4 ms·

If you know aviation, literally anything that will decrease fuel usage. Also maintenance & repair operations (a whole lot of dirty fingerprints going on there).

by yarper 7y ago

howardhughes 7y ago
> If you know aviation, literally anything that will decrease fuel usage Apart from writing full blown avionics systems for engine/flight control - what are you suggesting?
- travisjungroth 7y ago
  Not obviously, but it could be. Reducing idling time and improving routes both increase fuel efficiency without changing the airplane. Maybe software could help with those. Edit: my reply was to the original comment which was something like "how is this a software problem?"
  - spaceandshit 7y ago
    > Reducing idling time and improving routes both increase fuel efficiency without changing the airplane Do you think idling time is a software problem? Aircraft idle for various time based on other requirements and needs, for example, spooling up the engines or inerting the fuel tanks. Routes are already optimized by air traffic for the fastest, and cheapest route. They have no incentive to increase flight times as there would be fewer aircraft flying then.
    - travisjungroth 7y ago
      Software can't fix aircraft idling, but maybe it can help. And ATC has the final say on routes for IFR aircraft (except emergencies), but there are a thousand VFR airplanes in the air right now. I think it's possible we can do better than GPS direct. I don't have a solution for either of these things, just enough intuition as a pilot and software engineer to say "maybe there's something there".
- yarper 7y ago
  Who knows. Most carriers fly the same aircraft from the same bases on the same routes with the same regulations. It's not because I know what it is, it's just one of the few areas with any scope to be a differentiator.
bronco21016 7y ago
This is changing somewhat at least in the airline world. Record profits have meant these companies finally have money to spend. Combined with iPads with ubiquitous connectivity a lot is changing. The airline I work for is nearing a paperless cockpit. Flight attendants have handhelds loaded with tools for their job, credit card readers, and all of their manuals. Mechanics are joining soon with paperless aircraft logbooks, manuals, and line maintenance dispatching. Almost all of this stuff is developed in-house or through contractors. It’s so customized to the existing data systems and airline operations that I don’t see how a SaaS could break into it. SaaS May work for smaller airlines who would be more willing to mold their operation to fit a tool. As far as fuel usage goes that is unfortunately more a symptom of ATC. You can make the best flight profile in the world for fuel planning but as soon as ATC needs to change your profile it all goes out the window.
- yarper 7y ago
  That's great to hear, been a while since I've been in the sector. As for breaking into it via a SaaS, it makes sense that they would build it themselves. Seems like operators all do the same thing but differently.
travisjungroth 7y ago
What do you mean "dirty fingerprints"? Like, literally?
- yarper 7y ago
  It's a slang term for paperwork, it means a mechanic with dirty hands had to sign something.
spaceandshit 7y ago
Convince regulators that advanced control techniques can be used on flight software (model-based predictive control, optimal control, etc.) We know how to do these, maybe not as safe as we can with simpler methods today, but convincing the public and regulators will always be the challenge in aviation/aerospace. Probably the only realistic (software related) method in today's world without a materials/battery improvement, but we won't get there for a while.
- wenc 7y ago
  So I don't know the first thing about aircraft control, but I'm a control engineer by training. What control scheme do aircraft use today? I always thought it was a form of MPC (well GPC = generalized predictive control) with a state estimator like a linear Kalman filter.
  - spaceandshit 7y ago
    Are you familiar with DO-178? Basically outputs have to be deterministic.. so you can't really use advanced control techniques. I haven't worked on flight control (but control on specific aircraft systems, which are at the same level), and they're all basically PID control thrown together.
    - wenc 7y ago
      Ah no, aircraft control is outside of my province, so this is new knowledge. Advanced control can be deterministic -- through parameterization. Explicit MPC [1] does this. It pre-computes the quadratic optimization problem offline, so all the solutions are enumerated and stored, and are verifiable. However, as far as I know no one has implemented this commercially. Interesting that it's all PID. Not surprised though because PID is tried-and-true (but even so, has a lot of tiny nuances which takes years to understand). [1] https://www.mathworks.com/help/mpc/explicit-mpc-design.html https://www.mathworks.com/help/mpc/explicit-mpc-design.html
      - spaceandshit 7y ago

