Supersonic Business Jets

Ever since everybody got fed up with the Concorde, supersonic travel has been very scarce. The Concorde was put out of commission for numerous reasons, like the sonic boom that would rattle windows from forty thousand feet, or the fact that it guzzled fuel more fuel at subsonic speeds than it did cruising at mach 1.2.

While the final flight of the Concorde was a punctuation mark on commercial jet travel because of the cost of operation and development, we must realize that private business travel is not limited by the constraints of money. Many business aircraft manufacturers are racing to produce a supersonic business jet, and many believe we will see them in action by 2018. The key issues regarding supersonic travel are:

• Eliminating or minimizing the sonic boom
• Increasing efficientcy of subsonic flight with supersonic airfoils
• Minimizing weight and unnecessary design techniques that are popular today

A company called Supersonic Aerospace International is working with Lockheed Martin on a project called Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST) in an effort to minimize the sonic boom factor that develops from sound waves building on specific points of the airframe. The sonic boom is basically a series of large shock waves. QSST has attempted to minimize this problem by creating many more shock waves that are smaller in addition to reducing the points that these shock waves build upon.

The biggest issue with the Concorde, was the fact that at subsonic speeds, it had to maintain a very high angle of attack due to its small, supersonic airfoil design. This created massive amounts of drag and required more fuel burn. The Aerion Corporation is working on a design that would maintain fuel efficiency at low airspeeds as well as reducing unnecessary weight. They do this not only with a new wing design, but also by removing all windows from the airplane. This reduces the need for structurally reinforced airframes. You can read more about the Aerion SBJ here. These changes to the business aircraft world affect me because, as a future corporate pilot, there is a very good chance I will be flying these aircraft.

Again, thanks for reading, and fly safe!

The United States Export-Import Bank

The United States Export-Import Bank is the government faction designated to persuade foreign buyers to purchase American made products. This is done in many ways, primarily by guaranteeing loan repayments and providing low-interest federal export financing. As an example, Quatar Airways ordered 30 Boeing 787-800 model aircraft outfitted with General Electric engines. The The United States Ex-Im bank provided them with loan guarantees and financing, while Delta Airlines, who ordered 18 787's, had to fend for themselves. While effective in generating business and revenue for local businesses like Boeing and many of its sub contractors, many consider this to be unfair to United States companies who are purchasing aircraft from their own country.

You can read more about Delta Air Line's challenge to the Ex-Im bank here.

In my personal opinion, the Ex-Im bank should continue to provide these incentives to foreign air carriers. While Boeing does make quality aircraft to compete with Airbus, The Ex-Im bank is clearly assisting in Boeing's sales. At the same time; however, the government should be providing local air carriers with some incentive as well for providing more jobs to the United States citizen, instead of not offering any support for aircraft financing. With the government helping out our local carriers, we can help "level the playing field" with our foreign competitors.

Thanks for reading, and fly safe!

Aviation Organizations

In class, we were asked to research a few different aviation organizations and charities to further increase our involvement in the industry. Because my aspirations are to become a corporate pilot, the obvious choice for me would be the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. The key thing that they provide to the General Aviation side of things, is political advocacy. Just last week, a bill in congress was passed to force pilots to go through intensive and expensive sleep apnea testing if they have a body mass index of over 40. Congress tried to get it changed to a BMI of 30; however, the FAA lowered the restrictions. Another political move the AOPA members in the House of Representatives recently did was introduce the General Aviation Pilot Protection Act which protects pilots if their medical is in jeopardy. You can read more about this bill here.

There are many other resources that are made available to AOPA members and the general public. Many safety seminars look good on any pilots record and can help out a lot in the cockpit. Education of pilots is one of the AOPA's mission points. A few more mission points are supporting activities that ensure the long-term health of General Aviation, and fighting to keep General Aviation accessible to all. Because private air travel is constantly seen in a negative light, especially since the big automaker's incident in 2008, the AOPA plays a critical role in ensuring that the General Aviation world stays alive.

