An Aviation School Without an Aviation Program

Cross posted at Blog of Inanity.

Daniel Webster College announced suddenly today that their Flight Operations program is no longer going to be offered to incoming students, although current Flight Ops majors will be able to finish the program through the school. I have had most of the day to mull this over and the initial shock of the announcement has largely subsided, so it's time to look at this rationally as much as possible. First and foremost, however, is that this does not directly impact me nor any of my ATC classmates.

In regards to the decision itself there isn't much to say, it's a purely financial decision and in truth it is probably a long time coming. Before ITT bought Daniel Webster the college was reportedly some 25 million in debt; I don't care how you cut it, that's a whole lot of debt. I don't have access to the financial sheets, but I'd bet a good portion of that comes from the flight ops portion of the school. Learning to fly is expensive, both for the students and for the schools. It's no secret that DWC charges almost three times the rates of standard, non-degree based flight schools, but they also have a significant amount more expenses. Clearly DWC was ill-advised financially to be continuing the program, no matter what tradition might dictate.

The core downside with dropping flight ops, though, is the impact that it has on the other aviation programs, like ATC, and the perception of the school in general. Daniel Webster is primarily known as an aviation school and now they don't have an aviation program, so what is their selling point? They also have a business program and are developing nursing and education programs, but what separates them from the hundreds of cookie-cutter schools out there that offer these programs... and at a significantly lower price? The other part of this is that the other aviation programs thrive off of the people who drop out of flight ops (for a variety of legitimate reasons), and that source is now gone. I don't know how many people this covers, but I do know that a good portion of the current 315 class (of which I am part) are former flight ops. While I wasn't a member of Daniel Webster's flight ops the reason I decided to follow ATC was because I was introduced to it as a pilot, and that's a common theme among many ATC students (though not all... some of my classmates have never been in a plane smaller than a 737).

The other factor here is that even though all current students will be provided with the resources they need to graduate from Daniel Webster, how many of the Freshmen and Sophomores will want to? Furthermore how many of the instructors will want to stick around? I'm sure they'll do their best, but no one wants to remain on a sinking ship any longer than they have to. The simple feeling of betrayal which was clearly prevalent in this morning's town hall meeting will drive students away even if the other factors weren't in play. It's bad press for the school on the whole.

The last piece of this puzzle comes with the incoming flight ops majors in the Fall... or rather the lack of them. Although an olive branch was extended to the current flight ops majors at DWC, those who enrolled in the Spring to join DWC in the Fall are SOL. They will be or have been informed by letter of the removal of the flight ops program, and given the option to transfer to another department (three guesses as to how many will take them up on the offer). I wouldn't be surprised if we lost a lot of inbound students who aren't flight ops majors simply because it sounds like such a sketchy move.

However, at the end of the day the number crunches factored in all these things and still said that they were losing more money on the flight ops program than it was worth. No matter how much it may suck for flight ops majors DWC had to make the call, and they did. The students may bitch, moan and kvetch about how ITT is screwing up DWC, but it was DWC that made the call in this case. There may have been pressure from the ITT executives to some degree, true, but the blame should not fall at their feet. There have been rumors about the flight program being canceled since at least May 2009, well before ITT bought out the school.

DWC was in debt long before ITT came along and this would have happened sooner or later. ITT may be the "bad guys" here (though they aren't), but it was DWC's poor financial planning that got everyone in this situation to begin with. I know some students have said that the would have preferred to see DWC be financially ruined (which it already was) than to lose the flight ops program, but that's largely a knee-jerk reaction. Schools, like everything else, have to adapt to survive. Will DWC remain the school that attracted us all to it in the first place? No, it won't, and that is a HUGE loss, far more than any financial spreadsheet can account for. But it is ultimately up to the students to determine what the atmosphere at DWC will be moving forward from this, no matter what ITT might want. ITT may be altering DWC in many strange ways over the next several months, but credit where credit is due: the fault for this cut lies at the feet of Daniel Webster College.

