The Liberty Gazette
April 15, 2014
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda
Street-Ely
Mike: The
weather was pleasant, no fog, no storms, and the wind was blowing from the west
at about 20 knots, with gusts up to 30 knots. With the east-west runway the
pilots had no problem landing with that wind, although the ride around the
pattern was a bit bumpy from the gusts.
For 25 minutes they flew the twin-engine
turboprop airplane called a Beechcraft King Air C-90 around the traffic pattern
at the Salamanca airport in Spain, and as they flew, they were bringing the
future with them.
The prospect on their unique flight was new
vision: Google Glass, wearable and functional.
Two pair of eyeglasses each equipped with
camera, GPS, Bluetooth, microphone, and a small screen programmed to display
the airplane’s checklists and real-time navigation, made their maiden voyage
last month adorning the heads of two people from Adventia, a European college
of aeronautics.
Linda: The
head of training, Juan Riquelme, spoke to the glasses, saying, “Okay, Glass,
checklist” and there a screen appeared in the upper right of his spectacles displaying
the before take-off checklist of the King Air he was about to fly. As he read
off the items to be performed, ‘remove chocks, check oil, inspect ailerons’,
Google Glass put a checkmark next to the item in his vision, then removed it
from the list. Likewise, his co-pilot, Adventia’s Chief Flight Instructor,
Diana Rodriguez, saw the checklist items, and when she called for the map it
appeared in her vision without obscuring the real world beyond it. This
technology was adapted from that designed by the Faculty of Medicine at
Standford University and used for surgical procedures.
Pilot Innovation Day, and the first conference
on innovation in the cockpit were the backdrop to this first-ever demonstration
of wearable flight information during an actual flight, so all the big-wigs
were on hand for the show: the university chancellor and dean of the
aeronautics college, the head of training for Spain’s Iberia Airlines, as well
as developers from Google and its partner in this project, Droiders.
All the gee-whiz-wow-bang coolness of Google
Glass should not shroud the goal – improved safety and efficiency in training
and in the cockpit. Wearing the device that provides information can significantly
reduce the need to let go of flight controls to look up data during flight. In
the training realm these glasses are expected to reduce the amount of time lost
due to real-time updating of important data, such as weather, navigation, and
special notices to airmen. There it will be, right before our eyes.
Mike: There
are still a lot of questions to be answered before this product can be applied
to aviation in the way its creators hope. In our industry we consider
redundancy as important as speed and accuracy of information. The question begs
to be asked: what if I drop them?
Flying with advanced automated cockpits can be
overwhelming for students. Hopefully the glasses perform as advertised and
reduce training time and improve comprehension.
Linda: They
also claim that airlines will realize savings in fuel costs by switching from
several pounds of paper navigation charts to Google Glass, the reduction in
weight making for better results – but your mileage may vary. Wasn’t there a
song about someone with “googly eyes”? Ah, yes, back in 1923. “Barney Google
(With the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes”). Amazing foresight!
www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com
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