Career Plan

My career aspirations have not changed, but this class does help you get a better sense of what else is out there in the aviation world. The reason as to why my career aspirations have not changed, because what I want to do for my career, I have wanted to do for a long time and that is what has gotten me to this point in my life. And I am not going to change now.

But like I said earlier that this class gives you a chance to see what else is out there. One of the speakers that made me think of a career change is when the guy from ATC came in and spoke. It was mainly the money that made me think of changing, because of the student loans that I have accumulated over the last few years. But I love flying too much to give that up to be a controller.

Four goals over the next five years:

1.    Graduate from Eastern Michigan University

2.    Join the United States Armed Forces

3.    Retire out of the military after 20 years

4.    Get more involved in the industry i.e. go to more aviation meetings

Big Ideas

WOW Airlines is an Iceland-based company that is currently from Baltimore and Boston to Reykjavik for as little as $400 round-trip. They use the Airbus A320 for the five-to-six hour trip. They are using smaller jets so they need fewer passengers to fill them, which in turn reduces their risk for not filling the planes. And charging on $400 round-trip, it almost guarantees you will get all the passengers you need.

La Compagnie is a French-based company that is currently flying from New York City and Paris. They use a 74 seat, all business class seating 757 and La Compagnie charges around $2,000 round-trip. They are trying to do a low cost, point-to-point, long-haul market. La Compagnie promises everything the legacy carriers do except a crowded airplane.

WOW Air is more for short to medium hauls as compared to La Compagnie which is more of a long-haul carrier. La Compagnie uses Boeing 757 fitted with 74 business class seating and WOW uses Airbus A320. Both have the same philosophy low cost airfares and try to limit the time of the airplane on the ground. I think WOW Air will be more successful, because they are more focused on the short to medium hauls instead of the long haul like La Compagnie. Focusing on the short to medium haul in my opinion has more of a consumer base than the long hauls. This in turn means if you have lower airfares and a small plane then you never have to worry about having a flight with a bunch of empty seats.

I think the overall global impact of these types of airlines is good for the market. These companies are trying to use the same model as Southwest Airlines used and it has been successful here so why can’t it work in the international market. I think that these business models are going to make the market more competitive, which is a good thing.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/03/airlines-wow-air-ceo-idUKL6N0ST34K20141103

Space Tourism

The Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two was cruising around on October 31, 2014 at about 50,000 feet when it broke up over Southern California. Early speculation was that the engine and the type of fuel was the cause of the accident, however according to the NTSB noted that the engine and the fuel tanks were intact. Now the NTSB’s focus is now on the feathering mechanism that moves the wing booms into the reentry configuration. The lock/unlock lever was pulled prematurely based on recorded speed and the aerodynamics had caused the wings and vehicle to separate in-flight.

Space tourism has been a subject of debate for a while and the earliest that I remember hearing about it was around the early 2000’s. But I was little thought it would be awesome to be on that flight. Virgin Galactic has made been making headlines over the last few years with their unique designs for space vehicles. Also they sell tickets for flights into space.

For the most part there are not a lot due to the FAA was trying to support the industry, but after this accident I think that they will revisit that stance. However, the companies have to acquire test permits and Congress had imposed some more “Red Tape” back in 2004 and that has been extended to 2015.

I see space tourism going far but I think that the first passenger flight won’t happen for another 20 years. I think that it will only be for the rich and then after a long time, it might become more affordable for the general public. But that is going to take a long time before that happens.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532336/virgin-galactic-tragedy-may-mean-new-space-tourism-rules/

Norwegian Air International

The company is based in Ireland to avoid the labor laws in Norway and they will not fly to or from Ireland. The pilots will be “rented” from Singapore and based in Thailand. Also, the pilots will have individual employment contracts that do not allow collective bargaining and contain wages and working conditions that are far below the pilots who fly for NAI’s parent company. Their destinations are Thailand, Europe, New York, and Fort Lauderdale. And in 2014, NAI had plans to expand its flights to Europe and New York, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, and Orlando.

