical “Bah!” issued forth.  The report was taken to mean that drivers were instructed to make only right turns, which is inaccurate.   Routes are planned to reduce the number of left turns (in countries that drive on the right-hand side of the road), thereby reducing the amount of time spent idling in the turning lane.  Other interesting measures were put in place, as well; so, the exact dollar amount of savings attributed just to right turns is hard to quantify.  Still, the increased efficiency and lower fuel costs are easy to see.  And, none of the measures were rocket science, really, just simple, common sense practices used to save money.

NextGen ATC has the potential to act like the route planning software that UPS uses, allowing aircraft to fly more direct routes, thus saving time and fuel while reducing emissions.  However, as we’ve previously discussed, that program is stalled while most of the parties who will benefit from it bicker over who will pay for it.  In the interim, Alaska Airlines is testing some other programs in their Greener Skies project at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, one reason the Wall Street Journal  named the carrier the most fuel efficient in the country.

Using satellite-based guidance technology (Required Navigation Performance or RNP) that they pioneered , the carrier has tested its use in landings.  Using the technology with a continuous descent or optimized profile descent (OPD), the aircraft can descend from cruise altitude to runway using a shorter flight path and lower power.  What they found by using these principles is that they reduced their landing fuel-burn by about 35%, which translates to about 400 pounds or 60 gallons per event.  The carrier estimates that they could save 2.1 million gallons each year by using this system.  On 13 August 2010, Jet-A prices ranged from $4.72 per gallon in Smyrna, Tennessee, to $6.98 in Boston.  While carriers don’t buy their fuel at those prices, you can still imagine the huge amounts of money that could be saved. 

The more direct flight path and lower power do more than result in just lower fuel-burns.  Those lower burns translate into lower carbon emissions and lower noise levels.  According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Alaska Airlines estimates an emissions reduction of “22,000 metric tons each year, the equivalent of taking 4,100 cars off the road.”  And, of course, a more direct route sends aircraft over fewer homes and lower power means less noise for those homes still in the approach path.  That’s great news for busy airports’ neighboring communities that are concerned with noise and air pollution levels.

A great many of the aircraft currently flying already have the technology to use these same procedures.  ATC has to catch up and redesign the approaches to make the best use of the technology, equipment and procedures.  The potential good the aviation industry can realize by the more efficient process is enormous.  With decreased costs, the industry can produce a healthier bottom line.  And with decreased air and noise pollution, we can all breathe a little deeper and sleep a little more peacefully.

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Johnny Paycheck has lost his position as Poster Child for the disgruntled worker.  The country singer has been replaced by former JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater whose antics would have been really funny – in a movie.

As my boss, Allen Howell said, “I personally find it pitiful that a flight attendant who can’t take it anymore thinks it is OK to pull the emergency exit slide to leave the aircraft and his job all at the same time. It is even more frustrating that he is made out to be some kind of hero for doing what he did.  Everyday flight attendants get rude and sometimes extreme hostile treatment from frustrated passengers but two wrongs don’t make it right. What does it say for the state of the airline industry when it gets to this?  The stunt will cost the airline, JetBlue, thousands of dollars in damage and more importantly it was a reckless and unprofessional act that does not need to be glamorized. This could have easily turned bad and someone could have gotten hurt.”

Anyone who has worked in customer service for more than 20 minutes has had a fantasy of creating just such a scene as the one Slater did – publicly humiliating an adult for poor behavior, grabbing a cold beer and disappearing into the mist, fog or just plain slamming the door.  As a responsible, professional adult you leave it in the realm of fantasy.  Slater caused thousands of dollars in expenses when he deployed that slide.  Mechanics at JetBlue will have to repack the slide, which is a great deal more complicated than folding up a map and stowing in your glove compartment.  There are explosives and inspections involved.  That aircraft is now out of service until it can be made airworthy again. 

It’s not that I don’t understand his frustration and his anger at these passengers who, by some accounts, acted like spoiled children.  I experienced it first-hand when passengers threw credit cards, briefcases, garment bags and even a bag of brick samples at me; however, there are methods to handle this situation – specifically airport police.  For instance, when the passenger hit Slater with her luggage, she interfered with the ability of a crew member to perform his job function.  This is a federal offense, folks.  Rather than throwing a hissy fit, he could have had her arrested upon arrival in New York, or he could have had her removed from the aircraft in Pittsburgh, where the incident occurred.  He chose not to do that.  He chose to wait until the aircraft arrived at JFK and create a public scene and a potentially deadly situation.  His behavior could very well have injured someone on the ground. 

Even if he looked out of the window and didn’t see anyone before he deployed the slide, he couldn’t possibly have had a clear view of the whole area involved.  Stand at a third storey window and look down.  Can you see the foundation of the building?  No, you can’t.  And he couldn’t see anyone standing in the area where he was about to launch an emergency slide.  His behavior was impulsive and reckless, not professional.

Yet, as I write this, Slater’s childish temper tantrum has earned him over 150,000 fans on Facebook.  The number will likely be mind-boggling by the time you read this. 

