GPS Tracking ROI

This analysis discusses the accident sequence, cockpit systems, tracking of Gulf of Mexico helicopter flights, the lack of adequate CVR information for this accident investigation, and the lack of FDR data for helicopter operations.

You can read the whole report here:

OK its Sunday morning here in Colorado and while the rest of the world sleeps in or goes off for the last of the late season skiing, Dave is reading accident reports. (I never said I was a fun person to be around … in fairness my beloved spouse is away, but I’d probably be reading such stuff anyway, even if she were here … she may not be the most tolerant woman on earth, but she’s in the lead field of runners).

Now what does the accident report about the crash of an oil field work helicopter have to do with GPS tracking? Well a lot, if you study not only this accident, but thousands of them, as I have.

In the US we have the world’s most effective and technologically competent accident investigation organization … the National Transportation Safety Board. We also invented air traffic control and have the world’s best, still, our Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Services. We provide the communication for air traffic all over the world, via a commercial entity based in the US, ARINC, Aeronautical Radio, Inc., which has served the needs of commercial air traffic world-wide since 1929.

Sad to say however, we are still not advancing much beyond what we started setting up in 1929. The world of aviation, one of the prime reasons GPS was created, has become the slowest and most recalcitrant adopter of the very technology that has been developed for it.

I picked this accident to talk about because it highlights the most frequent of findings in hundreds and hundreds of reports of recent years. This is a nation that knew how to send a man to the moon, yet we can’t figure out how to officially solve problems that are infinitely cheaper and easier to solve with today’s technology. We (the government, pilots, and the air operators) resemble a teenager asked to clean her room. We fight and find excuses and put off the work as long as we can, when the actual job at hand could be done in a tiny fraction of the time, if we stopped this foolish posturing and procrastination.

Let’s look at the quote above, and discuss the findings. I’m going to rearrange the order for clarity and for my “windup” pitch at the end. First, adequate CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) information. Poor or missing CVR information has hampered hundreds and hundreds of investigations over the past few years. Secondly is the virtual 100% failure of FDR’s (Flight Data Recorders) to perform to the extent they are required to do. Frankly, if our television sets or personal computers had an in-commission rate like CVR’s and FDR’s, we’d still be listening to Amos and Andy on the radio and playing chess in the evenings, because the technology would never have become commercially viable. And yes, this is perhaps the easiest and cheapest one to solve. Replace the decades-old tape technology with solid state devices and, most importantly, SAVE THE DATA OFF THE AIRCRAFT.

Writing in all caps is the internet equivalent of shouting … this idea is so simple yet is resisted so strongly that I can’t help but shout. The answer stares the PhD’s and the CEO’s and the senior captains in the face, and they just ignore it as if it were a gnat. Stick with me a minute of this and you’ll see how the same idea can tie in directly with my usual subject, GPS tracking.

The first part of the quoted paragraph mentions the problems created by the lack of tracking helicopter operations in the Gulf of Mexico. I think the problem is incorrectly stated. The lack of tracking of all aviation activities hampers safety (and reduces efficiency and drives up costs). Everyone seems to think we “track” most aircraft today. Just go to sites like www.flightaware.com and you’ll see the “evidence” for your own eyes.

The problem, as I see it, is we have taken a technology that was a wonder, and which helped win WW II, Radar, and are still making expensive bets on it carrying us into the future. We only “track” aircraft today where they are under radar coverage … within range so to speak. We then have to store thousands of bytes of information per hour and if an aircraft fails to show up, pick back through that data with a magnifying glass to try to determine what happened. Since every aircraft accident ultimately ends with contact with the ground, if the pilot doesn’t conveniently crash on an airport, a huge percentage of accidents are always missing the final few seconds.

Our investment in antique technology is beyond my capabilities to estimate. It’s huge. And no matter how well the present system functions, it still doesn’t tell us what we need to know. Yet nearly every commercial truck driving down the road is already equipped with a system that can provide the data we need … at a price range that fits into any aircraft operator’s budget. I’m talking the white dome of the Qualcomm Omnitracs GPS unit you’ll see at the back of the cab of 80% of the big rigs you pass.

Qualcomm even demonstrated, years ago now, how they could economically send real-time video and audio from the cockpit of airliners in flight. Government realization of a better technology and “uptake” of the idea? Zero.

Major airlines today are offering in flight high speed internet services. Millions of bytes per hour being transferred … many, many times more data than adequate FDR and CVR would require.

We need to but digital GPS tracking and digital data downlinks on all commercial aircraft and we need to do it today. The costs, for the most ‘gilded lily’ systems are in the range of $15K per aircraft, much less if carefully selected and engineered. The savings in search and rescue, noise abatement, fuel economy and other mundane dollar items alone will pay for the system. It’s commercially viable today for airlines to let passengers play “Doom” in flight, but it’s not commercially viable to track those flights properly for safety and efficiency? Think again.