Professional Pilot, March 2018

But in the shorter term we will see seamless wings that change lift characteristics by bending surfaces not moving them The implications for improved laminar flow and hence performance efficiency and even a planes radar signature are tremendous When you think about it this is how the Wright brothers first did it they bent the wing instead of appending movable surfaces Its hardly far fetched to think that the concept coupled to todays existing and pending technologies cant be brought into reality Note that NASA has an active morphing wing project flying on a Gulfstream III test bed Drones Drones pilotless flight electric motors and the Uberization of air travel all can be considered individually To me the buzz comes from looking at them collectively One would have to be even more of a Luddite than me to not admit the bright future for drone usage Even with todays line of sight operational restrictions they can be used to more effectively inspect everything from windmills to large aircraft It goes without saying that their efficacy in a battleground environment pilotless except for ground guidance has become legendary Now just imagine the applications efficiency and cost savings they can bring to bear in a commercial setting once flying autonomously Drone 6 go fly the eastern quadrant and report any hot spots for pending forest fires Drone 6 does so without once complaining even once of a headache What really got me going though was reading the white paper by Uber Elevate There is no way I can adequately describe its content in a couple of paragraphs What I can say is that this is no pie in the sky airmobile in every garage approach to making air commuting achievable Their operational structure makes sense their arguments mitigating noise and obtrusiveness issues make sense and their economics might make sense The time for such is right The technology is coming on line More importantly the social setting is lining up Young people today are more willing to turn themselves over to automation Society is searching for ways to reduce congestion Drones are getting us used to things 10 PROFESSIONAL PILOT March 2018 flying overhead And in its own way the Uber Elevate concept fits the shared economy concept which becomes more acceptable and even desirable every day Mega data Mega data is quite the catch phrase buzz word pick up line today Connotations are both positive and negative If its used to intrude into our lives bad If it is used to make our lives easier safer or more efficient good But this isnt the space to engage in a philosophical discussion Ill simply point out that its nearly impossible to get the good without enduring a bit of the bad And if you want to get really really rich figure out how we can have both and share this information only with me Benefits for MROs But I want to go a bit beyond just the collection organization and application of tons of information and highlight whats being done at the beginning of the design process to make this font of information ever more valuable When engineers are designing something for example a jet engine they are creating a digital doppelganger of it We now have the jet engine in a physical manifestation and also a virtual one In the MRO world these 2 versions are known as digital twins and the application extends to every aspect of an aircraft Whats the benefit MRO and designers can see what is happening in real time Predictive maintenance becomes possible Extending TBOs becomes possible Failures can be anticipated and dealt with before they are failures The plane can be virtually flown through various environments and the results applied to the real world The planes MRO costs and downtime are reduced and its safe operation enhanced Apply artificial intelligence to this mix and forecasts are that costs can be reduced 30 and more Given that MRO costs as a line item now exceed crew and or fuel line item costs you get a sense of the value of this technology Other far out forthcoming things Theres so much more to think about space travel and colonization ultra high bypass and multi pass adaptive engines external fan engines hyperloops hypersonic propulsion chemical propulsion lighter more powerful batteries and adjacent technologies to further electric motor flight the list just goes on and on I plan to be a part of it if only as an observer and recorder Thanks for reading Drone technology and usage will increase exponentially But it is the expansion of this technology into passenger movement Uber Elevate and similar models that will shake things up The savings in time and reduction in congestion will be monumental Bob Rockwood has been in the aircraft brokerage business since 1978 During his tenure at Omni Intl Jet Trading Floor he began writing The Rockwood Report which discusses the corporate aircraft market In 1986 he joined Bristol Associates as a managing partner