As Allen said, “If  Mr. Slater wanted to quit he should have walked off the flight and turned in his notice and gone home.  Something is wrong with this society when we glorify this type behaviour with media fanfare  and a social media frenzy.  Whatever happened to professionalism even in the face of adverse conditions?”

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As I’ve mentioned before, my father is a forester and he has always said that there are no better conservationists than his colleagues.  If they don’t take care to preserve the natural resources, foresters work themselves right out of a job.  If you harvest a tree, you plant one in its place, keeping the supply renewed and the resource in balance.  Compared with this “if you use it, you replace it” philosophy, buying carbon credits has the feel of hiring a penitent.  In theory, environmental or moral transgressions are atoned.  And, while I suppose hiring someone to offset one’s carbon footprint is better than doing nothing, that emperor still appears naked to me. 

The transportation industry, in general, and the aviation industry, in particular, has an enormous carbon footprint.  For years, the industry has sought to reduce costs by increasing fuel efficiency, enjoying reduced emissions more as a happy by-product than an actual goal.  Recently, however, there has been something of an ideology shift.  I don’t know that anyone is willing to increase costs to decrease emissions, but certainly, more players in the industry are willing to see cleaner burning, sustainable fuel as a goal in itself.  The shift from “wouldn’t it be nice if” to “how can we do this” can be seen in the developing partnerships.  These aren’t mad scientists cooking up fuels in their garages.  These are Boeing, British Airways, Rolls-Royce developing fuels or partnering with visionary companies like Solena, Solazyme and Honeywell’s UOP.  Big money and big aviation experience are teaming up with big innovation to do something good for both our industry and our planet.  We use  fuel resources and air; and, we are nearing a time when we can renew the one resource while lowering pollutants in the other.  It’s no wonder excitement is growing. 

Flightglobal reports that at the recent air show in Farnborough, England, Richard Altman, executive director of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative went so far as to say that current technologies “can contribute on a significant level to achieving carbon neutral growth – it’s happening and it’s happening now.”  And it’s happening from different sources.  On March 25, 2010, a United States Air Force A-10 flew its first flight using a blend of conventional JP-8 jet fuel and biomass fuel derived from the camelina plant, like those fuels produced by Alt-Air and Sustainable Oils.  As we discussed on 26 May, Brazil has a dynamic bio-fuels industry currently based on ethanol production from sugar cane. Darpa and others are closing in on an economical process to produce jet fuel from algae.  And Honeywell’s Green Jet Fuel (a blend of fuels from algae and used cooking oil) was used in the first biofuel-powered helicopter flight by the Royal Netherlands Air Force in June. 

The majority of news reports in the United States for the past three months have been stories on the catastrophic oil rig explosion and subsequent spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  China saw a Yellow Sea oil spill of nearly 28 million gallons around the same time.  As I watched those reports, I kept thinking of the progress in bio-fuel production.  Imagine how algal fuel production would eliminate the possibility of such a disaster – how months of clean-up and decontamination could be replaced by a flock of ducks.  Now, you’re really talking carbon neutral and that emperor’s new clothes look good.

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Riding down the road one day, an Aerosmith song blared out of my radio and, for whatever reason, I thought about language – specifically, how terminology can be exclusive to an industry. No doubt, Joe Perry hears or thinks the word “guitar” on a daily basis, but how often does the word “aileron” enter into his conversation? Every industry has a lexicon of its own and, if you’re going to learn to operate within the industry, you’re going to have to learn the language. To that end, we’ve compiled a list of terms commonly used in the aviation world. This list is more for business aviation, rather than actual flight language.

FBO – Fixed Base Operator – This is like a gas station for aircraft.  The facilities often include a passenger lobby and sometimes a snooze room and lounge for pilots.  Every now and then, you’ll get lucky and find cookies!

Apron or Ramp – This is the area where aircraft are parked around terminal buildings or FBOs.

Taxiway – These are the areas where aircraft “drive” on the ground to get to the runways or to wait in line to take off.

Runway – This is the area where aircraft actively take off and land.

FARs – Federal Air Regulations – these are the rules established and enforced by the FAA to govern the operating practices of air carriers.  Violations of the FARs may result in fines, imprisonment or loss of of operating certificate.  To paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones’s Agent Kay in Men in Black, “We at the (FAA) do not have a sense of humor we’re aware of.”  Regulations are taken very seriously.

Duty Day – This is the amount of time a crew is allowed to be on duty and it varies, depending on what part of the Federal Air Regulations the flight is operated under and how many crew members are on the flight deck.

Flight time – This is the amount of time calculated from when the wheels leave the ground (off time) until they touch down again (on time).

Block time – This is the amount of time calculated from when the brakes unlock and the aircraft begins to roll (out time) until the brakes are locked again and the aircraft is chocked (in time).

Chocks – those blocks of wood or rubber that are place in front of and behind aircraft tires to keep the aircraft from moving.  For the longest time I thought people were saying “chaulks.”  Much embarrassment followed when I figured out my mistake.

