Delivery by Drone

Flirtey hexacopter drone (Engadget)

   Waiting for a package to arrive can be a frustrating experience, especially when the shipment takes twice as long as expected; however, a new horizon is dawning on the delivery industry. Drone delivery systems bring the prospect of direct delivery from the shipment center in much less time than traditional ground-delivery. Many people, myself included, believe that drone delivery is many years away from becoming a reality; however, a recent news story offers a different perspective.

     On Friday, March 25, the news reported that the first FAA-approved drone delivery to a home in an urban neighborhood had been successful. On March 10, a hexacopter created by Flirtey delivered a package containing "food, water, and a first-aid kit" (Moon) to a home in Hawthorne, Nevada. This delivery, although small, was a major step forward in drone delivery systems. The hexacopter flew according to its own navigation system and pre-programmed flight path; there was no intervention by a human pilot during the flight. This was not the first drone delivery for Flirtey. In July 2015, the company succeeded in a rural drone delivery to a medical center in Virginia (Sonner). The company was ecstatic about their recent drone flights. Matthew Sweeney, the CEO of Flirtey, remarked that "'We are rapidly approaching a time where drone delivery is a reality, not just in the United States but around the world'" (Atherton).

     Drone delivery faces numerous challenges which must be overcome before drones become a regular form of delivery. First and foremost, the drones must be able to safely deliver their packages and return to their distribution sites. While in the air, the drones must recognize and avoid other aircraft and birds; once near the delivery destination, the drones need to be able to navigate trees, power lines, buildings, and any other obstacles which may intercept the drone's flight path. The drones must be equipped with batteries which will last for a round-trip flight to and from the delivery destination (Sneed). Despite these technical and structural challenges, one of the biggest hurdles for drone delivery is the Federal Aviation Administration. Drone technology is an entirely new field of aviation and therefore requires amendments and additions to existing FAA policies. For instance, the FAA requires that drones must be operated by a pilot and must remain in sight of the operator during its flight. The use of a pilot defeats the idea of unmanned drone technology and costs more money, and the drones will often need to fly beyond the view of the home base to make their deliveries (Sneed). In addition, the FAA mandates that drones cannot make "commercial deliveries" unless given permission (Sneed); this has been a major complication for companies such as Amazon, which only deal in commercial deliveries. As with any new technology, there are many hindrances which must be overcome; however, the flights by Flirtey lend hope to the future of the drone industry. The FAA granted permission to Flirtey for both of its recent drone flights, indicating that the FAA may be opening up to the idea of drone delivery systems. Even though drone technology may not gain widespread use any time soon, Flirtey's hexacopter gives us a glimpse of a new and exciting area of aviation.

 

Atherton, Kelsey D. "The First Urban Drone Delivery Just Happened in Nevada." Aviation. Popular 

     Science, 25 March 2016. Web. 26 March 2016.

     http://www.popsci.com/first-urban-drone-delivery-successful

 

Moon, Mariella. Nevada Gets First FAA-Approved Urban Drone Delivery. Engadget, 26 March

     2016. Web. 26 March 2016.

     http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/25/nevada-gets-first-faa-approved-urban-drone-drone-delivery/

 

Sneed, Annie. "Drone Drop-Offs at Your Door Won't Happen until the FAA Delivers." Tech.

     Scientific American, 7 Sept. 2015. Web. 26 March 2016.

     http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/drone-drop-offs-at-your-door-won-t-happen-until-the- faa-delivers/

 

Sonner, Scott. For First Time, Drone Delivers Package to Residential Area. ABC News, 25 March

     2016. Web. 26 March 2016.

     http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/time-drone-delivers-package-residential-area-37935439

 



The Deadliest Aviation Accident in History

           The Canary Islands are the place to be. Located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara, the Canaries have a subtropical climate, beautiful beaches, and several important historical locations, including multiple world heritage sites. However, the canaries are also known for something very negative, as well. One of the islands in the Canary archipelago is called Tenerife. You may have never heard of the island of Tenerife, but it was here that the worst disaster in aviation history occurred. From the first plane crash in history to modern times, never has any other crash had as high a death toll.

            The date was March 27, 1977. The primary airport in the Canary Islands, located on Las Palmas, was temporarily closed. Earlier in the day, a bomb had exploded in the Canary Island airport flower shop. It had been planted there by Canary Island separatists, and as a result, all flights scheduled to land there were diverted to the Las Rodeos airport in Tenerife. Among these flights diverted were KLM flight 4805 and Pan Am flight 1736, both being Boeing 747s.