A second organization that is more of a personal favorite of mine, is Every Kid Can Fly. Their goal is to bring interest to the aviation world and get kids interested in flying early. Specifically underprivlaged children who do not understand or believe they can get into the field, or do not have the financial means, will eventually be sponsored in a flight program.With more organizations like this, we will see much less of a pilot shortage and make the small aviation comunity just a bit bigger.

Thanks for reading, and fly safe!

Future plans

Recently, in class, we were asked what kind of job we would eventually hope to end up at and what kind of position. While a very valid question for any potential commercial pilot, someone like me, who eventually wants to fly corporate, would have a fairly difficult time being specific on this. I could name companies like Google, Microsoft, SAS, or any one of the massive companies that are on the Fortune 500's Top 100 companies to work for list, but for this exercise, and because I have had the opportunity to talk to many of these pilots, I would name NetJets as the company I would eventually want to work for.

Basic captains for NetJets typically start at around $87,000 a year and quickly move up. I would like to fly a Falcon 7X (if and when NetJets decides to get a fleet of them) because every pilot I have talked to who has flown any Falcon, not counting the cargo guys who fly Falcon 20s, said that it is the best aircraft that they have ever flown. NetJets pilots usually have 7 days on and 7 days off, and pilots have told me how they can rig their vacation days to have an entire 3 weeks of vacation time. Whenever they come to our FBO, they always get put up in the nicest hotel in the area, and NetJets pilots just seem to be generally happier than most Flight Options or FlexJet pilots that I usually talk to. NetJets seems to have a "Pilots First" attitude about the entire company.

More information about NetJets pay scale can be found here

From my own experiences with NetJets, they appear to be the safest fractional carrier out there. I once had a NetJets Citation Excel cancel his trip because the outer door release wasn't functioning properly. At first I thought this was overkill on safety, but the pilot explained that if something happened and everyone inside the airplane was unconscious or incapacitated, there would be no way of someone outside the plane to get inside and this made a lot of sense to me.

All of these attitudes that are circulating around NetJets can be referred to as a form of Professionalism. In my opinion Professionalism is functioning in the appropriate way that the organization, or individual is supposed to function, not for the sake of making money, or making the job easier, but because we are paid to do a job and it is our task to uphold our end of the deal.

We recently watched a Frontline documentary called Flying Cheep. This documentary exposed some of the unprofessional culture that was plaguing Colgan Air before the Dash-8 crashed in Buffalo, NY. Many examples of unprofessional behavior were outed in both the FAA and Colgan Air. The FAA refused to follow up on investigations into the safety culture of Colgan Air. Also, Colgan Air would do things like change the weight and balance data on their aircraft so that they could complete a trip.

Personally, if I were employed by NetJets or any private flight department, I would maintain my level of professionalism by ensuring the safest possible flight from point A to point B. This includes telling the passengers that a trip is unsafe and refusing to fly. From what I have heard, this gets much harder when the owner of the airplane is telling you to get in the cockpit, but I believe with the level of professionalism that NetJets provides, they will always back the pilots final decision to provide the safest possible private aircraft. Thanks for reading, and fly safe!

The NTSB's Shift in Focus

Just last week the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) held a press conference where they released their top ten "Most Wanted" safety related issues in the transportation world. Many old list items still remain from years past, like the need to eliminate distractions. This particular hot topic led to many attempted changes in the Federal Air Regulations, most notably the current Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) to ban personal electronics on the flight deck, the final ruling of  which should be decided on some time this month.

The much more important topic, in my opinion, is the shift in focus on General Aviation (GA). For the past couple of years, the list item was broadly labeled  as "Improve General Aviation Safety." This year, the NTSB has decided to focus attention on the identification and communication of hazardous weather conditions. It is their belief that many GA pilots are flying into dangerous weather conditions with aircraft that are unequipped to handle them, or conducting flights in these conditions without even knowing they are there. They are certainly correct in this assumption. At work, I see pilots landing below IFR minimums, attempting to take off during a snow storm or flying in low level wind shear conditions. Just the other week, I saw someone with a Bonanza take off into icing conditions without a second thought.

