Although both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Air Transport Association (ATA) are raising certain safety concerns with very light jets (VLJs), some of the aircrafts’ manufacturers believe the concerns are overblown.
ATA, especially, has already raised a host of safety issues with VLJs, particularly in relation to how the planes might congest the nation’s airways when they start going into service later this year for private corporate travel or with air taxi services. Testifying before the House Aviation Subcommittee last Nov. 17, Basil J. Barimo, ATA’s vice president of operations and safety, warned that the safety implications of these craft is something that the FAA will have to continue paying close attention to. He also posed to lawmakers a series of VLJ safety questions that he had no ready answers for, such as whether maintenance standards for privately owned aircraft are also appropriate for VLJs, and whether smaller, regional airports can handle any safety incidents.
But legislators have yet to bite in response to such concerns, at least publicly. There are no bills in the current congressional session that mention VLJs. Nor have there been any statements.
Still, VLJ manufacturers believe that most of the safety concerns are unfounded. “A lot of definitive statements are being made with no correlation to fact,” says Vern Raburn, president and CEO of one manufacturer, Eclipse Aviation Corp. in Albuquerque, N.M. “A huge number of people, [particularly in] the air transport world, are prepared to make up their own facts,” Raburn says.
Meanwhile, the FAA has been quietly working on certain aspects of VLJ safety that involve ensuring that the capacity of air traffic control (ATC), the special training of controllers and would-be VLJ pilots, and the conditions under which these aircraft should be permitted single-pilot operations.
Much of the increase in the hours flown by the turboprop/turbojet fleet over the next decade will be attributable to VLJs, the FAA said Feb. 28 in its annual forecast of aviation trends. Specifically, that increase will be from 5 million hours in 2005 to 11.9 million in 2017, an average annual growth rate of 7.5 percent.
Generally speaking, it’s anticipated that VLJs will revolutionize corporate travel and air taxi services — that is, once the first craft are used for these services. In the meantime, it’s disconcerting for manufacturers to hear that specific questions of safety are already being bandied about. “How can you talk about safety issues when none of these planes is flying?” an Eclipse spokesman asks.
Adam Blakely, speaking for another VLJ manufacturer, Adam Aircraft in Englewood, Colo., doesn’t believe the new planes raise any particular safety issues, especially in comparison to the business jets that are already out there.
Yet, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), which says it represents more than 7,000 firms that own or operate general aviation craft, says, “The manufacturers of VLJs have started to look at the unique risks that exist for their products” dealing with such issues as wake turbulence and convective weather conditions.
In Raburn’s view, Eclipse has already spent a “huge amount of time anticipating how to operate [VLJs] safely.” This has been achieved, principally, in the VLJs’ design. The new planes’ navigational and avionics capabilities give pilots situational awareness that is at least comparable to, or surpasses that of, most transport airplanes that are flying today. Moreover, the entire management of the aircraft is electronic. Circuit breakers, for example, aren’t hard to reach and are instead presented in logical sequences. Additionally, Eclipse has already put in far more flight test hours — about 1,350 — on its VLJs than the 800 hours Airbus reportedly has accumulated in testing the A380.
Talking to Air Safety Week, ATA’s Barimo says the group’s safety concerns with VLJs fall into two main areas. One involves congestion of the national airspace, stemming from the possibility that 4,500 VLJs could be added to the skies after another decade goes by. Unless something significant is done to change how the airspace is managed, then there might have to be limits on flights, he adds.
So far, ATA’s main bone of contention with VLJs seems to be on a related issue — that new aircraft will use airspace without their operators paying their fair, proportionate fee to support the ATC system.
Worries about VLJs quickly clogging up the U.S. airspace are quite premature, Blakely asserts. Selling a “few thousand planes” over the next 10 to 15 years, as Adam and its competitors hope to do, isn’t like someone’s going to “flip a switch” and suddenly thousands of VLJs appear in the air.
Plus, there’s an aging aircraft issue, Blakely tells Air Safety Week. Many of the pre-orders are from owners and operators who are intending to replace legacy aircraft. Finally, there’s the likelihood that business owners and other aircraft operators will gravitate toward smaller regional airports and avoid major hubs.