What really irks me, though, is how they informed all of us that they had made this call. Before 8 AM this morning no one had the slightest clue what was coming down the pike. A cryptic email was sent to all students informing them that classes from 10 AM to noon were canceled and that aviation students should report to the auditorium at 10 and all other students at 11. There was no hint at all what this would be about except that it probably involved the aviation school. Apparently the psychology majors also flipped out since a rumor went around saying their program was going to be cut, too. Many classes after the 10-12 time frame were canceled simply because of the emotional stress of the whole ordeal.

The people who should have had answers for us didn't, the people who should have let us know things were happening didn't, and no one did anything to temper the rumor mill. The greatest sin, in my mind, comes from Interim President Nadine Dowling. Generally speaking a president, even an interim one, needs to be able to communicate with their constituents in both positive and negative forums. President Dowling showed that she does not have that ability. Yes, she had the unenviable task of breaking very bad news to a crowd of people who turned very hostile on her, very fast. But, she handled the situation so incredibly poorly that what little respect I had for her evaporated.

President Dowling needed to be able to do two things to survive this town hall intact: give straight answers and take responsibility, if not for herself than at least for the board of directors she represents. While it's true that great leaders are excellent wordsmiths who can artfully evade any question they don't want to answer, they also know when it's time to come clean. Just as a general clue, when someone says repeatedly, "you aren't answering my question" and refuses to budge until you answer it, it's probably time to give them a straight answer. At the very least try a different evasion tactic if you must and don't try to use the exact same answer each time. Trust me: it's not going to work.

The other aspect, taking responsibility, was also not handled well at all. Once it became clear that the crowd was out for blood (did anyone really expect otherwise?) President Dowling threw the head of the aviation department, Professor Price, under the bus and left him for the lynch mob. By virtually all reports Professor Price did not in anyway deserve to be cast as the villain in this tale, and that's exactly what President Dowling attempted to do (and succeeded at to a certain degree). I consider that reckless and irresponsible. It's the President's job to protect those under him or her and to take the heat when it is warranted.

President Dowling may be an amazing administrator who can work miracles in back-office politics. Perhaps she can make budgets balance themselves with but a few short keystrokes. Or maybe she just has great blackmail material. I don't know. But what I do know is that she has no public presence to speak of (this was the first time most students, including myself, have even seen her) and she can't handle herself in an open forum by any stretch. We do know that she's in the front running for becoming the full President of Daniel Webster College, and it is that thought more than any other that really disturbs me.

Irish Controllers Strike

(Cross posted with new blog location at Finite-Eternity.com)

In an interesting bit of ATC revolt, Irish air traffic controllers threatened to strike recently after 14 of their fellow controllers were suspended for refusing to work with new technology. This is not a particularly new thing for controllers to refuse to do -- many of the so-called NextGen systems the FAA is working on are reportedly rather crap, and can even be significantly less safe than the systems they're replacing. I don't know how ICAO (the international analogue of the FAA, although unrelated) and the IAA (Irish Aviation Authority) are handling the upgrading and reinvention of the ATC backbone, but from the sounds in Ireland they're developing along similar tracks. If the equipment they're boycotting is unsafe (and I do not know that it is... controllers can be just as fearful of new tech as anyone else, whether warranted or not) then I agree with their stand.

The meat of the story, however, is that news leaked out that the Irish controllers, through their union called IMPACT, is also demanding a pay raise. Now, as an ATC hopeful I should probably raise my fists and demand better job pay, but the fact is once you get past a certain annual pay (which I arbitrarily set at around $70k) your right to bitch about not being paid enough plummets rather rapidly. Irish Controllers average about €115,000 per year (roughly $160,000 on the current exchange rate), so I don't think I can hold much sympathy for them on this particular claim.

After grounding more than 20,000 fliers the IAA and IMPACT went to the bargaining table and the 14 controllers who started this whole thing are back at work. A ruling was filed by the labor court, however, which said that (paraphrased) the controllers should shut up about the new equipment since it's a regular part of evolving the air traffic control system. The same court, a few days later, recommended that the IAA buck up and increase ATC pay by 6%, in two phases. The first phase, with a 3.5% pay increase, would go into use by January next year and the second phase, with 2.5%, would start in July 2011. Both would have back-pay included back to the 2009.

What a big mess. The question still remains, though, of what equipment the controllers didn't want to use.