            The day was extremely busy and stressful for the air traffic controllers of Los Rodeos Airport. Between the time of the explosion of the bomb at Las Palmas and 4:00 p.m. (the time that Las Palmas re-opened) they were responsible for twice the volume of air traffic as usual.

            At 1:44 p.m., KLM flight 4805 arrived at Los Rodeos from Amsterdam with 248 passengers aboard. They were directed by the air traffic controller to park at the far end of the runway until Las Palmas reopened and could begin accepting traffic again. Pan Am flight 1736 from Los Angeles arrived at 3:00 with 394 individuals aboard, and landed on the same runway as KLM flight 4805. Air traffic controllers instructed it to also park at the end of the runway, directly next to KLM 4805. They did so.

            At 4:00, the call came in from Las Palmas that it was ready to begin accepting traffic again. Within minutes, Pan Am flight 1736 was ready for takeoff, but because of the lack of room and angle at which the two airliners faced each other, the KLM flight had to be the one to take off first. However, the KLM was not ready to take off, because it requested that it receive extra fuel before takeoff.

            The day had been beautiful. But, as the KLM was receiving extra fuel, a strange thing happened. Fog started rolling down off the hills and completely engulfed the airport. Visibility was reduced to almost nothing in a short period of time. After receiving fuel, the KLM is ready to take off. Because of the congested condition of the airport, the air traffic controllers tell the KLM that it will need to taxi to the far end of the runway it was sitting on and make a 180 degree turn before using the runway to take off, in the direction of Pan Am 1736.

            Air traffic control instructs Pan Am 1736 to temporarily pull off the runway. It makes an attempt to, but misses its assigned turnoff, due to the heavy fog. This is no big issue, and air traffic control instructs it to continue on until it comes to the next turnoff. At the same time, KLM 4805 gets the route clearance. However, the KLM pilot, captain Van Zanten, mistakes this for the takeoff clearance, and begins accelerating the plane for takeoff. Because of the fog, he cannot see Pan Am 1736, still on the runway, and coming directly toward him as it looked for the next turnoff.

 

            It was at this moment that the radio communication KLM 4805 and air traffic control temporarily malfunctions, and silence from the control tower leads Van Zaten to believe that all is well. He continues with takeoff.

            The fatal moment: once captain Van Zanten sees the KLM directly in front of him, he has only seconds to react. He attempts a premature takeoff and almost succeeds. However, the added weight from the fuel that had just put in the plane weighed it down just enough to ensure a collision. The KLM slams into the topside of the Pan Am, and the planes explode into a massive ball of fire.

A computer-generated image of the moment of impact between the two enormous airliners.

Miraculously, there are 61 survivors; all of them being on the Pan Am flight. Every single other person, including all 248 individuals on the KLM, died. Altogether, 583 people died in this tragic accident. Thankfully, this kind of death toll has never been seen from any other airliner accident, and we all hope that that remains the case. Chances of that are decent, actually, because this accident brought about changes in airport and air traffic control policies, leading to safer airport practices ever since then.

The Science Behind why Plane Food Tastes Bad

           Why does airplane food taste so terrible? That is the question that many have asked for decades, never being satisfied when they take a bite aboard an aircraft. Believe it or not, there is actually a scientific explanation for why this is. No, it’s not that airline companies are cheap and buy the least expensive food possible. There is actually quite a bit more to it than that, something that no airline company can avoid—atmospheric pressure and humidity.

            Our senses of smell and taste are very much tied into conditions within our nose. Have you ever had a stuffed up nose and were not able to smell or taste anything as a result? The reason for this is a pressure buildup in the nasal cavities. Indeed, pressure plays a huge part in our perception of taste and smell. Differences in pressure within the nasal cavities cause our nose and mouth to be incapable of registering certain flavors. Though your nasal cavities may not be inflamed or congested while aboard an airplane in flight, there is still a change in the pressure within the plane, and therefore within your body. Although pressure at high altitudes is lower, not higher—such as is the case of a stuffed up nose—the nose/mouth responds much as it does to high pressure.

            Humidity plays a substantial part in taste, as well. The nasal cavities need the presence of moisture in the air in order to work properly. When this moisture is absent, so is the nose’s ability to efficiently smell. When the nose can’t smell at full capacity, the tongue can’t taste very well, because the sense of taste is 80% dependent on the sense of smell. At 35,000 feet, humidity is at 7%, which is incredibly low, lower than that of most deserts. Thus, this further hinders the tongue’s ability to taste.

