Professional Pilot, May 2017

Variety in commands The saying goes ask 5 pilots their opinion and you will get 7 answers We found this to be true when trying to define our voice recognition grammar When setting a heading should you say Set heading 360 Turn heading 360 or Turn right heading 360 The answer is that all are possible We conducted a study where pilots were asked to fly a glass cockpit aircraft without touching any of the avionics They could only use their words We found the same pilot would say a function several different ways depending on phase of flight and workload So we took this lesson to heart and programmed our voice recognition system to accept as many ways of saying a command as we could dream up The end result is a system that doesnt require a pilot to memorize a single magic command Variety is acceptable so pilots can say what comes naturally and it will work Conclusion We have tested this system with pilots flying air transport business jets and helicopters and have had great results both in terms of accuracy and reduction in workload We also continue to evaluate market acceptability and feasibility And although each category of pilots wanted to use the system in slightly different ways the end result continues to be the same anticipation Every pilot thats tried our system wanted to know how soon they could get this in their aircraft After all when you get a last minute runway and or procedure change wouldnt you rather quickly say Heading 180 load ILS 16L set localizer minimums show approach chart with all commands being executed and get back to flying the aircraft so you can make a safe and successful approach and landing Yes we have made this possible and it might be coming to a cockpit near you Ryan Frankhouser Regional Director for the Americas UAS International Trip Support Defining and redefining faster Internet About 30 years ago not many people would have been able to predict just how important it is to be connected in todays environment Now we live our lives digitally We are inundated with an endless flow of information news statistics messages and comments Weve heard passengers say that their Wi Fi connection on the airplane is more important than the 2nd engine We all chuckle until the moment we realize that they are serious Advanced multimillion dollar business jets fly higher and go faster than anything else in the sky adorned with perfect carpets hand stitched leather seats immersive entertainment systems yet have some of the most depressing Internet connections on the planet Its understandable these rapid advances on the ground need to be tested thoroughly in the sky before the equipment can be certified as safe However these technological developments on the ground are moving at break neck speed Some 20 years ago the average US household had dial up Internet connection that provided speeds of 28 Kbps to 64 Kbps And 5 years after that we were introduced to Digital Subscriber Lines DSL capable of offering speeds closer to 1 Mbps As speeds began to increase the content started to become richer requiring more bandwidth The cable modem temporarily 20 PROFESSIONAL PILOT May 2017 Internet connectivity aloft is paramount to the office in the sky and inflight entertainment concepts Solutions exist from Aircell Gogo and Inmarsat SwiftBroadband offering connections that promise to close the gap between ground and airborne data transfer speeds solved those problems by offering speeds of 5 to 50 Mbps which typically provides adequate bandwidth for normal web usage spread across multiple devices During this time Inmarsat started offering 64 Kbps connections over the L band satcom network affectionately named Swift 64 Users could bond up to 4 channels together for a maximum throughput of 256 Kbps But there was 1 drawback a single channel of Swift 64 retailed for nearly 10 per minute so combining 4 channels would cost nearly 40 per minute As a result it would cost passengers what they spend every month on the ground for just 2 minutes in the sky at a fraction of the speed they were accustomed to on the ground Based on this demand the industry started to offer faster Internet connections to business aircraft Gulfstream started offering a joint ARINC ViaSat solution called SKYLink that communicated over Ku band satcom which is the medium that most satellite television providers use It was installed on aircraft under the moniker Broad Band Multi Link BBML and was decidedly faster than Inmarsats Swift 64 This Ku band solution was capable of speeds closer to 35 Mbps which was truly the 1st broadband solution in the aviation industry The drawback The service required a large antenna that did not fit on most business aircraft In addition the service footprint was not worldwide Over time ViaSat who purchased ARINCs share of the system rebranded the service as Yonder and began increasing the service footprint to a nearly global level During this time as we started our 1st fiber optic Internet trials at our homes 2 new technologies hit the market Aircell Gogo and Inmarsat SwiftBroadband Aircell already dominating in the Iridium services market began doing something unique They started taking advantage of increasing mobile data speeds and began pointing cell phone towers upwards to the sky A few on board antennas and routers later every bizav passenger had reasonably priced high speed data However while this was a strong reliable and economical solution it was not global About the same time Inmarsat stepped up their game with their next generation solution called SwiftBroadband which did not offer Yonder speeds What it did provide was a global footprint in addition to fitting on most aircraft being widely supported and far more affordable than Swift 64 Today as we transition into ground data connections based on fiber optic capable of speeds in excess of 1 Gbps for less than 50 per month we begin to pass the torch of ultimate inflight Internet provider back to Inmarsat Their Ka band satcom solution named Jet ConneX is set to take our airborne experiences to the next level With speed multiples greater than all of the other solutions maybe we can slowly start to close the gap between performance on the ground and performance in the air