Although it was necessary to shift their focus away from something so broad, I believe the focus should have been placed more on complacency than weather. Our weather reporting system is still very strong, and with good judgement and proper flight planning, pilots can learn to know when to make the dreaded 'no go' call. By focusing on training and reducing pilot complacency, we can show some of the more careless pilots that the catastrophic can happen to them.

There are many pilots who do proper planning and still, by the luck of the draw, find themselves in dangerous weather conditions. Perhaps this is the focus that the NTSB was trying to bring to light. With this shift in focus perhaps we will have more weather stations throughout the United States. I personally was very intrigued when I toured the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Station in Pontiac last October.  Perhaps this change in the NTSB's Most Wanted list will bring many job opportunities for potential meteorologists.

In conclusion, the shift in focus should have been put on complacency and training as opposed to weather reporting. This is, however, only my opinion.

As always, Fly Safe.

Aircrafts Landing at the Wrong Airports

Due to the Southwest 737 that went to the wrong airport a week ago, the current hot topic on everyone's mind is: "How does a pilot actually make that mistake?" Despite what many people may think, it is actually quite easy to do and happens much more often in the General Aviation world. Many issues like complacency, lack of situational awareness, even questionable procedures, and even airports that may look similar can cause many instances like this to happen.

A similar instance in which a Douglas DC-8 landed in Iosco county airport happened because of the exact same reason as the 737 flight. The crew saw the runway going in the same direction as Oscoda's airport and also had the snow plows off to the side of the runway that they were looking for. To read more about this instance click here.

The Big problem with the DC-8 landing here, was that the runway was only 4,800 feet while the airport they were intending to land at had 11,800 feet to land and take off from. Luckily this happened in winter, so to get that 70 ton DC-8 out of that tiny airport, they just waited for a nice cold, high pressure day.

The biggest and probably most identifiable reason for this, in my opinion is complacency. Every jet that wants to fly above 18,000 feet must be on an IFR flight plan, and further more, a commercial flight like the southwest 737 must also fly an approach. If these southwest pilots were flying the non-precision approach correctly, they would have seen how far off course they were. If they programed in the wrong approach and pulled out the wrong plates, they should have verified to which airport the approach would have taken them to.

From a management perspective, the pilots should have been suspended. Not only is it extremely unsafe and a clear complacency issue, but it is also a matter of public image. As aviation professionals, we will always be in the spotlight, and if Southwest wants to maintain their image as a safe airline, it will want to show the public that they believe it was the pilots fault. Even if it wasn't, the airline will probably want a scapegoat.

In conclusion, things like this will continue to happen and will continue to make pilots look stupid if they act careless. As pilots, we should be taught to never let our guard down, especially on final approach. Thanks for reading, and as always, fly safe.

Personal Introduction

Hello everybody


My name is George Lippert and welcome to my blog. This blog will be primarily for Professor Walls senior seminar class: AVT 422, but may also be used for any current events, experiences I have had while at work or during training, or anything that may be related to aviation that I feel will belong on this blog.

I started flight training at Eastern Michigan University in November of 2011, because I finally decided that I wanted to be a pilot. I was 22 years old and had spent the past few years working full time as a pool mechanic at a local fitness center. I had absolutely no experience in the aviation industry and didn't know what to expect. I didn't even know that most airplanes held fuel in their wings.

Fast forward two years and I am now a instrument rated private pilot working on my commercial. I also managed to find a job in the industry as a Line Service Technician at Willow Run Airport. Now, I feel like I know a lot about the industry. I can say without a doubt that I learned more by working in the field than any class could have taught me. I have developed contacts in both the cargo world and corporate world of aviation and would strongly recommend to anyone reading that wants to get in the industry, to go pump gas into an airplane and see what kind of doors it opens up for you.

This is the company I work at: http://avflight.com/YIP-EAST/index.aspx

Thanks for reading, and Fly Safe