The PiperSport Announced

Piper announced that they would be re-entering the market they helped invent, the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA). Rather than design a new plane from the ground up – or just modify their venerable Cherokee – they purchased the rights to Czech-based CZAW SportCruiser. It’s an interesting move for Piper since, on one hand, it’s not really their aircraft so they lose a bit of the credibility if it takes off big. The PiperSport will initially ship with only minor modifications, mostly in terms of changes required for FAA regulations as opposed to ICAO regulations (which are minimal), and an upgraded avionics package including optional autopilot. On the other hand it saves them years of research and design to put them on almost equal footing with Cessna and their C-162 Skycatcher, which should begin production later this year.

The SportCruiser hasn’t sold particularly well, but flight tests made by Piper and independent pilots suggest that it is actually a good plane with no known flaws. The design is already roughly similar to Piper’s Cherokee, so Piper is certainly planning to market this as a gateway to bigger Piper aircraft, or as a hobby plane for pilots of bigger craft who want a plane they can take into the air with less prep time. Based on videos and pictures it’s actually a pretty sleek little plane they’ve acquired, too, and that can’t hurt their prospects.

Currently the biggest mainstream competition on the LSA market is the aforementioned Skycatcher, and it should be interesting to see how the two compete. A fair bit of the competition will come down strictly to brand loyalty, both Piper and Cessna have been in the game so long that they each have their fanboys who will swear by nothing but their personal favorite… and their kids and grandkids will, too. It’s true that companies like Diamond have been eating into the market lately with some truly impressive aircraft (like the DA20 and DA40), but at the end of the day the Big Two still lead the way. There’s plenty of room in the LSA market for all the children to have their fun.

Of course the LSA market isn’t quite like the regular aircraft market. Companies like Cessna and Piper have made their way by offering entry level planes for decades, and then offering bigger and better planes – like the Citations and Seminoles – to more avid flight enthusiasts. There will always be a market for the bigger planes, for the people who can afford them, but the fact is that the vast majority of pilots will never fly anything more powerful than a Cessna 172. Thus we’re looking at the biggest market segment out there, but the LSA competes directly with that market.

If your customers want a twin-engine turboprop plane there aren’t that many options on the field, so you won’t have to do an incredible amount of marketing if you happen to want to sell one. If you are trying to sell a single prop LSA, though, then you have to compete directly with not just other LSAs, but also every other single-prop plane on the market… and some of the older ones are really cheap (relatively speaking). A brand new LSA will cost around $125,000 all in, whereas you can get a used Piper Cherokee for around $35,000-$40,000 easy. Of course, you might not want to… there’s a lot to be said for vintage, but I personally want to know that I’m not going to have to overhaul my entire plane to make sure it can fly safely.

The LSA market is also much more open to smaller developers, including ones who previously only dabbled in Ultra-lite aircraft (a whole different market entirely, but still similar). Sadler, for instance, made a name for itself in the early 80s with its SV-1 Vampire ultralite, and now they’re taking the basic frame of the SV-1 and turning it into a full on LSA (and, might I add, it looks really sexy). It’s a huge market, and growing bigger. The PiperSport has its work cut out for it, but the brand name should help significantly. I’ll be watching the LSA market wars with significant interest.

NASA Presents... The Puffin

NASA has come up with bat**** crazy ideas in their time, but their newest product, the Puffin, is certainly rating pretty high on that list. It's simply a rendering at this point, but the very idea of a personal VTOL aircraft for every house pretty much fills me with terror. I don't trust most people to ride a bike correctly (and I'm talking about the manual kind), let alone an aircraft. Hell, if it were up to me about 3/4ths of the car licenses in America would get revoked today.

Let's put that aside for a moment and look at the actual tech, though. NASA is promising a battery driven, propeller operated personal aircraft. The projected aircraft is about 12 feet tall with a 13 foot wingspan, but with a very slender fuselage design. The electric power is important since traditional airplane engines, whether they be jet or propeller, rely on air intake to work properly (the oxygen in the air acts an enriching agent allowing combustion within the engine) and an electric engine does not need that. We don't use batteries to fully power planes, though, because the technology for batteries that can put out the kind of power to keep an airplane in flight just doesn't exist... yet. There are a lot of prototype and proof-of-concept models out there for small, electrical aircraft, but nothing feasible has yet been produced.

