The other day I wrote about how the JDPO is working hard to design the future of aviation, and how the NextGen is going to address the issues related to the safety, capacity and efficiency of the national airspace system while providing a flexible, expandable platform to accommodate future air traffic growth. You can read my article on NextGen Air Transportation System by clicking here.

JDPO is a group of government bodies, and the industry partners include Lockheed Martin, UPS, and a few other major aviation giants.

What I did not realize was that even General Aviation, and Flight Training institutes like the Embry Riddle (ERAU) are such an active partners in this program. As a matter of fact, after I saw this video I realized that as a matter of fact, this time around, this newer technology was handed over to the general aviation community even before the commercial airlines were able to get their hands on it.

In fiscal year 2006, the FAA approved funding for the implementation of Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) at eight sites. ADS-B is surveillance, like radar, but offers more precision and additional services, such as weather and traffic information. ADS-B provides air traffic controllers and pilots with much more accurate information to help keep aircraft safely separated in the sky and on runways.

Here is a link to my previous article on ADS-B.

ADS-B Applications for Aircraft

• Enhanced Visual Acquisition: provides the flight crew with enhanced traffic situational awareness in controlled and uncontrolled airspace/airports.
• Enhanced Visual Approaches: enhances successive approaches for aircraft cleared to maintain visual separation from another aircraft on the approach.
• Final Approach and Runway Occupancy Awareness: reduces the likelihood of flight crew errors associated with runway occupancy and improves the capability of the flight crew to detect ATC errors.
• Airport Surface Situational Awareness – Conflict Detection: reduces the potential for deviations, errors, and collisions through an increase in flight crew situational awareness while operating an aircraft on the airport movement area.

Avionics Technician Careers

The more I am learning about this, the more I worry about that who is going to fix all these avionics when they break down. There is already an extreme shortage of aviation mechanics, and these guys are not even trained to repair avionics! And to be able to repair avionics, one doesn’t even have to be an aircraft or aviation mechanic.

And, from my 20 some years of aviation experience, I know that the avionics technicians are much harder to find nowadays, and they make a lot more money as well. So I started to look around to see who all offer Avionics Training, and I was surprised to find that there are quite a few options out there.

One excellent option is Redstone College in the Denver area. Redstone and Lockheed Martin even have a joint scholarship program for Avionics Training. If I had the choice to go back in time, I know what I would do.

Recently, the US government has decided to discontinue placing any further orders for the C -17 Globemaster III aircraft. However the competition, C-5 Galaxy aircraft are to be ordered instead. When I heard about this, it really got my attention and I spent some time researching information about both the aircraft. There is a lot of information on various websites, not to mention Wikipedia. I have compiled some very concise information here in this article for your review. And of course, if this get’s your attention as well, you may search the internet for related information yourself.

C-17 is manufactured in the United States by the world famous Boeing company, formerly, McDonnell Douglas. The C-5 is manufactured in United States as well by a well known competition (at least in the defense sector) Lockheed. The plant for C-17 is in California, even though the Boeing company headquarters are in Seattle and the defense segment headquarters are in the state of Missouri. C-17 carries on the name of two previous United States military cargo aircraft, the C-74 Globemaster and the C-124 Globemaster II.

Both the C-17 and the C-5 are used for rapid strategic airlift of troops and cargo to main operating bases or forward operating bases throughout the world. Both have the ability to rapidly deploy a combat unit to a potential battle area and sustain it with on-going battle and cargo supplies. Both the C-17 and C-5 are also capable of performing tactical airlift, medical evacuation and airdrop missions.

The C-17 Globemaster III is relatively a much younger and newer aircraft (almost by 25 years) compared to it’s competitor C-5 Galaxy. The C-17 was introduced on July 14th, 1993 and the C-5 in June of 1070. The respective 1st flights of C-17 Globemaster III and the C-5 Galaxy were on September 15th, 1991 and June 30th, 1968.

Boeing is currently carrying out this advertisement campaign trying to gather signed support from the members of the general public to present to the US Congress so they can re-consider their decision against the C-17 Globemaster III. Hopefully, the armed forces, especially the US air force veterans (VA) and others, will help sign this petition and force the congress to review the case of C-17 again.

By the way, C-17s are currently in service with the US Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Canadian Forces Air Command, NATO Heavy Airlift Wing, Qatar Air Force, United Arab Emirates, and UK Royal Air Force. C-5 on the other hand, is exclusively and US Air Force aircraft.

I have already signed the petition, as I think it would be the right thing to do. I encourage all of you guys to the same as well. If you have any questions about this, you can post your comments below.

The flight from Dover AFB broke eight existing world marks and established standards in 33 other categories where there had been no previous record attempt. The records were set in the Class C-1.S, Jet category for altitude in horizontal flight, altitude with payload, time-to-climb, time-to-climb with payload and greatest payload to 2,000 meters. The aircraft carried a payload of more than 80,000 kg (the actual measured payload weight was 176,610 lb) to an altitude of more than 41,100 feet in 23 minutes, 59 seconds.

The Class C-1.S Jet category is for aircraft weighing from 250,000 kilograms (551,155 pounds) to 300,000 kg (661,386 lb). The C-5M had a takeoff weight of 649,680 lb, which included fuel, crew weight, necessary equipment, and the payload, which was loaded on 29 standard U.S. military 463L cargo pallets. All C-5s are capable of carrying 36 pallets.

The flight set a new record for altitude with payload of 41,188 feet. It also set marks for time-to-climb and time-to-climb with 35,000 kg (77,162 lb), 40,000 kg (88,185 lb), 45,000 kg (99,208 lb), 50,000 kg (110,231 lb), 60,000 kg (132,277 lb), 70,000 kg (154,323 lb), and 80,000 kg payload. The flight took 4 minutes, 13 seconds to reach 3,000 m (9,843 ft) altitude; 7 min., 27 sec to get to 6,000 m (19,685 ft); 13 min., 8 sec. to fly to 9,000 m (29,528 ft); and 23 min., 59 sec to fly to 12,000 meters (39,371 ft).

The flight also broke existing class records for altitude in horizontal flight (41,116 ft) and altitude with 35,000 kg, 40,000 kg, 45,000 kg, 50,000 kg, 60,000 kg, and 70,000 kg payload (41,188 ft). The mission broke the record for greatest payload (80,036 kg/176,610 lbs) to 2,000 meters (6,562 ft) as well.

All of the records will first be certified as United States national records by the National Aeronautic Association, the nation’s oldest aviation organization. The NAA, based in Arlington, Va., is the U.S. representative to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the sanctioning body for all world aviation records. Formal approval of the C-5M records by the Lausanne, Switzerland-based FAI is expected to take several weeks.

Source: Lockheed Martin

“We’ve designed the AML so that we can easily test a myriad of sensors to advance the science and art of correlating diverse types of intelligence – with the goal of rapidly providing high-quality data,” said Jim Quinn, Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Services-Defense’s vice president of C4ISR Systems.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.

Photos via Flickr
Source: Lockheed Martin