            Not convinced? Well, scientific studies have actually been done on this subject. In 2010, Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics did tests to investigate the matter. They reduced the air pressure of their laboratory to the level that it would be in a plane at 35,000 feet. They also lowered the humidity to 7%, and conducted tests in which subjects would go in and eat various foods. The result? Somewhat as expected, but with surprises. It was revealed that the sense of taste was only reduced for certain kinds of flavors. Namely, sweetness and saltiness. Thus, any food that relies upon either sweetness or saltiness (which most foods do) will taste drastically blander to us at 35,000 feet than it does on the ground. Interestingly though, no other flavors, such as spiciness, bitterness, or sourness are affected. Some foods actually taste better in the air. For some reason, the sugar called L-glutamate, which is common in many vegetables and also in tomatoes, has a more intense taste up high. Thus, tomato juice actually tastes really good on planes, supposedly, and orders of tomato juice and Bloody Marys are drastically higher in the air than anywhere on the ground. Other foods with L-glutamate that taste better in flight include sardines, mushrooms, seaweed, and soy sauce.

            So next time you fly, remember that the sweet or salty food you’re craving is probably not worth it. Instead, be adventurous. Try tomato juice, if you never have. There’s no better place to drink it than in the sky!

Wright State Competes in International Aero Design Competition

Wright State University has been participating in the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Aero Design competition for over a decade. The competition is part of SAE's collegiate design series and it is an international event with countries from India, Poland, China, Brazil, and Canada to name a few. For more on all of the collegiate design series SAE offers follow this link: http://students.sae.org/cds/

The WSU 2016 team has four student members accompanied by a pilot and an advisor. Our pilot, Mark, is on the left followed by Nate, Marcus, Emily, and myself. Our advisor is Dr. Thomas, who took the picture.

The Aero Design competition takes place twice in the US and once in Brazil. The US has an East and West event; last year the 2015 team went to West in Van Nuys, CA. This year we went to East in Ft. Worth, Texas. There are three different classes in the competition: Regular, Advanced, and Micro; we did Micro class. The goal of our class was to design and build an RC plane that was small and compact that had to fit in a six inch outside diameter tube and be able to lift a high ratio of payload to plane weight. The shorter our case the more points we received and the higher the payload fraction the better. Below is a picture of our plane and case that we took to the competition and spent eight months to get there.

We did this as part of our Senior Design Project which we need to complete in order to graduate with our major, Mechanical Engineering. We had been working on this project since last semester and we went to competition March 10-14. During our time working on this project we performed numerous test flights in preparation, over thirty flights. Some teams never fly their planes before showing up and below is what happens. 

 

As part of the competition there are 3 parts, a design report, presentation, and flying. I'm not going to post our report or presentation since those are not as interesting and are over 30 pages of technical writing, though I did steal several photos from our presentation slides for this. 

At the competition we placed fourth in flight scores out of 19 teams in our class, and we were the first team to have a successful flight at the competition. The most important thing is that we beat University of Cincinnati's team by a landslide. The video above was right before us; some teams never had a successful flight. Below is our first flight of the day. 

Getting to and from Texas we were flying on a plane and on the way back home the TSA gave us some trouble. We use lithium polymer batteries, very common in RC planes, and they said it was suspicious and would not let us take the batteries on the plane. Though the TSA person tried to help us by seeing if we could check them in our bags instead of carry on, but TSA's website specifically says you are not allowed to check them because it could get damaged and can't be dealt with under the plane should something happen. So we ended up losing over $100 in parts because of that; Dayton International had no problem with them and even thanked us for not checking the batteries. At least we didn't need them anymore.

TSA Precheck Program

Hello friends! 

Every time my family takes a trip and we're flying, my Dad always gets to cut ahead in line, or jump to a shorter line because he is a part of the TSA Precheck Program. Over the summer we were flying home from Las Vegas, and I remember being so jealous/angry at my Dad because he was done going through security wayyy before the rest of us. So, for this post, I decided to do some research and see what it takes to be a part of this Precheck Program. 

First off, TSA stands for The Transportation Security Administration. It's an agency of the U.S. department of Homeland Security, and it has authority over the security of the traveling public in the United States.

Created in 2011, TSA's Precheck Program allows selected members of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin America, Southwest Airlines, Air Canada, JetBlue Airlines, Sun Country Airlines, members of Global Entry, NEXUS, and SENTRI, and active duty members of the US military to receive expedited security screening for domestic and select international flights. This is currently available at over 150 airports. 

To apply for this program, you must be a US citizen or permanent resident. You must complete the online application, and make an appointment at a TSA center to have your fingerprints taken and to show proper identification (birth certificates and license, or passport). Then you pay a non-refundable $85 fee, and then you wait to be approved! You will be denied if you have any federal offenses, have provided false or fraudulent documents, make a bomb threat, brought a firearm, explosive or other prohibited items to an airport. 