The other major advantage to NASA's design is that it is ultra quiet, thanks to the lack of combustion. That combined with its projected 150 mph cruising speed (with a top speed said to be around 300 mph) actually makes this a really nice aircraft for travel. It is hindered by it's mere 50 mile range, but this is supposed to be a commuter aircraft that you would theoretically use to get to work or to run errands.

The viability of this comes down, ultimately, to the threshold of competence required to operate the Puffin. NASA will, of course, want to have a low threshold so it can push more units, but in the interest of public safety I really think it should be set somewhere around the level of sport pilot (the lowest pilot rating you can get, it still takes a good 20-25 hours to earn at the absolute least). But, given that you can fly an Ultra-Lite without any license, even a driver's license, I suspect it'll be on the low end. And that, quite honestly, scares me.

I am, however, amused that they would name it after a bird very closely related to penguins, a bird which cannot fly.

Boeing Restores a Lockheed Clipper

Boeing recently announced that it has acquired an old Lockheed Constellation (a "Connie") that they are restoring and moving to their Seattle based Museum of Flight. This particular plane flew for Trans-Canada Airlines -- the company that would become Air Canada in 1965 -- before being converted into, of all things, a restaurant in Toronto. It has spent the last twenty years or so gathering rust before Boeing stepped in to save it. The Canadian government wanted to keep the plane in Canada, but no companies stepped forward to pay for the restoration work and it eventually was granted to Boeing. The plane should be on display in Seattle before the end of the year.

The Constellations served for a short time in the US military just before the end of World War 2, but saw the majority of its use as an elegant airliner from 1945 to 1967. It was a distinctive aircraft with its triple tail-fin design and sleek, often customized, cabin. That cabin was also the first to be pressurized which gave the plane a longer range and was more comfortable for the passengers. Another side effect was that it was cheaper to fly -- flying higher eats less fuel and often results in faster flights -- and the savings were passed on to the customers. It primarily saw use as a trans-oceanic plane that only needed to stop once or twice when crossing the Atlantic. Despite continual modifications by Lockheed over the years the Constellation was eventually replaced by the new jetliners like the Boeing 707 and DC-8.

I personally think it's a great gesture by Boeing to restore such a noteworthy aircraft built by one of their greatest rivals (the two companies were most recently going head-to-head to earn the contract that would eventually lead to the F-35 Lightning II). The Constellation is an important part of aviation history, and a huge contributor to making air travel, as we know it today, viable. Boeing says that their next major restoration project will be a Boeing 314 "Clipper" (the flying boat) that they plan to recover from the waters near Hawaii. No restored B-314's currently exist anywhere in the world (only 12 were ever made, and all have been destroyed or scuttled).

Skycatcher

Airplane developer Cessna reported earlier that their first Cessna 162 Skycatcher was delivered today to Rose Pelton, the wife of the CEO of Cessna. Certainly an interesting first 'buyer' of the brand new Light Sport Aircraft (LSA), but I guess Cessna wanted to send a positive message after losing the first two 162 prototypes crashed after induced spins (the pilot escaped safely both times).

Cessna is famous in aviation circles for their easy to fly, so-called trainer aircraft like the Cessna 172 (which is what I personally learned to fly in, as well). Simple to fly and virtually impossible to lose control of (you practically have to force it to stall, and you do have to force it to spin), the 172 is a great little airplane. The 182 is positioned as an intermediate plane with more power and performance capabilities of the 172, and upgraded avionics packages by default. The 162 is a step back in that regard, as it is a smaller, slower airplane (as per LSA rules) meant for training and short hops. I think Cessna is hoping that people who have their pilots license and want a plane of their own, but can't afford the standard prices, would love to have their hands on a plane they know they can fly and afford (starting price is $100,000 versus $250,000-$400,000 for a 172 or 182).

