In this episode we discuss the AVX/L3 compound coaxial helicopter (CCH) and its unique design, Delta CEO Ed Bastian’s letter on the company’s future, new tiltwing EVTOL designs and more.
Learn more about Weather Guard StrikeTape segmented lightning diverter strips. Follow the show on YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit us on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Full Transcript: EP21 AVX L3 Compound Coaxial Helicopter, Delta CEO’s Letter on the Future; Tilt Wing EVTOL – Will it Fly?
All right, welcome back. This is the Struck podcast. This is episode 21. And on today’s show, we’ve got a bunch of really interesting topics. First we’re in our new segment, we’re going to cover, um, a couple of different things about the coronavirus downturn. So number one, Delta CEO, Ed Bastian, just released a letter announcing some of their outlook going forward.
They just had a, uh, a tough period of laying off a lot of people. And also they just had a bunch of employees except early retirement. So we’ll chat about that a little bit in his outlook. Uh, also an interesting article at the BBC on. How jet planes are getting sent to boneyards essentially, I’m also a little bit of lightening strike news because we are a lightning first show.
A couple of people injured at the DHL hub. When a lightning strikes a lightning struck a ramp, it sounds like. So a couple of workers injured. We’ll talk a little bit about that, which apparently happens more than people realize. Um, as we get into our engineering segment, we were talking a little bit about Honeywell, their UV cabin disinfection system.
It’s really interesting how all of the world is changing as far as cleanliness and disinfection. And obviously the air air aircraft is no different. We’ll also talk about the AVX aircraft, which is a really fascinating looking vehicle with a tilt rotor it’s and they’re developing, I guess, that for the U S army.
And then lastly, as we jumped to some electric tech, the do for. Tilt wing O L so a lot of discussion on that really interesting design. Very complex design. So Alan, let’s start with news. We both just read, uh, ed bastion, the Delta CEO’s letter. What are some of your thoughts? They got to stop the cash burn.
That’s there. That’s the thought? Yeah. 20 down to 27 million down from a hundred million, a port per day. Which is staggering $3 billion a month. They used, they were burning back in March, April leash. Wow. Money, a lot of cash burn the industry and what Delta jet blue, Southwest American United are all trying to do is.
Get the customer satisfaction numbers up so they can increase the ridership so they can fill some airplanes. Cause I think the issue right now is consumer confidence that they aircraft are in the airports themselves for that matter are clean. And that they’re taking the precautions that were being told about every 30 seconds that.
Uh, th that we’re maintaining a social distance that we’re wiping down the airplanes or cleaning the airplanes and that, um, everybody on the airplanes or we’re in math and it seems to be okay, a very effective way of dealing with it. But the problem is, is that I think people who are traveling at least haven’t seen any indication that there’s been any sort of COVID transmission.
Via airline flights and we’ve been flying it. We ain’t never shut down the airlines they’ve been flying since this all started. So we have several months of data and thousands of flights, tens of thousands of flights at this point. Uh, it doesn’t seem like there’s a connection between COBIT transmissions and flying in airplanes.
That doesn’t seem to be a thing let’s let’s shift forward here. So speaking of Delta, um, well speaking of just the industry in general, These planes are ending up in bone yards now. So what does that mean? Exactly? Well, there’s a couple of places across the United States, mostly in the desert, uh, in the U S where, and I think Australia has a bone yard.
I don’t know about the UK. I’ve never really seen one over there, but, uh, when you decommission an airplane, you may want to bring it back. Uh, if the permanent decommission it, the aircraft gets used for spare parts. Just like in an auto junkyard recycling center, I guess we call it now. Uh, so they go so off my, my old Honda, uh, you know, I was getting rusty and no longer of any use.
I could send it to a salvage yard and they’re going to. Either crush it or take parts off it. So someone else can use the parts to keep their automobile running. Same thing happens on airplanes. Of course, airplane parts are a lot more valuable than, uh, automotive parts. And I have limited usage, right? So the, there is a sort of a secondary market for parts.
Um, even sections of airplanes get used for other testing purposes. I know we’ve been involved in a couple of different efforts where we’ve actually cut off a section of an aircraft it’s in a bone yard, uh, and use it for a test to get. Something approved for the next generation of airplanes. So they have used, but there’s a lot of, uh, if you go down to Arizona is, and one I’ve been at a couple of times, there was a big bone yard down in Arizona, uh, where they just park their planes in and pull the engines off engines have a lot of value.