Prop wash or jet blast – the air that moves behind the prop or jet.  The prop wash blast from small aircraft kick up large amounts of sand and debris that can be uncomfortable to unprotected skin.  The jet blast from large airliners can actually blow over pick up trucks.

Air carrier – an entity certificated by the FAA to transport passengers or cargo for hire.  This may be a scheduled airline or it may be a freight company or a charter operator.

Broker – an entity who engages the services of a carrier on behalf of a client.  The broker neither owns nor operates any aircraft of their own.  This may be a travel agent, a freight or charter broker.

FOD – can refer to either Foreign Object Debris or Foreign Object Damage.  For instance, a plastic grocery bag blowing across the ramp at Lexington was Foreign Object Debris until it was injested into a Delta Air Lines engine when it became Foreign Object Damage, a cancelled flight, a huge headache and an enormous repair bill. 

While not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination, these terms, as well as some found in articles published on July 27, 28 and 29, should put you well on your way to speaking BizAvian like a pro.

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Recently, as Tropical Storm Bonnie looked like she was going to take a walk up Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans, I was reminded of Hurricane Katrina, which, five years ago, lead to my unexpected move to Tennessee.  I was reminded of the powerless feeling of watching that kind of power approach my home and take nearly everything I had.  Remembering my own experiences always reminds me of the January earthquake in Haiti and how, in spite of the upheaval, I was among the most fortunate of people.

Ten months after Hurricane Katrina, my street was still without power.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Nearly one year later, in what is arguably the most advanced country on the planet, there were still people using generators.  We are now closing in on five years later and that region is STILL obviously recovering, but it’s old news.  The TV crews are gone.  The journalists are still busy covering the oil spill or some new sex scandal.  No one wants to hear about it anymore, even though Habitat for Humanity, Make It Right and many other organizations are still working tirelessly to put New Orleans and other affected areas back together.  Make no mistake, though.  It will take many more years, if not actual decades, before the area is fully recovered.  And the people still living there deal with it every single day.

Now, shift your attention to Haiti, one of the poorest countries on the globe, if not the poorest.  Some 250,000 people died and 1.3 million were left homeless in a country of 9 million.  A disaster with proportionate damage in the United States, with a population of some  307 million people, would have left 8.5 million people dead and 44 million homeless.  It’s the population of New York City killed and the population of California and Virginia left homeless.   Those numbers are approximate, but you get the idea – massive, massive impact.  As an industry, General Aviation has sent literally hundreds of flights into the area, landing even on dirt roads, bringing in personnel and supplies after the January earthquake.  As a company, we were fortunate enough to be able to help in some small ways to the relief efforts.  As individuals, we have contributed in private ways, as well.  In April, four months after the event, reports showed that donations and contributions were dwindling.  By now, they are minuscule.

I wasn’t in that earthquake and I don’t personally anyone who was.  I don’t have a personal agenda here.  However, I lost nearly everything I owned to Hurricane Katrina and I owe the lion’s share of my recovery to individuals and organizations who reached out to help me when I was all but hopeless.  I know what it feels like to face sudden, almost incomprehensible loss.  In the attached document, I’m sharing my story with you in hopes that you will remember them.  In the global scheme of things, I was so very fortunate, while they are not.  Just because they had fewer possessions to lose at the outset does not mean that they are any less shattered.

Shame on us if we don’t support the efforts of NGOs still in the thick of things, striving to make a difference – organizations like Can Do, World Vision, Feed the Children, Habitat for Humanity and others.  Shame on us if we allow that disaster to become nothing more than a sound-bite.

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In any family dynamic, each member has a role to play.  Until the invention of Trivial Pursuit, my role was to lose at every single board game we played.  It didn’t matter which game it was, I stunk equally badly at them all; but, I was okay with that.  It’s just how it was.  When I went to college, my liberal arts studies did not include Game Theory; so, in spite of its 50 year history, this business decision making tool is new to me.

In a July 24, 2010, article in Financial Post, Michell Osak highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of using Game Theory in the strategy development process.  The theory is ideal, he says, in “strategic situations where competitive or individual behaviors can be modeled.”  However, the theory’s flaws are that it assumes that “the players act rationally and in their self-interest” and that they “act strategically and consider the competitive responses of their actions.”  Osak goes on to quote The Economist magazine which said, “Managers have much to learn from game theory provided they use it to clarify their thinking, not as a substitute for business experience.”

It seems to me that wholesale flight department liquidations were an example of a time when Game Theory was substituted for business experience – to the detriment of an entire industry.

Studies have shown that companies which either own or use private aircraft tend to pay larger dividends to their shareholders.  Yet, some of those very same companies dissolved their flight departments.  Those decisions were not based on months of study, but, rather were a knee-jerk reaction to negative press reports.  Game Theory said that a company using a business aircraft would look wasteful when compared to a similar company that didn’t.  Game Theory predicted a negative public relations issue.  Game Theory dictated that companies jettison one of their most useful business tools.

It’s time to start making decisions based on business experience again and leave the board games for family night.

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