The Chinese Competitor: C919

The COMAC C919 is a Chinese commercial aircraft that is aimed at competing with Boeing and Airbus. Unlike Boeing and Airbus designs, the C919 is not certified for use outside China. Right now the problem is that the FAA doesn’t recognize the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) as a certification agency. (Perrett, 2013) This is the biggest hold up on the Chinese aircraft from being certified outside of Chinese airspace. I believe that there is a chance for it to be certified in the United States, it just will not happen for a long time.

If the C919 got certified in the United States, it could lower the price of Boeing and Airbus. It is no guarantee that it will, but in order for Airbus and Boeing to compete with a Chinese aircraft price. The biggest reason for the lower price in the long run would come from Chinese wages being lower than western countries. If an airline bought a Chinese aircraft, majority of the general public would not notice the aircraft. Most of the public couldn’t even tell the difference between aircraft from the same company or a Boeing from an Airbus.

COMAC is a Chinese aircraft manufacturer that is run by the government of China. They work with the CAAC on the aircraft as COMAC is China’s aviation company to introduce China into the worldwide aviation community. (COMAC) COMAC has another product they have worked on, it is called the ARJ21. As stated before it is a smaller aircraft to get China into the regional jet sectors. It can carry 90 passengers, fly 1,382 miles at an altitude of of 39,000 feet. (COMAC)

If the C919 were to get certified by the FAA, I do not believe more companies would join them into trying to manufacture airliners. Developing an airline is expensive as well as getting it certified. The Chinese were able to because they had their government help fund them in making their aircraft. Another factor that would limit other manufacturers, is that COMAC can manufacture their aircraft cheaper than Airbus and Boeing. This helps them get into the market, if another manufacturer in the west wouldn’t be able to compete with the price of the Chinese aircraft, nor could it compete with the reputations of Airbus and Boeing.

I have not found any information regarding Airbus and Boeing  reacting to the C919. This is both surprising and unsurprising to me.  I find it surprising because there hasn’t been much competition against them in recent years. With the C919, it shows that China is not afraid to take them on and could be a real contender against them. However, this is not surprising because of how hard it will be for COMAC to be seen as a competitor in the aviation community against Boeing and Airbus. Both of these companies have a very good reputation that any company would have a hard time competing against, let alone a newer Chinese company.

Company Profile_Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (n.d.). Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://english.comac.cc/aboutus/introduction/

Perrett, B. (2013, December 16). C919 May Be Largely Limited To Chinese Market. Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://aviationweek.com/awin/c919-may-be-largely-limited-chinese-market

Perrett, B. (2015, January 20). With ARJ21-700 Certified, Focus Shifts To Support. Retrieved October 29, 2016, from http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/arj21-700-certified-focus-shifts-support

Commercial Space

April 28, 2001 Dennis Tito went to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz capsule for eight days, starting the commercial space race. (Wall, 2011) The commercial space race has then become more competitive with different companies entering the race. Such companies include Virgin Galactic and SpaceX. Both companies aim to bring space travel open to more of the public. Unfortunately, there are problems holding it back from bringing space to the public. One such problem is the cost of space travel, SpaceX will cost about 20 million dollars in order to fly with them into space. (Space Tourism: How Much Should You Save For A Space Trip?, n.d.) This limits the potential buyers to the top 1%.  Other hurdles would be safety, space travel has never been the safest, making space travel safe would help ensure that the people are more comfortable going to space if/when it becomes affordable to the general public.

Comparing the regulations of space travel to air travel, there are far fewer regulations. The regulations for space travel are contained in Title 14 of the CFR’s. Specifically they are in parts 400-460. (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, n.d.) Most of these regulations contain that information on launch sites, how to launch, re-entry, pilot qualifications, and safety. Most of these regulations came from the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984. (Price, 2010) I believe as long as safety is the number one priority and no compromises are made to safety, the regulations don’t need to be more restrictive at the moment. Since the industry is new, more restrictive regulations could prevent more companies from trying to start in this industry. If there are unsafe practices going on, then more restrictive regulations will have to be put in place to assure the public that safety is paramount.