Uh, avionics have a lot of value. But everything else is just a shell, right? So all the hydraulics and all the structure, pretty much not usable, um, controlled surfaces, I guess, can be usable and reused. So there’s value in those aircraft. Uh, but I’m, I’m guessing that there’s just getting a huge influx of aircraft, right?
I’m like, where are you going to park them all? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And so let’s talk about this lighting strike. So at a DH DHL hub at a Cincinnati airport. So how does this happen? So they’re on the ramp of a plane and lightning hit the ground or hit the D it’s not clear where the lightning strike.
Exactly. Touchdown, but obviously you can just spread and hit anyone on the ground. That’s how people die in parks and forests. Same problem. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In an airport, uh, especially a busy hub, like a DHL or FedEx or ups where there’s a lot of ground workers running around, uh, pulling, uh, packages and containers off on and off of an aircraft.
Lightening in the area is usually means of shutting things down. Uh, just because the aircraft tend to be the highest things. Oh, around particularly larger ones. Right? So like a triple seven is probably the tallest thing at the airport. Oh taller than the airport itself. Uh, so they get, so aircraft gets struck.
And what happens is, is that, uh, the ticket struck on the tail and the energy runs down and jumps over the, the wheels to the tarmac and energizes the ground. And everybody’s around. It gets knocked down and hurt because there’s all kinds of current running through the concrete and the rebar and the concrete, but it’s, there’s a voltage there.
And usually the ground is wet because it’s raining and everybody gets shocked and knocked out. People have gotten killed doing that. So there’s usually procedures in place to limit access to the ramp when. There’s been lightening and Dan, I don’t know if you’ve ever traveled to Florida, uh, in the summertime where you pull up in the airplane.
He, you can’t get off. Cause there’s a thunderstorm coming. It’s the same sort of thing. They don’t want the ground crews out there when there’s Dunder storm nearby. Cause someone can get really hurt. Really hurt. And the, the guys that wear the headsets and they plug into the airplane, those guys can get really, really hurt because the energy goes through that wire into their head.
Oh yeah. Terrifying. That’s terrifying. Very dangerous.
right. So let’s talk engineering a little bit. Uh, first thing, a quick one jet blues testing. Honeywell’s UV Cavin doesn’t disinfectant system. So if you imagine this it’s just looks like a, a service cart going down the aisle. And if you imagine you’re just walking down the aisle, just with your arms extended, um, you know, this thing has two wings sort of extending out and just covering all the seats with, I guess, some sort of intense blue light or UV light, um, you know, to disinfect these.
So. What do you, how do you feel about this? I know they’ve been using lots of different things like wipes, uh, electrostatic foggers, which I don’t know what that is. It sounds terrifying. It sounds, it sounds like what you, you know, you put that huge blanket over your condo building and bomb all the bugs, but similar, similar to that.
Yeah. But this seems like a pretty clean, like smart technology. I mean, it seems really like, just roll down the aisle takes 10, 15 minutes and. Everything’s good to go, but, well, I don’t know, had seen this device when I saw this a little news article pop out this week. I thought I’ve seen that before. And Honeywell did not invent those things.
Honeywell actually acquired a company that, that had created it a while ago. Uh, and, uh, it was a smaller company and they had done some initial research on, I forget the name of the company. So the tip of my tongue, so I may pop out, but the, they had developed this, a UV C ultraviolet light, and the C spectrum was ABC.
So, uh, the, the ultraviolet C spectrum. Tends to kill a lot of virus and bacteria, and they had done a bunch of, uh, initial studies. I don’t, I’m not sure how deep and this article didn’t really talk about that either. Like how sure are they this kills coronavirus. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They said there’s several studies that are trying to understand the effect of UVC light, but it doesn’t sound super conclusive.
But I guess everything’s better than nothing at this point. So no, one’s arguing about sending us down the aisle for 10 minutes, but right. But it is time. We don’t really know. Oh, it kind of looks like if you ever run a snowblower and you got the little cover over top. Yeah. You can just kind of pushing this thing along.