It's certainly a valid option, but I'm keeping my eye on the Salder Aircraft Vampire LSA (despite the shitty name of "Vampire" it's quite a good plane) as a potential plane for myself, though not any day soon (since it is not available yet, and I couldn't afford it even if it was :D)

The Airliner of Your Dreams

It was a big day for Boeing today as their brand new 787 Dreamliner took its maiden flight this morning. The oft delayed 787 (originally planned to enter service in 2007) has taken its first critical step towards certification and entering service with the commercial companies. They’re now aiming for a late 2010 commercial introduction, which is really fast for first flight to implementation, but we’ll see if their intensive testing will be up to the task (for the record, I hope it is… but I’m still leery).

The 787 is designed largely to be a replacement for the 767 and a competitor for the Airbus 330 (and, to a degree, the Airbus 350, which is also still in development). The 787 is built entirely out of composites, which makes it far more fuel efficient than it’s competitors. There’s already a huge market demand (677 sold by July 2007) for it, and the consumer demand will follow (it’s a very “green” aircraft for its size.

We haven’t heard much from the Airbus 350 in a while, so it will be interesting to see how Airbus responds to this initial flight test.

That Silly Northwest Flight

You've probably heard about that silly Northwest flight that went out of radar contact for 77 minutes and overshot their intended landing field by 150 miles. They claim they went "NORDO" (FAA speak for no radio contact) because they were on their laptops at the time (whether or not that's true, we'll probably never know). Now, as part of their efforts to reclaim their revoked pilots licenses, they've accused ATC of being at fault for not coordinating properly with Northwest Dispatch (for those not in the know: commercial planes tend to have two or more radio frequencies open at all times, one on their local ATC and one to their company's private dispatch line; generally they'll also have two or three other open frequencies as situations require).

There may be a certain degree of merit to their assertions here since the 7110.65 (ATC Bible) is a bit fuzzy on coordinating with air carrier operation HQs. In the world of ATC even minor deviations from the 7110 can result in serious repercussions for the controllers involved, so this is a very serious accusation these pilots are making. But, setting that aside, let's look at this logically for a moment. The pilots were NORDO not just with ATC, but also with their own company. No amount of ATC/NWA cooperation was going to change who these pilots were or were not listening to. It was a flight attendant, making her own observations, who finally got through to the pilots, not somebody on the ground.

The FAA, unfortunately, does not have a good track record for backing up their controllers though, and tend to be very fast to point the finger of blame at anyone who is not an FAA executive. Of course, in this case the FAA has almost no role to play at all, but you can bet they'll still do everything they can to shift even the slightest hint of blame from themselves to the most convenient target. Fortunately, the most obvious target is the pilots for being nimrods, but it will be interesting to see if ATC comes out of this unscathed now that the finger has been pointed.

The FAA & Boeing

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced today that they are giving Boeing, the makers of the famous 7X7 (x=0...7) series of planes greater autonomy in self-certifying their own planes. This gives Boeing the ability to qualify their own new designs and technologies with less bureaucratic interference from the powers-that-be in the FAA.

Setting aside the obvious issues of having a company safety test their own equipment (which is probably the largest function the FAA serves), this brings up the very troubling issue of the Boeing 787, which has seen numerous safety delays ever since it's 2007 rollout. Originally planned to launch in 2010 to compete with the Airbus 380 superjet, the 787 hasn't even successfully completed *preliminary* safety checks, let alone final certification checks. This is a plane that has never flown, even in tests. Certainly sucks for Boeing and the money they have to be losing hand-over-fist at this point, but safety checks are there for a reason and I certainly don't want to be put into a situation -- as a pilot, passenger or controller -- where my life at risk because checks got bypassed.

Generally speaking I have faith in Boeing, they have a solid track record for safety and the 7X7 planes are simply legendary birds worthy of all the praise they receive. However, anytime any company is given authority over its own certification process, questions arise. The entire point of having an outside certification process is to (in theory) not give the contracting company any leverage over the safety inspection personnel. Obviously having the the inspectors directly on your payroll is counter to that purpose.

Now I'm not saying that the 787 will be a dangerous plane to fly, as I'm sure Boeing does NOT want to be associated with an unreliable plane by any stretch of the imagination... but all the same I think I'll avoid flying on them for a while and stick to more proven planes.

Source: http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/faa_boeing_certification_201034-1.html