Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2014-2015 - 33

If general aviation is to make a renaissance,
we need strong leadership in proactive safety and the
encouragement to develop enticing new technologies.

old designs with technologies (or rather lack of
technologies) that have been banned in the automotive
industry for more than 30 years . Why?
Our electronics, while somewhat better, are still no
utopia . The "new generation" touchscreen avionics are
certainly a step ahead of yesterday's, but, seriously?
I'm writing this column on a $300 iPad Mini at 34,000
feet somewhere over Nevada while listening to my
selection of music . Why is the gap between our avionics
and consumer electronics growing wider?
The recent Part 23 Aviation Rulemaking Committee
had the mandate from the Federal Aviation
Administration to double safety at half the cost . While
this is mostly a political sound bite, I have doubts the
FAA will reach this fiscal goal . However, the safety
goal is achievable and admirable . Yes, I completely
support the doubling of safety . Aviation should have,
and must have, a lower fatality rate; we need to
mandate survivability technology . In a period when the
accident (and fatality) rate in general aviation has been
relatively flat, the fatality rate in the automotive sector
per hundred million vehicle miles traveled fell from 5 .5
to 1 .7 from the mid-1960s to 1994 . When I ask various
original equipment manufacturers why they haven't
installed some of the technologies that currently exist
or that we see in the automotive industry, the response
is generally the same; the customer doesn't want to
pay for it . The work of the Part 23 ARC isn't going to
change that .
I suggest the issue is four-fold in reality: the lack
of technology; the time and cost necessary to certify
the technology; the general inability to install the
technology; and the lack of safety mandates .
In October 2013, I had the privilege of touring
the Argonne National Laboratory in the Chicago
suburb of Lemont . Argonne is a U . S . Department
of Energy laboratory, a multidisciplinary science and
engineering research center where researchers work
alongside experts from industry, academia and other
government laboratories to address challenges in clean
energy, environment, technology and national security .
My tour focused on the technology center .

A primary objective of the laboratory is to promote
the economic interests of the U .S . by facilitating
development, transfer, and use of federally owned or
originated technology to industry for public benefit and
to leverage DOE resources through partnering with
industry . During the tour, we focused on transportation
technologies, primarily with alternative fuel vehicles . As
a bit of a tech geek, the tour was really cool, if not a bit
disappointing . In aviation, we don't have an equivalent .
Sure, we have the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration and the FAA research center in Atlantic
City . But are they truly equal? According to its website,
the purpose of NASA's Aerospace Technical Facility
Inventory is to facilitate the sharing of specialized
capabilities within the aerospace research/engineering
community primarily within NASA . NASA claims as
spinoff technologies to include memory foam, freezedried food, firefighting equipment, emergency "space
blankets," Dustbusters, cochlear implants and now
Speedo's LZR Racer swimsuits . NASA claims there are
more than 1,650 other spinoffs in the fields of computer
technology, environment and agriculture, health and
medicine, public safety, transportation, recreation, and
industrial productivity . But I don't see any improvements
in general aviation technologies .
The FAA William J . Hughes Technical Center serves
as the FAA national scientific test base for research
and development, test and evaluation, and verification
and validation in air traffic control, communications,
navigation, airports, aircraft safety, and security . The
Technical Center is the primary facility supporting the
nation's Next Generation Air Transportation System, or
NextGen .
So again, where is the general aviation research
technology center?
In 2010, the Center for Automotive Research at
Stanford University announced it had developed a
robotic Audi car that drives itself as a contender for the
Pikes Peak race . In October 2005, the Stanford Racing
Team was awarded $2 million for being the first team to
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