Posted on 03/07/2004 12:36:36 PM PST by Archangelsk
New, Smaller Planes Crowding Skies Once Left to Big Jets By MATTHEW L. WALDWASHINGTON, March 6 — For years the skies have been crowded with airplanes, but the planes' capabilities have kept them at different altitudes, with small, piston-driven models a few thousand feet above ground, commuter turboprops in the 20,000-foot range and jet airliners at 30,000 feet or higher.
Now, to the dismay of aviation experts, an increasing number of planes may begin competing for space at the same higher altitudes. The turboprops are disappearing and being replaced by "regional jets," which fly at big-jet altitudes. Some of the older, larger jetliners are disappearing, too, each being replaced by two small regional jets.
The number of corporate jet flights is on the rise as the economy rebounds, in planes owned by major corporations or shared through fractional ownership, sold somewhat like time-share condominiums. And manufacturers of private planes are planning new "microjets" — small, relatively cheap planes designed for flying at the altitudes, if not the speeds, of the big airliners.
The changes are happening as the industry recovers from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, SARS and the Iraq war, and as the level of air traffic returns to near its 2001 peak, when delays kept millions of passengers waiting in airport lounges and on planes in takeoff lines.
"We're expecting a crunch in late spring or summer," said H. Keith Hagy, assistant director of the engineering and air safety department at the Air Line Pilots Association.
Others put the critical point slightly later, but Mr. Hagy and other experts agree that a proliferation of small jets is part of the problem. There are almost 500 regional jets, or R.J.'s, on order, and they are entering the system at the rate of about 200 a year, representing nearly all of the growth in airliner aviation.
"There's going to be a lot more competition for the airspace," said David Watrous, the president of an industry advisory group, the RTCA, formerly known as the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics.
Top officials of the Federal Aviation Administration say the trends will challenge them. At a meeting of the RTCA last month, Russell Chew, the agency's chief operating officer, said air traffic costs were based mostly on the number of planes, not on how big they were. "Capacity has already begun to become tight again," Mr. Chew said in a speech.
The agency's revenue comes from ticket taxes, but ticket revenues are flat or declining. "The financial pressures are going to be enormous," Mr. Chew said.
In January, the secretary of transportation said the F.A.A. would need to triple its capacity to handle traffic in the next few years. But the administration's budget for the agency for the next fiscal year calls for an 18 percent cut in spending on new facilities and equipment, which led the agency to shelve several projects intended to increase capacity.
Ruth Marlin, the executive vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said runway congestion, the traditional choke point for the system, could be made worse by a switch from turboprops to jets, because many airports have one runway for each.
The turboprops, which are planes with jet engines that turn propellers, can use older, shorter runways of less than 6,000 feet, but if the runway is given over to small jets carrying the same number of seats, the turboprop has to compete with the big jets for time on the bigger runway.
A former president of the Air Line Pilots Association, J. Randolph Babbitt, said, "At La Guardia, you can still only land them one every 54 seconds, or whatever the number du jour is."
Mr. Babbitt, now a consultant, said: "There's a finite amount of concrete. If you take one 747 out and put two R.J.'s in, it's just one more aircraft in the air traffic environment and the runway environment."
The number of regional jets could eventually be dwarfed by a new class of private jets meant to replace high-end private planes with piston engines. Eclipse Aviation, of Albuquerque, plans to begin delivering a four-seat, twin-engine jet in 2006, for under $1 million each, which would cut current prices in half. The company already has more than 2,000 orders.
The crowding is reviving friction between the airlines and other operators. At the RTCA meeting, Ira G. Pearl, the director of flight operations at Delta Air Lines, complained that in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., one recent Saturday, one of his company's wide-body jets, with 200 passengers on board, was delayed 45 minutes as it waited for takeoff behind 13 corporate jets.
The F.A.A. has always operated on a first-come-first-served basis, but, Mr. Pearl said, "H.O.V. lanes in the sky are something to think about" — meaning a system like car-pool lanes on a highway, also called high-occupancy-vehicle lanes, in which planes would get priority according to how many people they carried.
Peter West, the spokesman for the National Business Aviation Association, responded in a telephone interview that business flights were a sign of a healthy economy, which would help provide the growth that would keep the airlines healthy, and that the solution was to increase capacity.
In fact, the aviation agency recently added capacity by changing the traffic pattern above 30,000 feet, so planes can fly within 1,000-foot layers instead of 2,000-foot layers. It also has a new system for planes to navigate using a combination of guideposts, including the global positioning system and ground-based radio beacons, and to take direct paths rather than following established lanes in the sky. But it has published procedures for the system for only a handful of airports.
I say thank Panbuh he has such a problem.
Peter West, the spokesman for the National Business Aviation Association, responded in a telephone interview that business flights were a sign of a healthy economy, which would help provide the growth that would keep the airlines healthy...,
That's not what J. Efin Kerry told me!
Obviously congestion will be a factor, but consumer demand will drive adoption and we will have to figure out congestion.
It's also highly likely that Air Taxi's will rip the guts out of the commercial airline industry profits because it will take away their best customers, the last minute business traveler.
Speculating here: is if Eclipse Aviations jet is what it claims to be (and that's a big if) is that we will be left with air taxi's for expensive point to point trips and last minute business travel, and discount airlines like Southwest running discount high-volume routes for Vacation travel, family, etc.
Wonder what's being done to protect people on the ground from these new toys...
Now that I think about it, price may be the easiest part of getting a Jet Taxi service. Not that this will keep me from lusting for the day when I won't need to fly commercial. One can hope.
This 1M jet taxi was featured in a very good Newsweek article some months back--included in with lots of stories how millionaires entertain themselves--trips in toy submarines, camping adventures ($50K/per) to Antarctica...
Once you factor in all the delays and unpleasantness, driving starts to look good. However, I think jet-taxis will just be a whole new experience of congestion. You'll have to take satisfaction that you'll really bug the movie stars and other Masters of the Universe...
When jets cost $1M --it will cease to be special to own them. At least they have to fly high, and are not really that much fun to fly--after you impress the lounge crowd once, anyway.
When little jets start crashing into backyards--that'll be something. I'd like them to stay on their own cowpaths.
ooooH! You're so big and strong, Buzz! But, along with those specs, you didn't tell me your flying hours. And I'm dying to hear!
Your Saratoga has an Air Data Computer, IRS, EGPWS, FMS and Windshear detection? Lucky you. :-)
Honestly who gives a crap whether this would bug a movie star or not. I need this now for my job!
There are already jets out there that are significantly less expensive than the Lears.
Not to mention, locals won't be too thrilled with the sudden uptick of noise, and will move to regulate.
Why, with all the wonderful new communications, is so much travel necessary?
Some locals will be bothered by the extra noise, Others will see the benefits of a air taxi service to themselves and will be supported. overall, the noise issue should be a wash.
Right now the biggest hurdle I think will be handling thousands of small jets flying point to point routes and making sure they don't bump into each other. There's a lot of airspace though and this should not be insurmountable with some new systems.
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