Still, as I climb into the cockpit of the trainer at the local flight school, I can't help but note how little has changed over the years. Certainly, the avionics nestled in the instrument panel are better than they were, but the airframe, engine, and indeed most of the technology and design elements remain essentially unchanged from what rolled out of manufacturers' hangars 40 years ago. As we cross the threshold into the new millennium, I have to wonder how aviation will continue to evolve, and whether general aviation will be swept along by the currents of change.
It doesn't take much imagination to dream up the futuristic aircraft that I'd like to be flying. It has a sleek, lightweight fuselage that slices through the sky as effortlessly as a moonbeam. Beneath the cowl is a small, powerful engine that cranks out more power with less noise while slowly sipping an environmentally friendly fuel. And then there's the cockpit-comfortable, quiet, efficiently laid out, and with great visibility. Of course, the instrumentation is phenomenal: A three-dimensional moving map display shows terrain, up-to-the-minute weather, and other aircraft in the area. No longer am I dazzled by the dance of needles as I fly an instrument approach. Instead, I fly by "virtual VFR" until I break out of the clouds and the picture outside the windscreen matches that of my cockpit video monitor. Most important, this aircraft is affordable. It actually costs less than my home!
I'm not the only pilot who likes to dream, but fortunately others do more than just imagine the future. Scattered across the continent, working in small cubicles, nondescript offices, dusty design floors, and respected research facilities, a sort of collective consciousness is working to bring dreams to reality. The members of this group are building a program called AGATE, for Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments. Initiated in 1995, it represents a unique-for general aviation, at least-seven-year partnership of government, industry, and universities striving to jumpstart the general aviation economy by developing technologies for safe, affordable, pilot-friendly flying. The more than 70 members in the current AGATE consortium, which includes NASA, manufacturing companies, universities, and others, are working to develop the technologies required for the next generation single-pilot, single-engine, near-all-weather transportation aircraft. In addition to aircraft technology, AGATE is exploring new methods of training, new approaches to utilizing airspace, and ground infrastructure systems that comprise a complete aviation system.
By its very nature, AGATE is a tremendously broad program, and it would be impossible to provide a comprehensive review of the progress made in the past five years. But even a quick look at some of the highlights lends a fascinating insight to the future of general aviation.
Material Changes
A major success of the AGATE program has been the development of certification processes for composite materials. In the past, composite materials could only be certified as part of an aircraft design and at a cost of about $300,000 per material. The costs were so high that it was impractical to use state-of-the-art technologies on anything but commercial aircraft being produced in large numbers. Consequently, the only small aircraft to employ new materials in their designs were amateur-built experimental aircraft.
A major issue with using new composite materials in aircraft construction is that the processing method is as important as the raw materials themselves. Give two people (or manufacturers) the same raw materials, and the end product will vary as greatly as the skill of the individuals using the material. Working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration, AGATE members at Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) have helped to solve this problem and develop new certification standards. These standards have recently allowed the certification of myriad new lightweight, high-strength materials for general use in aircraft manufacturing.
More importantly, now that the mechanism for certification of new materials is in place, the savings to aircraft manufacturers is expected to be significant. The implications are far-reaching. The door has now been opened to allow sleek new designs with high-tech composite materials to move from the garages of home-builders to the production lines of small aircraft manufacturers.
Accident Mitigation
When it comes to the safety of the next generation of small general aviation aircraft, the buzzword is crashworthiness. As NIAR's Dr. Steven Hooper explains, "We lose about two people per day in fatal general aviation accidents. Our goal here is to develop the fundamental design parameters and technologies to make general aviation aircraft as safe as modern passenger cars."
It's relatively easy to incorporate crashworthy designs into automobiles. Weight and space aren't as critical as they are with aircraft, and the cost of development can be spread over a broad spectrum of models and an enormous number of vehicles. Making aircraft safe isn't difficult either, unless you want them to fly. Not only must crashworthy aircraft be able to withstand tremendous impact loads, the safety systems must be lightweight, reliable, and cost effective to manufacture in the relatively small quantities characteristic of general aviation new-aircraft production.
The development of new accident mitigation technology has been a central focus at NIAR under the AGATE program. The goal has been to develop technology such as new restraint systems, crashworthy fuselage designs, and improved fuel tanks to reduce the risk of post-crash fires. The process begins with sophisticated computer simulations that can model the dynamics of aircraft components, such as seats and restraint systems, during a crash. Based on the simulations, new hardware can be developed and tested at NIAR's crash lab. Here, a crash sled can test the design by slamming a 2,500-pound payload with a force 25 times that of gravity or hammering a 1,500-pound payload with a force 51 times that of gravity.
Deicing
For an aircraft to operate safely and comfortably in nearly all weather, it's imperative to incorporate some form of ice protection technology. Systems commonly used today include pneumatic boots, leading edges heated by electrical circuits and engine bleed air, and wing panels that exude glycol. As Dr. Michael Papadakis explains, "NIAR has been evaluating the use of such technologies on laminar airflow wings, which have lower drag characteristics than many wing types currently being used."
The icing laboratory at NIAR has been developing power saving strategies and technologies for deicing systems. An-other goal of the AGATE program is to improve existing deicing technologies and make them more affordable and compatible with the needs of light aircraft. Innovative deicing concepts such as hybrid systems (electro-impulse deicing systems combined with heaters) are also under development.
