Airplane Geeks Podcast

Decarbonizing aviation, increasing SAF availability, the PT6, GA aircraft shipments, Continental engines AD, airport close call, pets and TSA x-Ray machines, DOJ and the Jetblue/Spirit merger.

Air Traffic Control certification program, FAA safety call to action, increased hand-flying, airport safety management systems, FAA IT system fixes, flying over Russian airspace.

Jon Ostrower describes the exciting new flight sim controller from Yawman, Chinese balloon impact on Boeing, a United 777 experiences a steep dive, American Airlines pilots refuse to be interviewed on tape, more unidentified objects are shot down.

Xwing autonomous aircraft, Airbus and Qatar Airways A350 dispute, personal eVTOL, close call with two airliners on the same runway, F-22 Raptor gets first kill, a Boeing 737 crashed fighting fires in Australia.

The co-founder and CEO of Reliable Robotics on aircraft automation, first United Aviate Academy class, NTSB and BEA on Ethiopian 737 Max crash report, pilots making airport safer, Southwest meltdown, ADS-B Exchange and Jetnet.

The Grand Dames of Aviation, Transonic Truss-Braced Wing airliner, Boeing arraignment, Southwest strike vote, JFK runway incursion, AusDesk, Seattle Aerospace BBQ.

The NOTAM outage and subsequent ground stop, why Amazon Air is selling cargo capacity, the runway incursion at JFK, the Airbus automated emergency diversion system, and an Australia News Desk report.

Aviation News

Here's the latest on the NOTAM outage that caused flight delays and cancellations

On January 11, 2023, the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system failed and the FAA issued a domestic ground stop, leading to thousands of delayed and canceled flights. A corrupt database file has been cited as the cause of the failure. NAV CANADA reported issues with their NOTAM system on the same day. At the time, they did not believe the Canadian outage was related to the FAA outage. See FAA's NOTAM computer outage affected military flights.

Amazon Air to Sell Surplus Capacity Onboard its Jets Ahead of Predicted Market Slump

In 2023, the global air freight market is forecast to shrink by about 25%. Amazon Air has decided to sell excess air freight capacity on its fleet of 97 wet-leased planes.

The FAA is investigating a near-miss between two passenger planes at JFK airport

A Delta Air Lines 737-900 (Flight 1943) was on its takeoff roll when ATC noticed an American Airlines Boeing 777 (Flight 106) crossing the active runway. The Delta plane stopped about 1,000 feet before the crossing. The American 737 returned to the gate and passengers disembarked. Due to a crew resource issue, the flight resumed the next morning. Customers were given overnight accommodations.

Airbus tests pilot assist that can automatically divert flights

Airbus is testing a pilot assistance feature called DragonFly, which can automatically divert a flight in an emergency. The system can pick a flight path to the best airport and communicate with air traffic control and an airline's operations center. Even if the pilots are incapacitated, DragonFly can land the aircraft safely.

Australia News Desk

This week we have a follow-up on the news about Bonza Airline's air operators certificate, which was approved by the regulator the day last week's episode went live. There's some consternation among the travel agent sector over Bonza's decision not to service Sydney at all, but as we talked about last week, they're trying a different strategy.  Time will tell if it works or not.

Australia’s Bonza awarded AOC

On the tourism front, two of China's three major carriers - Air China and China Southern - are boosting their schedule for flights to Australia, in a move that many hope will see the lucrative inbound Chinese tourist market ramping back up.

China Southern, Air China boosting flights to Australia

And a new network of satellites from Skykraft, sporting significant levels of Australian-made components, has been successfully deployed over the country, in a move that will eventually allow more accurate and reliable tracking of aircraft and WHF communications in some of the more remote areas of the continent.

Australia’s largest ever satellite constellation now active

Mentioned

Airline Pilot Study -  A questionnaire for pilots to learn about what aspects of innovation might make an airline more attractive to pilots when they decide which airline to apply to fly for.

Rob's Newest jet:

Hosts this Episode

Max Flight, Rob Mark, and David Vanderhoof.

Cabin air management technology, AD for A220 engines, terrible ground crew accident, Southwest meltdown, airport without fuel, happy pets, giveaway winners, AusDesk.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) with the president and CFO of DG Fuels, continuous pricing models for airlines with the co-founder and chief AI at Fetcherr, an #AvGeek look-back at 2022.

A timeless story about a remarkable man named Si Spiegel who flew the B-17 in World War II and went on to develop something that was unusual for the time, but commonplace now during the Christmas season.