Maybe aviation market is turning around

Posted by John McHale
After this week I'm feeling very confident that the avionics market and the aviation market as a whole is definitely on the upward climb. We just wrapped up our 2011 Avionics & Defence Electronics Europe conference in Munich this afternoon with our attendance up 35 percent over last year.

The attendees were excited about the content on future air traffic management (ATM) systems such as Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) and the U.S. Next-Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). They were also smiling about the fact that money is also starting to be spent to be spent on equipping avionics systems with future ATM technology such as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) systems.


A commercial avionics market report from Frost & Sullivan backed up the enthusiasm on the floor, but in a more conservative way. Diogenis Papiomytis, principal consultant with Frost, said that the avionics market will not recover till 2014, but it is on the upswing.

He said that technologically speaking navigation and communication equipment are the best investment bet from now till 2020.

We've found that our show attendance typically echoes market health as well as strong content and good marketing. So we're really looking forward to next year's event in Munich.

So were the attendees, as amany of them were looking to be part of the program for next year. If you are too then stay posted here as we will have a Call for Papers coming out the beginning of the summer.

Pilot training taking backseat to new avionics, says Avionics Europe keynote

Posted by John McHale
Pilot training and not new technology is the key to improving flight safety, said Capt. Manfred Mueller, head of flight safety for Lufthansa Airlines, during his keynote address at the Avionics & Defence Electronics Europe conference this week.

Mueller told the audience that too often cost management not new avionics is the real reason flight training has been reduced in flight programs worldwide. New avionics technology, despite its amazing capabilities, can fail catastrophically and pilots need to be have the training to deal with those emergency situations.

Flight training centers are more about making money and keeping costs down and do so by cutting back on pilot training, Mueller said. Flight crews need to implement more "fallback strategy training" in addition to their own training, he added.


Fallback refers to the training you fallback on when your state-of-the-art cockpit avionics fail.

It is often said that new aircraft as the Boeing 787 will reduce pilot training costs because they are easy to fly, Meuller said. That is dangerous thinking and hopefully it will not take more plane crashes to increase training.

Mueller said too often abnormal procedures are designed by lawyers when they should be designed by human factor experts.

Mueller's lawyer comment was echoed in the following keynote delivered by Vincent de Vroey, head of Association of European Airlines, when discussing the relevancy of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

"EASA needs to focus on safety only," de Vroey said. Too often legal teams get involved and they lose their focus, he noted.