The program has received some backlash though, because it's led to lots of complaints and grumbling about unfairness and longer wait lines for everyone else (I'm definitely part of this group of complainers!). 

Check it all out at this link:

https://www.tsa.gov/tsa-precheck/apply

Becoming a Flight Attendant

Hey guys!

So, I figured for my first blog post I would think back about my first memories of being on a plane, and I remembered that the first time I flew in a plane I was so jealous of the flight attendants because they had the coolest job - they got to meet new people every day, and travel all around the world. 

I decided to do some research and find out what it takes to become a flight attendant in 2016, and this is what I found:

According to Delta airlines, the minimum age requirement is 21 years of age. You must have at least a High School diploma or GED, and be authorized to work in the United States. They also recommend that you have ample customer service experience. 

What surprised me the most were the physical requirements for the job. Each airline has different physical requirements tailored to the dimensions of their planes. Airlines want to make sure that flight attendants are tall enough to reach the overhead bins, but not so tall that their head hits the ceiling of the plane. Airlines also require that flight attendants be able to sit in a seat and buckle the seat belt comfortably.

• The height range for most airlines is between 5’0” - 5’ 1” and 5’8” - 6’3”. Some airlines do not have height requirements, but instead require that you be able to reach a certain height.
• There is no numerical weight requirement, but many airlines do a visual assessment, looking at weight in proportion to height.
• In the 1960s, flight attendants were required to be females of a certain weight, and to retire before they reached a certain age. Some airlines continued these discriminatory practices through the 1980s and 1990s. Now men can be flight attendants, there is no numerical weight requirement, and people may continue working as flight attendants until they’re ready to retire.

The basic job requirements are:

• Greeting passengers as they board the plane and thanking them as they exit
  Helping passengers to their seats and with their luggage
  Giving the safety procedures presentation
  Giving out food and drinks
  Answering the passenger's questions and concerns
  Guiding the passengers to safety during an emergency 
  
  If you do get hired as a flight attendant, you will go through a 4-6 week training course, and if you pass that you will officially be given your contract! So all of us are probably qualified to be flight attendants when we graduate :) 
  http://www.deltajobs.net/flight_attendants.htm
  
  
  

Duty-Free Shops

Over spring break I spent some time traveling.  In doing so, I came across some duty-free shops in one of the airports and those piqued my interest.  I decided that I wanted to learn more about these duty-free shops.  What follows is my findings.

Duty-free stores are stores that sell products tax/duty free on the condition that the purchaser is taking the product out of the country of purchase.  Duty-free shops have been around since 1947.  The laws surrounding this practice of tax/duty free sales relates to international trade, where many countries allow for the tax-free export of goods.  Because goods being bought by internationally traveling passengers will be used outside of the country of purchase, it they can be considered to be exported goods.  As such, they are subject to tax law regarding exports and thus exempt from taxation (1).

In the United States of America, your duty-free exemption is dependent on some factors such as what the product is, what countries you have brought goods back from, etc.  Generally, that exemption is $800 but can be as high as $1600.  Some exceptions to this include alcohol and tobacco, as there are limits on the quantities of these items that can be brought back duty-free.  From cbp.gov:

The duty-free exemptions ($200, $800, or $1,600) apply if:- The items are for your personal or household use or intended to be given as gifts.-They are in your possession, that is, they accompany you when you return to the United States. Items to be sent later may not be included in your $800 duty-free exemption. (Exceptions apply for goods sent from Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands.)- They are declared to CBP. If you do not declare something that should have been declared, you risk forfeiting it. If in doubt, declare it.- You are returning from an overseas stay of at least 48 hours. For example, if you leave the United States at 1:30 p.m. on June 1, you would complete the 48-hour period at 1:30 p.m. on June 3. This time limit does not apply if you are returning from Mexico or from the U.S. Virgin Islands. (See also the section on the $200 exemption).- You have not used all of your exemption allowance, or used any part of it, in the past 30 days. For example, if you go to England and bring back $150 worth of items, you must wait another 30 days before you are allowed another $800 exemption. (See the section on the $200 exemption.)- The items are not prohibited or restricted as discussed in the section on Prohibited and Restricted Items in the "Know Before You Go" If you would like a hard copy of the publication, please order it through the Publications section of our Web site.

 (2).

So, duty-free shops exist as a form of international trade and here is a finite amount of purchases that can be claimed duty-free in a period of time.  This concludes my research into duty-free shops.