The US Carriers oppose NAI, because NAI can lower their fares, because they have shopped around for lower working standards. So it gives NAI an unfair advantage over any US carrier that is competing for the International business. NAI just doesn’t pose a threat to the US carriers, but all airlines in the global market. But for the routes into the US, the US carriers would not be getting the international business, because NAI would have their fares so low that US carriers cannot compete.

The DOT denied NAI request, because NAI isn’t fair competition in the international market. I do agree with the decision, because if they are allowed to operate into the US, then it will for the most part kill the domestic carriers. If you allow this type of carrier to enter the US, then there will be 100 that will pop-up overnight following the same business model and these companies will be doing international and domestic flight in the US. Then it will be one set of rules for carriers like NAI and another for companies like Delta or American, which isn’t fair and will put Delta and American out of business. Another problem I have with the business model of NAI is: all NAI is doing is trying to skirt the laws, but a big problem for governments is if something goes wrong who is held responsible. Is Ireland responsible, because that is where NAI has their certificate of operations from? Or is it Singapore, because that is where the pilots are being “rented” from?

The ramifications of NAI if they are granted to operate in the US is: they are going to put our domestic carriers out of business, because other companies will start adopting the same business model as NAI. There will be only flights to airports that are going to make the company money and it will just be inconvenient to the people here in the US. All NAI will do is kill the US airline economy, which will only hurt our overall economy, which we do not need.

 

Links

http://www.alpa.org/Portals/Alpa/PressRoom/PressReleases/2014/2-5-14_14.11.htm

http://www.alpa.org/Portals/Alpa/deptpages/govtaffairs/issues/nai/NAISchemeInfoGr.htm

UAVs

Applications for UAVs in the civilian world would be like: pipeline inspection, hurricane monitoring, traffic monitoring, aerial surveying, volcano monitoring, forestry inspection, oil spill tracking are just to name a few. In the United States for small UAVs you have to acquire a Certificate of Authorization (COA) through the FAA, but currently these certificates are only limited to federal, state, and local government agencies, and restricted flying to specified areas. The typical requirements for acquiring a COA include: Flights below 400 ft. agl, daytime operation in VFR conditions, range limited to Visual Line of Sight, and greater than 5 miles from an airport.

 

I do foresee UAVs integrating into the NAS, but for the use as I have stated above. I don’t think that there will ever be a demand for UAVs for the airlines, but maybe for some of the large cargo companies like UPS or FedEx. The problem I see with UAVs are when you start putting people in the skies with UAVs flying around and someone has not seen on and gets up close so they can get a picture. Plus, if a person is behind the controls they can only see what is shown on the screen in front of them so there is no sense of situational awareness where when you are the person flying the plane you are constantly looking around.

 

I would say that with the introduction of UAVs that it has changed military strategy. It has changed their strategy by arming the UAVs and taking out High Value Targets so then we don’t have to send in a plane that has a human on board. It also lets us stay over a target area for hours instead of only a few hours or minutes with the human-piloted planes or the satellites orbiting the earth. I would say that there integration has been efficient if you can send in a UAV that can stay on station for 10-12 hours instead of a pilot who is getting tired after 2 hours, then you are being more efficient cause then you don’t have to send up 1 or 2 more planes to do the job of just 1 UAV. Also, since the most of the UAVs are armed and with their long operation time that they can potentially become a game changer if your troops are under heavy attack.

 

Link to a job for UAV pilot at General Atomics https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWebHost/jobdetails.aspx?jobId=792465&&JobReqLang=1&recordstart=1&JobSiteId=5313&JobSiteInfo=792465_5313&GQId=0&PartnerId=25539&SiteId=5313#4023BR

 

http://www.uavm.com/uavapplications.html

Corporate Aviation

Some differences of corporate careers as compared to the airlines is that it seems like you become more diverse in the type of aircraft you fly, no structured schedule, and upgrade faster. As compared to the airlines where you only fly one type of aircraft with possible switching to another type of aircraft if there are positions, have a structured schedule and the airlines promise that you will be upgraded in a certain amount of time, but it seems to never work out like that. So just going off of these basic differences I would chose a career in the corporate field.

