Model Airplanes

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LOS ANGELES – With a global focus on how to reduce safety risks caused by anomalous human behavior and how to fully recover data crucial for analyzing an air crash, a Chinese aircraft manufacturer is using big data and cloud technology to build safer airplanes.

“The time for revolution in aviation safety has come,” Wei Ye, executive director and president of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) America Corporation told Xinhua on Friday.

The Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety of France (BEA) recently confirmed that the crash of a plane of German budget airline Germanwings a year ago was caused deliberately by its co-pilot, who had been suffering from depression.

The Airbus 320 crashed in southern France on March 24, 2015, while en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, killing 150 people on board.

To minimize such risks caused by human factors, COMAC America Corporation is studying the concept of “unmanned flight with human supervision” using a big data-based computer, which operates in an entirely closed environment without influence from outside.

“Without the influence of pilots’ ‘emotions’ and mishandling, a computer-piloted plane is safer than a manned one,” Ye said.

In a computer-piloted plane, a hard-drive with big data, which include flight routes, weather information, emergency processing programs, and flight data of 200 pilots accumulated in 20 years, might become the “pilot” in the future; human pilots will only need to insert the hard-drive into the cockpit and monitor the flight in a separate

Article source: http://www.mb.com.ph/chinese-aircraft-manufacturer-uses-big-data-to-build-safer-planes/

By Aaron Tucker and Aimal Pacha Sayedi*

Successful advising requires skill in a broad range of competencies that includes political-military relations, operations, and acquisitions. Advising the Afghan air force’s airlift mission seeks to strengthen the legitimacy of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as part of the counterinsurgency strategy of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Training at the U.S. Air Force’s Air Advisor Academy supports the initial qualification of students as air advisors, while additional lessons are gleaned from studying the Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Finally, developing effective advising postures can be guided by a conceptual model that incorporates ideas outlined in Colonel John Boyd’s essay “Destruction and Creation”1 and by systems engineering techniques. This article breaks down the essential components of a successful air advising posture, applies it to the mission in Afghanistan, and concludes with a summary of key points and suggested areas for improvement.

Airlift as a Counterinsurgency Tactic

The Hindu Kush mountain range extends from central Afghanistan, with peaks more than 16,000 feet high, through the Badakhshan region in the northwest of the country, where mountain peaks reach 24,000 feet. Throughout history, this rugged terrain has isolated Afghanistan’s numerous tribes, causing local government and family-based power structures to prevail. Moreover, attempts by foreign powers to install a strong central government have been strenuously resisted. Ancient invaders such as Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan simply bypassed terrain that was difficult to conquer, leaving ungoverned areas referred to as yagistan, that is, lawless places.

Article source: http://www.eurasiareview.com/28032016-advising-the-afghan-air-force-analysis/