Wingman: More Can Be Gained From GAIN

The U.S. Congress' General Accounting Office recently said of the FAA's Operational Evolution Plan (OEP) that, "Having sound performance indicators [to measure the effectives of OEP initiatives] is of particular importance if funding becomes limited, because these indicators can help determine which actions are likely to yield the best results for the dollars expended and where to redirect resources should doing so become necessary."

What performance indicators are there to measure the efficiency and capacity of the U.S. airspace system?  Is it the Department of Transportation’s statistics on delayed flights?  Not really.  At best they can only indirectly say anything about capacity, and nothing about efficiency.  The DOT's current effort to add more information about the causes of delay brings something of value.  But it isn’t going to validate improvements in airspace efficiency.

The FAA's Dave Knorr, the person responsible for measuring the performance improvements in the U.S. national airspace system (NAS), says that measuring delays is a good indicator of system problems, but it is "not a good indicator of capacity increases."  What Knorr means - and Wingman agrees - is that actual operational change must be measured.  Actual operational change entails such things as airport throughput change during peak times, or a real reduction of flight time and distance between two points.

Knorr further maintains we need to measure performance in an actual operational environment – not simulated – with real people, in varying weather conditions, a varying mix of aircraft, and at many airports with varying runway configurations.  Furthermore, Knorr says, this must be done over significant periods of time – and before as well as after – implementing Free Flight changes.

Some expected outcomes from Free Flight (technologies and procedures which improve airspace efficiency) that need to be measured, according to Knorr, include reduced taxi times, reduced time and distance flown in both en route and terminal areas, improved airport throughput at peak times and even improved predictability of flight schedules as measured by less variation in actual times.

But how can those be measured in any reliable and cost effective way?  Wingman believes a large part of the answer could come as a beneficial byproduct from efforts made under the umbrella of the Global Aviation Information Network (GAIN) – especially the flight operations quality assurance tool, or FOQA.

How Present Technology Can Help

FOQA uses data collected from onboard aircraft sensors to assess a number of parameters that can be used to analyze procedures and practices which can lead to accidents.  But while it has become an excellent safety analysis instrument, it could be used for another good purpose as well – measuring airspace performance.

Today, FOQA is usually thought of in terms of finding abnormal or out-of-limits flight episodes.  Many FOQA analytical tools are designed to find these rare events out of many so-called normal ones.  However, for purposes of determining normal performance indicators, the idea is to collect data over a period of time to see how everyday operations are affected by technology changes.

To be more precise, it isn’t only the collecting of flight data that is important, and it isn’t the identification of dangerous anomalies for which FOQA was originally designed that is useful here.  It was the development of newer analytical technologies – PC-based – which can easily organize and analyze many flights, over significant periods of time, for many airplanes, crews, airports and conditions that makes FOQA so useful for performance measuring.

What we have now is the ability to take flight data such as an aircraft’s actual flight path, altitude, speed, power setting, flap configuration, weight and so on, and correlate those parameters with other important factors, such as the temperature, wind and visibility that are occurring simultaneously.  Even the airport and specific runway being used can be recorded and associated with the aircraft’s history.

There are other important things that can be correlated as well.  These include the level of aircraft equipage, the availability and use of Free Flight tools, the use of special airspace, ATC sector configuration, the number of instrument approaches and others.  All of these metrics can be correlated with the operational changes that are of interest.

Imagine what this means.  With these tools we can accurately measure before and after effects.  And by quantifying these results, we can do a number of things to aid in the justification of investments and set better priorities for future work.

There are several off-the-shelf software programs available for identifying special-events or when system limits are exceeded.  But some go beyond that.  NASA’s Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS), for example, makes an important advance because of its ability to retain data from all the flights and all recorded flight parameters, in order to provide a more nearly complete picture of air carrier operational performance, especially if they are further combined with ATC status, airport configuration and weather information, such as visibility and wind.

There are privately developed programs, also.  Teledyne Controls’ Flight Data Replay and Analysis System (FLIDRAS) is used to analyze flight crew performance as well as to monitor the aircraft systems and the health and condition of aircraft engines, using data from the aircraft’s flight recorders.  As with APMS, FLIDRAS was designed primarily to be a safety analysis tool, but its utility could easily be applied to this application as well.

Should Safety Tools Be Used This Way?

Should a safety tool like FOQA be used in this way?  Wingman says yes.  There is no apparent reason why the two activities can’t be using the same recorded data for their own important purposes.  The only thing happening is that the data will be analyzed for different – but in Wingman’s view – complementary intentions.

Furthermore, although the data is very valuable for airspace improvement authentication purposes, there should be no fear that it will be misused to the detriment of the contributor.  Initially, there was skepticism about using FOQA for safety analysis (or perhaps, because it was to be used for safety analysis), for fear that it could be used to assess legal liability or become fodder for public media distribution and sensationalism. Those fears have significantly diminished, however, because of de-identification of the data’s source before sharing as well as strict legislative and regulatory restrictions on its dissemination.  The same requirements could be applied in this case.

Wingman isn’t advocating any diminishment of GAIN’s safety priority.  He’s merely advocating another use of the data and tools that are already there.  In the process, Wingman believes, a synergy is created that helps both the cause of safety and airspace modernization.

A Minimum Commitment Is Required

There are some problems with GAIN safety data today, however.  One is the lack of sufficient standardization.  Another is a sharing mechanism to disseminate information between several entities with appropriate safeguards.  And finally there is the cost of equipping aircraft with adequate recorders and then putting into place the proper analytical tools along with staff to run it.  While, spending money on anything but core activities is especially problematic for nearly all airlines in today’s economic climate, it is a special concern for regional carriers and other airlines with small fleets.

Wingman has two suggestions:

First, why not expand the use of FOQA and GAIN to get more leverage?  All of that is being done to understand aviation safety issues: data collection, data analysis, information sharing and information security is applicable to the problem of measuring system performance as well.  As a matter of fact, safety performance and system performance overlap in many ways.  Let’s use that synergy.

Second, a valid and widely accepted performance measurement will inspire confidence to make needed outlays.  It is natural for technical people to think mainly about technical problems, solutions and improvements, just as financial people think about reducing costs and increasing economic value.  An accurate quantification of technology’s benefits can bring these camps together.

If airspace modernization and Free Flight benefits can be validated, one of the most vexing problems of their implementation can be overcome – convincing governments, service providers and users to make the investment.

Wingman will have more to say on this last point in weeks to come.  01-28-2002.

Click here to become a registered Flt Tech Online subscriber and receive headlines delivered to your e-mail each week

Click here to go back to the headlines