 

Do corporations need their own private planes to travel around? There are people who don’t think that the corporations should and they should travel like the rest of the general public. I think the images of the auto industry CEOs showing up to Washington D.C. asking for money to bail them out of bankruptcy didn’t help this issue. However, the corporations actually save money by having their own planes, because they can go to airports of their choosing as long as the aircraft can land and takeoff; and not just where the airlines go. And in the business world TIME is MONEY. So if the corporation’s management can get to more places without having to go through security or waiting during a layover than they are saving money. I think that the corporations are saving money by having their own planes.

 

McDonald’s back in 2012 was rated the best flight department. The department at that time was operating a Bombardier Global 6000 and Challenger 300 to get their executives around the globe in a safe, secure, and efficient manner. They were scheduled to replace the Challenger 600 with a Challenger 605 later that year. The headquarters is based in Oak Brook, IL. They have subteams that are responsible for each aircraft. The McDonald’s pilots log an average of 30-35 flight hours and 3-5 overnight trips per month. And most of the trips are overseas.

 

http://www.propilotmag.com/archives/2012/December%2012/A2_McDonalds_p1.html

NextGen

NextGen is a satellite-based radar system that is supposed to improve safety, capacity, and efficiency at the airports and in the air. NextGen is to be implemented in 2020. There is a deadline of January 1, 2020 to get all aircraft equipped with new avionics to work with this new radar system. NextGen will improve safety by improving the radar reports to the air traffic controllers with more accuracy instead of the current ground-based system with a 4 to 5 second delay. NextGen uses a system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), which is the avionics that are to be installed on all aircraft by the January deadline. ADS-B equipped aircraft will broadcast their position to air traffic controllers and other airplanes in the air, which increases situational awareness and safety.

 

NextGen Implementation Plan report had projected a reduction in delays by 41 percent by the middle of the implementation period in 2020. There are benefits to this new system like reduction in carbon emissions and fuel burned that are due to delay. A 2013 article stated that carbon emissions are projected to be down by 16 million metric tons and fuel consumptions to be down by 1.6 billion gallons. And that is 7 percent reduction in fuel consumption as compared to the reports for fuel consumption in 2011.

 

The FAA had first deployed the ADS-B system in remote areas of Alaska that has no radar coverage and equipped over 300 aircraft with the ADS-B system. And with more radar coverage for controllers and improved situational awareness created a 47 percent decline in fatal accidents rates with ADS-B equipped aircraft. That is a tremendous result and that is a huge positive, but with the downfall of this system is money.

 

I think that the fees and taxes should be applied to anything that is needed for the operators, especially for making them getting a whole new avionics system. If every aircraft has to get this ADS-B system, then that is a lot of money for companies like Delta or Southwest, etc. to switch. If the fees and taxes were going to make this system more affordable for the operators, so the operators would not have to raise their prices to pay for this system. I think that is a big question for the FAA, because one of their jobs is to promote the aviation industry, and how are they promoting the aviation industry if the airlines are forced to raise their prices to pay for the ADS-B system.

 

This new system will affect my career by possibly having to go through more complex systems training. Also, this system will help improve my situational awareness and safety so that there will be less mid-air collisions or TCAS resolution. It just seems like this system is taking a bunch of system that we currently have and putting them into one system. Which I think is stupid, because what happens when the system crashes and that is something to think about.

 

 

Links

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-international-news/2013-08-01/nextgen-implementation-update-signals-further-progress

 

http://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/11693826/faa-calls-on-the-aviation-industry-to-equip-for-nextgen-and-help-increase-safety-and-efficiency