Powerplants
Precious little separates the light general aviation aircraft engines of today from those of 40 years ago, but changes are afoot. Under the General Aviation Propulsion (GAP) Program, NASA has teamed up with industry partners to help develop new piston and turbine engine designs for general aviation aircraft. While technically a separate program from AGATE, many of the GAP team members are also AGATE members, and some of the technology development serves both programs.
What can we expect? One concept under development is a two-stroke liquid-cooled diesel engine that burns jet fuel to generate 200 hp at 2,200 rpm. A single-lever power control replaces the mixture, prop, and throttle controls found in many general aviation airplanes, thus reducing pilot workload and increasing fuel efficiency. In addition to meeting expected future emission standards, this engine will have low noise and vibration, and a fancy electronic diagnostics package, and will cost half the price of an engine using current technology. A second concept is a small (700-pound-thrust) high-bypass turbofan engine that costs about the same as current technology piston engines and meets goals for future exhaust emission and noise standards.
Weather Information
A major key to safety and near-all-weather operating capability for small general aviation aircraft is the ability to put real-time weather data in front of the pilot, and here AGATE members are making important strides.
One NASA program designed to achieve this goal is the Aviation Weather Information (AWIN) project. The AWIN project has three primary areas of emphasis. The first is a program called enhanced weather products. This program involves taking existing weather data and combining it in ways that make it meaningful and useful to pilots. A second area of emphasis is called operator support, and it deals with the presentation of information in a format that enhances pilot decision-making. The third critical element in the AWIN program is the data communication link. Re-searchers are studying methods of passing weather information back and forth between aircraft and ground stations in a timely, accurate, and affordable manner.
Under the AWIN program, AGATE member ARNAV is focusing on the development of a weather hazard in-formation system designed to reduce the number of fatal weather-related general aviation accidents. In its current configuration, the system will use an existing infrastructure consisting of 57 ground stations across the United States to upload the most current weather data to the aircraft's onboard systems.
Another AGATE member, NavRadio, is currently working to deploy a fully functional "weather in the cockpit" system utilizing a VHF broadcast datalink. The weather data can be displayed in text form or graphically using laptop computers or panel-mounted displays.
The end product envisioned for general aviation aircraft is a moving map display that shows not only terrain, obstacles, airspace, airports, and other aircraft, but weather as well. This system would also allow pilots to send and receive pilot reports electronically rather than over the radio.
Training
One concern raised by AGATE technology is that learning to fly an advanced new breed of training aircraft will take students more time and cost more money. To counter this potential problem, the AGATE program has been actively developing new training tools and concepts. A joint venture between AGATE members Jeppesen, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU), and the FAA's Orlando, Florida, flight standards district office (FSDO) has led to the development and testing of new training curricula and systems. One new curriculum, referred to as the Unified Curriculum, integrates the training for the private pilot certificate and the instrument rating, with a savings of about 25 percent in both cost and flight time.
Unlike traditional flight training, the program is proficiency based. Rather than requiring students to meet minimum training times, training elements are complete when the student can demonstrate the required proficiency. The Unified Curriculum also delays solo flight until the student has accumulated about 26 hours of flight time rather than the 10 to 14 hours typical of traditional flight training curricula. The result is that students gain a greater breadth of knowledge and skill before solo, and thus are more confident and better-prepared when they do take to the skies on their own.
ERAU's Unified Curriculum flight training program uses the same old workhorse, the Cessna 172 trainer, but the tools used for ground training are of a new breed. One element in the training is the use of personal computer aviation training devices (PCATD). Based on Jeppesen's FS-200 flight simulator technology, these PCATDs incorporate a yoke, power control, and rudder pedals with high-resolution graphics to closely emulate a Cessna 172R. The simulator provides the capability to control weather conditions and instrument failures, and incorporates flight planning and critiquing functions. The ground school portion of the Unified Curriculum has also been updated. "The classroom setting is still presentation- based, but the instructor uses a PowerPoint type of presentation to teach the students," explains Dan Flugstad, ERAU's AGATE administrator.
According to Flugstad, of the approximately 80 students enrolled in the program to test ERAU's Unified Curriculum, all but a dozen or so have completed the program. Rather than the 150 hours typically needed to earn a private pilot certificate and an instrument rating under the current Part 61 regulations, students were able to complete the Unified Curriculum training in approximately 100 hours, and some finished in as little as 80 hours.
While the Unified Curriculum has been successful, it is still evolving. Results and lessons learned in the first wave of training are being analyzed and will be used to guide the evolution of this and other training programs. "The next evolution," notes Flugstad, "will incorporate Web-based ground instruction in addition to the more traditional presentation-based classroom setting." But that's only one aspect of the changes to come. In addition, new curricula will begin to incorporate elements relating to the new technologies currently under development, such as moving maps, weather data displays, new powerplant controls, and ice protection systems.
Crossing the Threshold
The airplane of our collective dreams really isn't as far away as we might think. Raytheon's AGATE-1B was introduced last summer in a fly-by-wire Bonanza designed as a flying testbed for AGATE technologies. The aircraft sported the latest developments in flight controls, a GPS-based collision avoidance system, graphic weather display, digital communications, and a host of other innovations. This year is likely to see even more advances take shape.
As Hooper explains, "It really is inspiring to have so many people cooperating in a non-competitive manner. There's a real chance here to make a quantum leap in aircraft design, and I think we'll do it."
In less than two years, the AGATE program will come to a close. But if the progress made to date is any indication, we're sure to see new ideas develop during that time. And, as the fruits of the AGATE program begin to ripen, we can expect to see major changes in the way we train, the avionics we use, the airplanes we fly, and the way we fly them.
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