10-14-2017, 12:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-14-2017, 12:46 PM by thorn bird.)
Thought provoking??
Time For Innovation: Grandfatherly Flying Is So Yesterday
Sep 22, 2017 William Garvey | Business & Commercial Aviation
This year my car turned 17, making it a senior four-wheeled citizen since the median for flivvers is less than 10. However, the average age of a general aviation aircraft today is roughly 40 years. Think about that for a moment. An ancient iPhone is one purchased way back in 2014. Sofa beds get tossed after five years‘ worth of guests, kids and cats. A giant panda is gone after 20. And cars are deemed “classic” at 25. So, that a fleet of mobile machinery now averages two score — and many are a lot older than that — is quite a testament to durability and upkeep.
But there are other reasons for that impressive seniority. Today I pulled BCA’s 1987 Purchase Planning Handbook from the shelf (yes, I’m a bit of a hoarder), and found these stats for the then-new Beech Bonanza A36: seating — 1+4/5; engine — 300 hp; max ramp weight — 3,663 lb.; max speed — 176 kt. Compare those numbers with the G36 Bonanza in our 2017 Handbook: seating — 1+4/5; engine — 300 hp; max ramp weight — 3,663 lb.; high-speed cruise — 174 kt.
So, while the cockpit instrumentation has been markedly improved on the G model, the 2017 machine delivers almost exactly what its A model predecessor did back when Ronald Reagan was exhorting Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
Oh, and another point. The 1987 Bonanza sold for $263,000, which admittedly was a chunk of dough back then. But the 2017 version is listed at $815,000, which is, respectively, a whole lot bigger chunk. In fact, that’s double the rate of inflation.
The foregoing factors combined to move just 25 Bonanzas off the production line last year, one in which single-engine aircraft failed to break the 1,000 mark . . . for the eighth year running. So, the post-Recession general aviation recession vexingly continues. But there are some encouraging developments that could produce positive results.
My Aviation Week & Space Technology colleague John Croft notes, “The convergence of four factors — electric engine technology, powerful lithium-chemistry batteries, automatic control systems and flexible new regulations — is opening new ‘degrees of freedom’ in aircraft design.”
FLEXIBLE NEW REGULATIONS??..compared with CAsA's innovative industry destroying Part 61and Part 66 which are about as flexible as a brick.
Arguably of those, the key is regulatory, specifically the new FAR Part 23, which contains the airworthiness standards for light aircraft.
THE KEY IS REGULATORY??..Well fancy that
The FAA is supposed to review all its major regulatory sections every decade. However, by the time it got around to eyeballing Part 23 in the early 2000s, 30 years had passed. And when the review began, the discussions and areas of interest were based on how things had always been. Greg Bowles, who was the General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s participant, thought the process was ripe for radical change. As it happened, the FAA agreed.
Ripe for change? Yep we saw that thirty years ago, even threw half a billion dollars at the mission of simplifying our rules only to be thwarted by CAsA,s unions and incompetent clowns in control of the iron ring
The process that followed was deliberate and slow, but the results are formidable. In the rewrite of Part 23, which came into effect at the end of August, the rules are prescriptive rather than performance based, allowing manufacturers to use consensus standards to show compliance. The European Aviation Safety Agency has adopted light plane rules that are virtually identical, and other aviation regulatory bodies are expected to follow suit, which was one of the goals of the process.
Jeez, even the Europeans got on board, recognising their reg's, which we were supposed to adopt, wrecked their GA industry
According to Bowles, now GAMA’s vice president for global innovation and policy, the new approach enables manufacturers to “actually design and innovate and put the cool stuff in the field.”
That “stuff” is for others to imagine and bring to the fore but could conceivably range from electric and hybrid-electric power to pilotless aircraft to who knows what? The hope is that by adapting rapidly evolving technology to general aviation, prices and complexity will diminish, while safety and general appeal increase. All of those would be welcome developments considering the steady decline of the pilot population and apparent lack of interest in general aviation by millennials in general.
Supposedly this is a generation that doesn’t drive, let alone own cars. So, they’re not likely to embrace expensive, complex flying machines designed when their grandfathers were young. “That’s why this stuff is so important,” says Bowles.
We’ll see. As he says, “Now it’s in our hands.” Or not in any hands.
Barry Justice, the president and CEO of Corporate Aviation Analysis & Planning Inc., a well-regarded business aviation consultancy, who is a former director of flight ops for a Fortune 100 outfit, says there’s heavy investing ongoing to advance flight control technology quickly and business aviation is involved.
He reports that in the past two years, he knows of three flight department managers who were informed that their companies — two insurance providers and one utility — were buying unmanned aerial vehicles and that “The drones now report to you.” More will follow that pattern; it makes sense.
As for flying in pilotless urban Ubers, we’ll see. Justice queried associates and got a Never! response. But he says, if proven safe, he’d hop aboard. As for me, I’d consider trading in my M Coupe only after Google releases its 2,000th FAA-certificated passenger drone.
Any chance this forward thinking change happening in OZ?
