Safety & Technology Trends

Air Safety Week, Oct 13, 2008

Air Traffic Controller Training Available

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has selected eight additional colleges or universities to participate in the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (CTI) program. Approved colleges and universities in the program prepare and train students interested in a career as an air traffic controller. The FAA plans to recruit and hire more than 17,000 new air traffic controllers over the next 10 years. Over the last three years, the agency has hired 5,000 new controllers and plans to hire more than 2,000 in fiscal year 2009. In the past five years, CTI schools have graduated more than 4,000 students from their aviation programs. Three thousand of those graduates were hired by the FAA. The addition of new schools in the program increases the number of CTI schools from 23 to 31. The schools are accredited and offer a non-engineering aviation degree.

Rockwell Collins to Provide EFBs for A320

Airbus has selected Rockwell Collins to provide side displays and docking stations for the new Class 2 electronic flight bag (EFB) on its A320 family of aircraft for both production and aftermarket applications. The system helps improve operational efficiency by electronically connecting airline and pilot operations. The system being provided by Rockwell Collins includes two dedicated touch screen, large-format displays integrated in both sides of the cockpit, and two docking stations that receive aircraft parameters from the avionics. Each docking station is capable of hosting a laptop running EFB application software. The EFB allows pilots to display applications hosted on their laptop or in the FlySmart with Airbus (FSA) server on two avionics grade side displays. The interface between the laptop and the side displays meet the Class 2 EFB industry standard.

Defibrillators for FAA Facilities

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will install automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in all agency facilities with 50 or more employees during the next year. "Our focus on aviation safety includes the safety and well-being of our own employees," said FAA Acting Administrator Robert A. Sturgell. "Together our labor groups and FAA management have made a very positive step to ensure our employees have enhanced safety in the workplace, and I applaud all parties for bringing this about." The deployment of AEDs is planned for a three- year period. In the first year, the FAA will put AEDs in facilities with 50 or more employees -- about 68 percent of the workforce. The FAA may deploy AEDs to the remaining FAA facilities with 10 or more employees during the following two years. FAA facilities experience an average of one sudden cardiac arrest per year among more than 46,000 employees. One or more vendors will provide the AEDs, cabinets, training, tracking, medical oversight, and replacement parts. Estimated cost of the contracts is $15 million over a 10-year period.

New Aircraft Carrier Landing System

A Rockwell Collins/Northrop Grumman/SAIC team has been selected by the U.S. Navy to execute the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) Increment 1 program. Rockwell Collins will provide Global Positioning System (GPS) and communications subsystems, systems engineering, test and logistics support. JPALS Increment 1 will provide the Navy a secure, all-weather shipboard landing system. It will use GPS technology and provide a survivable, day-night precision approach and landing capability for vessels afloat. Increment 1 will provide joint operational capability for U.S. forces to perform missions from shipboard environments under a wide range of meteorological and terrain conditions.

Healthy UH-60 Choppers

Goodrich has received a contract from the U.S. Army to provide up to 1,000 Vehicle Health Management Systems (VHMS) for UH-60A/L Black Hawk helicopters. The five-year contract is potentially valued at up to $300 million and covers deliveries through 2013. The VHMS will be produced by Goodrich's Sensors and Integrated Systems operations in Vergennes, VT. The VHMS monitors the entire helicopter mechanical drive train from the engines to the rotor system, flight manual exceedances, and hundreds of aircraft system signals. The system also includes a cockpit voice flight data recorder and crash survivable memory unit. Advanced information provided by VHMS alerts operators to take preventative maintenance steps that avoid collateral damage and more costly future repairs.

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