I feel space travel at the moment is still at least 20 years away from the being affordable for the general public. It will make leaps in technology to make it more viable and reliability. Technology and interest in space has spiked, and with NASA not doing manned missions anymore, more people are showing interest in exploring space. Now that private companies are at the spearhead, space exploration and space tourism will be here sooner than if the government was front runner in the space tourism race. At first this will be a 1-time vacation sort of deal, but then later evolve into a means for fast transportation. This wouldn’t be viable though far beyond when space tourism is available for the general public.

To become a pilot to fly in space, they must have: a bachelor’s degree at an accredited college in engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. They also must have 1,000 hours of PIC. They must have 20/50 eyesight corrected to 20/20 and a maximum blood pressure of 140/190. They also cannot be shorter than 5 foot 4 inches and 6 foot 5 inches. (Lethbridge, 2000)

Lethbridge, C. (2000). Spaceline: U.S. Astronaut Drafts: NASA Group 8. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://spaceline.org/astronauts/stsqualif.html

Price, H. J. (2010, June 28). Fact Sheet: Commercial Space Transportation. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=11559

Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=e88e980f1d8e363aa7e5e9247547e381&mc=true&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title14/14cfr417_main_02.tpl

Space Tourism: How Much Should You Save For A Space Trip? (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2016, from https://financesonline.com/space-tourism-how-much-should-you-save-for-a-space-trip/

Wall, M. (2011, April 27). First Space Tourist: How a U.S. Millionaire Bought a ... Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.space.com/11492-space-tourism-pioneer-dennis-tito.html

Drones

UAVs currently are in their infancy being compared to the aviation industry. Most of the UAVs are small aircraft weighing no more than 5 or 10 pounds. This limits their uses of what they can do in the civilian market. Most of the business that these small uavs are capable of doing are photography related. A lot are also used to gather information. (Thompson, 2015) Regulations for drones have just passed Congress and the FAA has put them into effect. These regulations limit how fast the drones can travel and the weight they can carry. It also limits their use to “line-of-sight” use only. This means the pilot must be able to see the drone in order to operate it. This is to help the pilot avoid other air traffic while operating their drone. Another provision put in the regulations to keep these drones from interfering and possibly colliding with aircraft, is that they must fly below 400 feet AGL and outside of airport’s airspace.

As technology improves with drones, I foresee drones starting to get integrated into the National Airspace System (NAS). With NextGen, I see UAV’s becoming more prominent because the collision avoidance systems will be much more accurate. We already have production cars that can drive themselves in the Tesla model S’s autopilot mode, and the military has been using drones for several years now, it’s only a matter of time before civilian drones are flying in our NAS. I do believe though that this won’t be the case for a long time, at least within the next 20 years. However, the training to become a drone pilot (especially to fly commercially and when they become larger aircraft that can actually carry material) will have to be more extensive and will probably require a system of certificates much like how pilots have different certifications. Unlike pilots, a drone’s vision for its pilot (if they become more like our military’s drones) is going to be from cameras and GPS satellites. If these become unavailable or the pilot loses control of the drone, then it will likely crash and could cause injury to anyone on the ground.

As said previously, the military has been using drones extensively for several years now. However, drones have not replaced the roles for pilots in aircraft. The largest mission that drones participate in is the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) mission. This means their primary purpose is to gather information about a target. There are drones that can destroy ground targets, but there are far fewer of them. The military also uses drones to test air-to-air missile systems as well, these are normally retired F-4 Phantoms and F-16’s that have been converted into target drones. Gathering information via drones has changed the strategy of the military. Instead of sending a pilot flying an aircraft to gather information, they send a drone to get this information, because the drone is cheaper if it is lost than a trained pilot and their aircraft. However, it was found that in 4 studies that recorded the ratio of militants to civilians killed by drone strikes, anywhere between 4-20 percent of the deaths caused by drones were civilians. (Shane, 2012) However, the drones did prove their worth in the ISR field when an RQ-170 was used to gather intelligence for the raid that killed Bin Laden. (Reed, 2011)