Not a chance. Noble cause corruption will see to that.
Time For Innovation: Grandfatherly Flying Is So Yesterday
Sep 22, 2017 William Garvey | Business & Commercial Aviation
This year my car turned 17, making it a senior four-wheeled citizen since the median for flivvers is less than 10. However, the average age of a general aviation aircraft today is roughly 40 years. Think about that for a moment. An ancient iPhone is one purchased way back in 2014. Sofa beds get tossed after five years‘ worth of guests, kids and cats. A giant panda is gone after 20. And cars are deemed “classic” at 25. So, that a fleet of mobile machinery now averages two score — and many are a lot older than that — is quite a testament to durability and upkeep.
But there are other reasons for that impressive seniority. Today I pulled BCA’s 1987 Purchase Planning Handbook from the shelf (yes, I’m a bit of a hoarder), and found these stats for the then-new Beech Bonanza A36: seating — 1+4/5; engine — 300 hp; max ramp weight — 3,663 lb.; max speed — 176 kt. Compare those numbers with the G36 Bonanza in our 2017 Handbook: seating — 1+4/5; engine — 300 hp; max ramp weight — 3,663 lb.; high-speed cruise — 174 kt.
So, while the cockpit instrumentation has been markedly improved on the G model, the 2017 machine delivers almost exactly what its A model predecessor did back when Ronald Reagan was exhorting Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
Oh, and another point. The 1987 Bonanza sold for $263,000, which admittedly was a chunk of dough back then. But the 2017 version is listed at $815,000, which is, respectively, a whole lot bigger chunk. In fact, that’s double the rate of inflation.
The foregoing factors combined to move just 25 Bonanzas off the production line last year, one in which single-engine aircraft failed to break the 1,000 mark . . . for the eighth year running. So, the post-Recession general aviation recession vexingly continues. But there are some encouraging developments that could produce positive results.
My Aviation Week & Space Technology colleague John Croft notes, “The convergence of four factors — electric engine technology, powerful lithium-chemistry batteries, automatic control systems and flexible new regulations — is opening new ‘degrees of freedom’ in aircraft design.”
FLEXIBLE NEW REGULATIONS??..compared with CAsA's innovative industry destroying Part 61and Part 66 which are about as flexible as a brick.
Arguably of those, the key is regulatory, specifically the new FAR Part 23, which contains the airworthiness standards for light aircraft.
THE KEY IS REGULATORY??..Well fancy that
The FAA is supposed to review all its major regulatory sections every decade. However, by the time it got around to eyeballing Part 23 in the early 2000s, 30 years had passed. And when the review began, the discussions and areas of interest were based on how things had always been. Greg Bowles, who was the General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s participant, thought the process was ripe for radical change. As it happened, the FAA agreed.
Ripe for change? Yep we saw that thirty years ago, even threw half a billion dollars at the mission of simplifying our rules only to be thwarted by CAsA,s unions and incompetent clowns in control of the iron ring
The process that followed was deliberate and slow, but the results are formidable. In the rewrite of Part 23, which came into effect at the end of August, the rules are prescriptive rather than performance based, allowing manufacturers to use consensus standards to show compliance. The European Aviation Safety Agency has adopted light plane rules that are virtually identical, and other aviation regulatory bodies are expected to follow suit, which was one of the goals of the process.
Jeez, even the Europeans got on board, recognising their reg's, which we were supposed to adopt, wrecked their GA industry
According to Bowles, now GAMA’s vice president for global innovation and policy, the new approach enables manufacturers to “actually design and innovate and put the cool stuff in the field.”
That “stuff” is for others to imagine and bring to the fore but could conceivably range from electric and hybrid-electric power to pilotless aircraft to who knows what? The hope is that by adapting rapidly evolving technology to general aviation, prices and complexity will diminish, while safety and general appeal increase. All of those would be welcome developments considering the steady decline of the pilot population and apparent lack of interest in general aviation by millennials in general.
Supposedly this is a generation that doesn’t drive, let alone own cars. So, they’re not likely to embrace expensive, complex flying machines designed when their grandfathers were young. “That’s why this stuff is so important,” says Bowles.
We’ll see. As he says, “Now it’s in our hands.” Or not in any hands.
Barry Justice, the president and CEO of Corporate Aviation Analysis & Planning Inc., a well-regarded business aviation consultancy, who is a former director of flight ops for a Fortune 100 outfit, says there’s heavy investing ongoing to advance flight control technology quickly and business aviation is involved.
He reports that in the past two years, he knows of three flight department managers who were informed that their companies — two insurance providers and one utility — were buying unmanned aerial vehicles and that “The drones now report to you.” More will follow that pattern; it makes sense.
As for flying in pilotless urban Ubers, we’ll see. Justice queried associates and got a Never! response. But he says, if proven safe, he’d hop aboard. As for me, I’d consider trading in my M Coupe only after Google releases its 2,000th FAA-certificated passenger drone.
Any chance this forward thinking change happening in OZ?
Not a chance. Noble cause corruption will see to that.