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Next Generation Air Traffic Management represents a major evolution in ground based air traffic control to satellite based air traffic management; it also represents an opportunity for private aviation to deliver far more value to the communities that they serve.

In order to accomplish this, Social Flights is developing a unifying business method that accurately and reliably matches supply and demand for private transportation assets across several thousand airports in the United States. NextGen, combined with the Internet and social media, gives the private aviation industry a set of tools that were unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago when the private aviation market last shifted.

How will private travel evolve?

NextGen will use aviation-specific applications for existing, widely-used technologies such as GPS, Weather Forecasting, data networking, and digital communication. Not surprisingly, these applications will lead to new procedures and airport infrastructure.

Some of these changes may be quite predictable

To get an idea as to how these new technologies will impact aviation, it may be a simple matter to compare how these EXACT same technologies have changed social cooperation in general.  This prediction is valid because we all cooperate for our little piece of the sky.

Society has learned to cooperate in amazing ways as mobile devices, VOIP, GPS, Weather Reports, Traffic Reports, and non-corporate social organization become evermore commonplace.  New business models constantly form around the technology.   The result has been a profound shift in power and influence to those (for better or for worse) who can access and curate relevant information AND then share that information with people in their networks (and beyond).

Social Flights is taking the lead and calling on all private operators to join with us to build a common platform for private aircraft inventory and ground operations across the United States:   

• Where are your jets stationed?
• What inventory do you have available?
• Where are your empty legs going?
• Are you willing to share facilities or “code-share” with other operators?
• Are you willing to cooperate with the major airlines?
• If entrepreneurs in your community had access to the whole system, would this help you?
• If corporations and event planners had access to the whole system, would this help you?
• Are local hospitality and support services sharing information with you?

The New Technology Advantage

Since the late 1800’s America has replaced every single telephone pole with a new one every 50 years or so.  Today, every less developed country can simply build relatively few cellular towers and avoid that mess. For this reason, we can assume that airlines no longer have the advantage of vast hub infrastructure when together, we can just as easily sort people and planes with access to the right data shared across the right network.

Air Travel in and out of New York City Area is among the most complex in the world.  4100 flights per day squeak out of 3 major airports while all three rank near the bottom of 29 hubs for on-time performance.  Many people say that the Next Generation satellite air traffic control will alleviate the problem by allowing aircraft to fly closer together in crowded areas.  Others say that multiple modes of transportation such as high-speed rail would ease congestion.

Social Flights says, “Why fly someplace that you are not going?”

I grew up in Connecticut and have come to know New York as a magnificent city with huge importance in business, government, art, and culture. The cost of traveling into New York can often exceed the price of airfare outbound and almost always takes longer than the flight itself.  Commuting into the city from Connecticut can cost 100 dollars including parking, commuter train, and meals – and it can take 3 hours each way.  Commuters often spend more time traveling than working.  The cost of living in the city is exorbitant.

Look at the numbers

At around 200-250 persons per aircraft, 4100 flights represents between 750,000 and 1 million people per day.  The population of Manhattan is only 1.5 Million.  A significant percentage of people are actually traveling to, or from, Connecticut, or New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, and beyond.

In fact, there are 23 airports in the New York Metropolitan Area that can accept turbine aircraft.  At market capacity for each of these airports, the Social Flights Community Air Services Program could relieve the majors by 25-30% of their traffic while opening up air transportation to the millions of people who live outside of major cities and would otherwise not travel.

• Central Jersey Regional Airport (JVI)
• Essex County Airport (CDW)
• Greenwood Lake Airport (4N1)
• Hackettstown Airport (N05)
• Igor I. Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR)
• Lincoln Park Airport (N07)
• Linden Airport (LDJ)
• Little Ferry Seaplane Base (2N7)
• Long Island MacArthur Airport (ISP)
• Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU)
• Newton Airport (New Jersey) (3N5)
• Old Bridge Airport (3N6)
• Princeton Airport (39N)
• Republic Airport (FRG)
• Solberg-Hunterdon Airport (N51)
• Somerset Airport (SMQ)
• Stewart International Airport (SWF)
• Teterboro Airport (TEB)
• Trenton-Mercer Airport (TTN)
• Trenton-Robbinsville Airport (N87)
• Tweed New Haven Regional Airport (HVN)
• Twin Pine Airport (N75)
• Westchester County Airport (HPN)

Now, Let’s reintroduce those great ideas

Next Generation satellite air traffic control will alleviate the problem by allowing aircraft to fly closer together in crowded areas, but it also brings improved ATC to smaller airports at relatively low cost.  Multimode transportation like high-speed trains has a distinct advantage of being able to stop along a route.  For example; high-speed rail from Washington DC to Boston could carry passengers between airports not unlike trams carry passengers between terminals.  New mobile and big data applications can sort people and planes as effectively as hub infrastructure.

Social Flight knows where you are coming from

If you live in Connecticut, New Jersey, or upstate New York, you should be able to fly from your local airport to anywhere in the country. The Social Flights Community Air Service Program brings public charter air service to your doorstep and the doorstep that you are traveling to.

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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