For its part, the FAA also expects that VLJ operators will prefer smaller airports, if only because of convenience and the aircraft’s performance capabilities.
On the other hand, corporate America will still be interested in flying to where the money is, ATA’s Barimo points out. That means using the major urban areas in places such as New York and Florida, and not into some airfield in the middle of farm country.
Another issue that concerns the ATA is how well VLJ pilots will be prepared to fly their planes. Some of these would-be pilots have already ordered these jets also will be learning how to fly in them, Barimo says. Many other pilots will be moving over from turboprops to VLJs, which like transport airplanes, are high-performance aircraft.
Moreover, it’ll be challenging or next to impossible to instill into new pilots during their training the equivalent of the “seasoned judgement” that more experienced pilots have. “We’re not saying they’re unsafe, but we’re falling back on a risk-averse attitude,” Barimo says.
Pilot training, in fact, is an issue that seems to be near the top of everyone’s list of concerns. The FAA says that it’s partnering with manufacturers, insurance firms and industry associations to develop “rigorous training programs.” Echoing the thoughts of many in the industry, the agency recognizes that while these craft are not especially complex to fly, the higher-altitude airspace these jets will share with larger craft will make operations fairly complex. Therefore, a good portion of the training and pilot testing will involve scenarios representing these more complex situations.
But largely because most pilot training has not been oriented toward standard operating procedures and has not used data from prior training to improve future training, Eclipse long ago decided to take matters into its own hands. The firm partnered with United Airlines [UAUA] to have all of its future VLJ pilots attend classes at the latter’s training center in Denver, Raburn tells Air Safety Week. So, every would-be VLJ pilot is going through United’s classes, plus some of Eclipse’s, getting simulator training on hypoxia and other emergency conditions. They also won’t be able to pass until they fly at least 100 hours with a trained mentor pilot. Moreover, it’s not about training people to a certain proficiency level, but about achieving performance in accord with standard operating procedures, he adds. Although the FAA has left the issue open, the firm wants pilots to get type rated for flying this kind of airplane.
Eclipse also intends to provide post-training support, Raburn says. This means that pilots will have financial incentives to be current in their plane’s maintenance schedules and to attend training updates.
Another safety issue with VLJs is whether there should be one or two pilots should operating the craft. While some of these planes are being type certificated for single-pilot operation, “there is a policy question as to whether two pilots should be required for Part 135 operations,” an FAA spokesman tells Air Safety Week. Under current regulations, they could carry passengers with a single pilot and an autopilot. The agency’s 125/135 Aviation Rulemaking Committee also examined this issue and recommended that an operator have six months of experience before requesting single pilot operations. Additionally, each would-be VLJ single “pilot in command” (PIC) would first need to have six months PIC flying experience as part of a two-pilot crew, and complete single-pilot training and testing.
Thus, FAA still is reviewing what it will do. Several operators who intend to carry passengers on these aircraft have said they plan to rely on two-pilot operations. It is also possible that the insurance industry will require two-pilot operations for certain types of flights, which could eat into the profit potential of the air taxi business, for example.
Adam’s Blakely says, “it’s plausible that safety and insurance considerations will induce part 135 operators to go to two pilots.” But for most operators, he doubts there will be much of an issue, especially with today’s “glass panel” avionics providing pilots greater situational awareness.
But another consideration is that the VLJ co-pilot seat is being seen as the “money seat” by many in the fledgling industry. With the typical craft only carrying up to six passengers, having one less seat occupied by an extra crew member and being able to sell another fare may make all the difference in profitability.
Finally, Eclipse’s Raburn also says each of his firm’s aircraft will be transmitting 10 megabytes of data hourly via satellite datalink, including “classic flight data recorder information” and the current performance health of all aircraft systems.
>>Contacts: Shelly Simi, Adam, (301) 261-9601, [email protected]; Eclipse sales department, (877) 375- 7978, [email protected]; ATA, (202) 626-4000<<