If you know aviation, literally anything that will decrease fuel usage. Also maintenance & repair operations (a whole lot of dirty fingerprints going on there).

by yarper 7y ago

If you know aviation, literally anything that will decrease fuel usage. Also maintenance & repair operations (a whole lot of dirty fingerprints going on there).

howardhughes 7y ago

> If you know aviation, literally anything that will decrease fuel usage Apart from writing full blown avionics systems for engine/flight control - what are you suggesting?

travisjungroth 7y ago
Not obviously, but it could be. Reducing idling time and improving routes both increase fuel efficiency without changing the airplane. Maybe software could help with those. Edit: my reply was to the original comment which was something like "how is this a software problem?"
- spaceandshit 7y ago
  > Reducing idling time and improving routes both increase fuel efficiency without changing the airplane Do you think idling time is a software problem? Aircraft idle for various time based on other requirements and needs, for example, spooling up the engines or inerting the fuel tanks. Routes are already optimized by air traffic for the fastest, and cheapest route. They have no incentive to increase flight times as there would be fewer aircraft flying then.
  - travisjungroth 7y ago
    Software can't fix aircraft idling, but maybe it can help. And ATC has the final say on routes for IFR aircraft (except emergencies), but there are a thousand VFR airplanes in the air right now. I think it's possible we can do better than GPS direct. I don't have a solution for either of these things, just enough intuition as a pilot and software engineer to say "maybe there's something there".
yarper 7y ago
Who knows. Most carriers fly the same aircraft from the same bases on the same routes with the same regulations. It's not because I know what it is, it's just one of the few areas with any scope to be a differentiator.

bronco21016 7y ago

This is changing somewhat at least in the airline world. Record profits have meant these companies finally have money to spend. Combined with iPads with ubiquitous connectivity a lot is changing. The airline I work for is nearing a paperless cockpit. Flight attendants have handhelds loaded with tools for their job, credit card readers, and all of their manuals. Mechanics are joining soon with paperless aircraft logbooks, manuals, and line maintenance dispatching. Almost all of this stuff is developed in-house or through contractors. It’s so customized to the existing data systems and airline operations that I don’t see how a SaaS could break into it. SaaS May work for smaller airlines who would be more willing to mold their operation to fit a tool. As far as fuel usage goes that is unfortunately more a symptom of ATC. You can make the best flight profile in the world for fuel planning but as soon as ATC needs to change your profile it all goes out the window.

yarper 7y ago
That's great to hear, been a while since I've been in the sector. As for breaking into it via a SaaS, it makes sense that they would build it themselves. Seems like operators all do the same thing but differently.

travisjungroth 7y ago

What do you mean "dirty fingerprints"? Like, literally?

yarper 7y ago
It's a slang term for paperwork, it means a mechanic with dirty hands had to sign something.

spaceandshit 7y ago

Convince regulators that advanced control techniques can be used on flight software (model-based predictive control, optimal control, etc.) We know how to do these, maybe not as safe as we can with simpler methods today, but convincing the public and regulators will always be the challenge in aviation/aerospace. Probably the only realistic (software related) method in today's world without a materials/battery improvement, but we won't get there for a while.

wenc 7y ago
So I don't know the first thing about aircraft control, but I'm a control engineer by training. What control scheme do aircraft use today? I always thought it was a form of MPC (well GPC = generalized predictive control) with a state estimator like a linear Kalman filter.
- spaceandshit 7y ago
  Are you familiar with DO-178? Basically outputs have to be deterministic.. so you can't really use advanced control techniques. I haven't worked on flight control (but control on specific aircraft systems, which are at the same level), and they're all basically PID control thrown together.
  - wenc 7y ago
    Ah no, aircraft control is outside of my province, so this is new knowledge. Advanced control can be deterministic -- through parameterization. Explicit MPC [1] does this. It pre-computes the quadratic optimization problem offline, so all the solutions are enumerated and stored, and are verifiable. However, as far as I know no one has implemented this commercially. Interesting that it's all PID. Not surprised though because PID is tried-and-true (but even so, has a lot of tiny nuances which takes years to understand). [1] https://www.mathworks.com/help/mpc/explicit-mpc-design.html https://www.mathworks.com/help/mpc/explicit-mpc-design.html
    - spaceandshit 7y ago