Professional Pilot, October 2018

End to end data flow Connect Talk Think the other components and the growth of aircraft in terms of bizav helos commercial transports and yes Unmanned Air Vehicles UAVs as well The goal of the expanded data analytics is to improve fleet operational reliability through predictive and preventative maintenance and to enable the operators to report with a single click on the computer The 5G effect The considerable barrier to economic sharing of maintenance data is how to get it off the aircraft directly into the database With large amounts of new information being transmitted from aircraft on a continuous basis the requirements to broaden the data transmission channels in the future could be the limiting factor But this is where the cell phone business now a global network has gone from its early stages of just voice communications to essentially connecting and powering hand held computers Today our 80 PROFESSIONAL PILOT October 2018 Whole aircraft monitoring Case study GE aviation Asset productivity minimize disruptions improved forecasting 3 Isolate root causes 3 Identify sub optimal performance parts 3 Minimize disruptions smartphones work with mostly what we know as 3G and 4G Long Term Evolution LTE networks which provide connectivity through cell towers The data rates and improvement between 3G and 4G LTE networks is noticeable but still incremental And the new 5G networks are designed for allowing transit of 1000 times more data Just to compare 3G smartphones can receive data and video calls at 2 Mbps while 4G runs at Gigabit speed But the new 5G has ambitions of data transfer rates as high as 20 Gigabit far greater than the 1 Gigabit speeds we have today The new cell phone networks will provide ultra HD and 3 D video as well as internet access More importantly the 5G networks will most likely become the backbone of anything related to transportation from autonomous cars and robots to running a city networked machinery Of course the ability for data collection and dissemination fits into aviation Connecting worldwide all of the information from each component comparing and sharing in real time analysis of an engine or system based on a large data pool available through aircraft networks via 5G connectivity is seen as the next evolution The software screw driver What makes Big Data work is the sensors that now come with engines APUs and other systems on the aircraft It has been shown that a typical aircraft is flying with over 24 databases and those databases are loaded onto hardware that is interacting with the aircraft and other databases collecting and sharing information Now expand the universe of each of these systems to other aircraft around the world and you have a massive treasure trove of information that can be used to predict what will most likely happen to a similar system on your aircraft Back in an earlier day I read stories of how B 36 bomber crews would work on the engines in flight To me visualizing a guy with a wrench inside a wing spar and moving parts was just crazy talk but in reality the crews did this to keep the aircraft flying for their missions Today the idea of canceling a flight or landing early to fix a problem is unthinkable in business but in fact it happens every day However now there is a way to discover and fix problems and the magic of software and real time data analysis is at the root of this new form of aviation science What is also new is the skill sets to provide the service and the option to the workhorse aircraft operator to buy a service rather than cover the overhead of more people within the flight department Its a new standard in the progress of aviation a step similar to leaving reciprocating engines for the hot air kind Big Data is not hot air but just as efficient in time and fuel savings Glenn Connor is president of Discover Technology Intl He is a pilot and a researcher specializing in the development of enhanced vision systems and advanced avionics Act GE Aviation and others have begun to implement aircraft engine monitoring systems that capture track and analyze large amounts of data to identify problem areas before they occur Illustrations courtesy GE