Reed, J. (2011, May 07). RQ-170 Stealth Drone Used in Bin Laden Raid - Defensetech. Retrieved October 14, 2016, from http://www.defensetech.org/2011/05/18/rq-170-sentinel-stealth-drone-used-in-bin-laden-raid/

Shane, S. (2012, July 14). The Moral Case for Drones. Retrieved October 14, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/sunday-review/the-moral-case-for-drones.html?_r=0

Thompson, M. (2015, February 6). Jobs for Drones Are Set to Take Off. Retrieved October 14, 2016, from http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/jobs-drones-are-set-take-n301506

Cargo Operations and the New Flight Duty Regs

After Colgan Air accident in 2009, the FAA introduced new flight duty regulations in order to combat fatigue and inexperience in the aviation industry. The first is that they increased the amount of rest for pilots in between flights from 8 hours to 10 hours. This will give pilots more time to get to where they are staying for the night and also any paperwork they must do before they go to sleep.

    They also added the changed the amount of minimum hours it takes to achieve an ATP certificate from 250 hours to 1500 hours of flight time. (Thurber, 2013) This is a large increase in hours in order to become a first officer in an airline flying 121 operations. For many pilots out of flight school, this forces them into flying for regional airlines, flight instructing, or flying cargo operations for the beginning of their careers. Most of these starting jobs pay far less, as was discussed in the last blog, than most jobs that require college degrees.

    Cargo operations are exempt from these flight duty regulations. Cargo pilots still have 8 hours rest in between flights, and can fly longer than the 8-9 hours an airline pilot cannot exceed. This means that cargo pilots can fly more hours with less sleep and do it more often than 121 operations. Cargo operations though fly a different schedule than 121 pilots. Cargo is a fast paced industry where goods need to get shipped quickly and with little notice on when they need to get moved for some operations. This makes it difficult and very expensive to have cargo pilots flying less than they are now. The FAA has not made cargo carriers follow the regulations because the cost of following the regulation (projected 550 million) would outweigh the cost of an accident within the industry. (Carrol, 2014)

    Trying to balance profit with safety is always a difficult thing to do in any industry. It is especially difficult in the aviation industry because flying is inherently dangerous in itself, so with it comes a lot of safety regulations, which make it very expensive as is for the companies to operate. This makes me believe that if the cargo operators make it work, then I do not have a problem with them following the old regulations. Cargo operations are a different industry than flying passengers in itself, let alone the pace at which it must be done. Time is money, especially in transporting goods. Unlike 121 operations, cargo has to be flexible since they are not scheduled to fly from specific airports at specific times. Overall, the cargo industry also puts less people in danger than a 121 operation does since they do not fly passengers, which is another reason I feel that they don’t need to be as strict as 121 operators on rest.

    These regulations won’t affect my career path very much, if at all. Since I plan on flying with the Air Force, I am already committed to 10 years after i get my wings. This means that I will have about 11-12 years to get more than 1500 hours (less hours actually for military pilots, but I’m using this number to compare to someone who came out of a flight school that isn’t part 141 certified) to get my ATP. I will still need more hours for most airlines to accept me, but I have a lot of time to build hours to reach this goal if I want to go down this route.

Carroll, J. R. (2014, March 13). UPS pilots urge more rest for cargo crews. Retrieved October 08, 2016, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/13/ups-pilots-urge-more-rest-for-cargo-crews/6402615/

Thurber, M. (2013, August 01). 1,500-hour Pilot Rule Presents Challenges And Opportunities. Retrieved October 08, 2016, from http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-international-news/2013-08-01/1500-hour-pilot-rule-presents-challenges-and-opportunities