It’s it’s kinda got that snowblower shield around you, so you don’t get exposed a lot of UV light. Uh, the problem here’s the problem. Here’s the really the bigger problem, in my opinion, the UVC light and UV light in general may work great. And it may kill all the bacteria and viruses that are in the cabin, but.
The plastics that are in the cabin probably are not very, or not gonna like the UV light, uh, plastics could become yellow over time. He exposed them to a lot of UV light. Uh, I know there’s there’s additives that are placed to them sometimes to keep them from yellowing. But if you make the, the. Components to plastic components brittle, then your trash in an aircraft interior.
And maybe that’s the cost of doing business today, but it’s somewhat better do that quick study at Airbus and Boeing to make sure that they don’t make their cabin though, where it bins and all this, all the little plastic parts brittle, that’ll be bad. Sorry, I’m just, just getting destroyed by one. You know?
I mean, those things go through a lot of abuse, just trying to slam it, to get your way too big bag that you definitely should have checked that you’re wasting everyone’s time. We can’t take off because your bag is never going to fit in there and you’re slamming the thing down. Yeah. So there’s just because our shattering now, well, that’s what happens is that everything gets, because what the UV light does is it breaks molecular bonds.
That’s what essentially what it does. Do you think of all this plastic being, uh, molecules that are bonded together? It UV light just breaks those bonds or break those apart. So it’s not as strong as it once was. And, and when you impacted that, those impacts. We’ll do damage and that, you know, behind all that stuff, I know it seems hard to think about because you don’t see it, but behind those baggage, compartments and above and behind all the panels on the plastic panels on the side or aircraft systems.
So there’s all kinds of wire harnesses, important air docks, all these other things, hydraulic lines, all these things you need to fly the airplane or behind there. And that interior provides that barrier between you and this critical aircraft. System or not necessarily critical, but there’s some aircraft systems that are behind there.
You don’t want to have broken. Uh, so if the interior gets fragile, how much buffer do you have there? And that’s, that’s not, that’s not good. Yeah.
So AVX aircraft is studying capabilities that can compound coaxial rotor until Rodo technologies. Uh, this sounds like this is, uh, for the U S army. This is a crazy looking plane and it looks really cool. Yeah. It’s got a wing. It’s got a ducted pair of ducted fans on both sides on the rear and then two, uh, rotors.
So how do you feel about this design? It looks, it is complex, but Sikorsky beat him to the punch. I know they’re trying to separate themselves from Corsica cause Sikorsky and. Has had that defiant platform for a long time or at least two years. I think been setting speed records with, uh, essentially two, uh, main rotors that are kind of rotating.
And I push a propeller in the back and man, that, that thing could fly. Uh, so they know there’s, there’s potential in it, whether, uh, when you have very, very leading edge technology, which is what these things are. Um, cause you’re talking about an narrow aerodynamics that we don’t know a lot about, especially with rotating.
Uh, components. And I remember when the Sikorsky there was, uh, Sikorsky was first doing that, that there was a lot of controversy, whether it was going to work or not. And, uh, obviously it did. So now there’s other people trying to get into that, into that game, but I still wonder how much. Knowledge or is in that particular space of the aerodynamics and how things perform because it’s when you anything that’s counter-rotating yeah.
Is trouble. Uh, if you think about it, all the mechanisms that are involved, there’s, there’s a lot to it. It’s not simple. Yeah. So is the certification process for this is going to be tough. I mean, is the, is the certification process different when it’s a military vehicle? Uh, yes and no, the military can set their own rules, but they haven’t.
Well, they have, so for things that are derived civilian, uh, aircraft, they will apply their own. They, they, the FDA can get involved in it. So there’s actually a military office at the FAA that deals with the military services. So there’s parts of the aircraft, which should comply to the FAA regulations.
And there’s the military parts that. Yeah, and he looks the other way at, um, if it’s a unique nonstandard, uh, military application, then pretty much a military service is going to say what’s happening with that thing. It doesn’t mean that they’re, it’s not oversight, but, uh, there’s a little more leeway in my opinion is a little bit leeway.
Cause there’s no rules. There’s not as many, uh, specific regulations because it’s such a new device. How are you going to do that? Because the regulation has never really envisioned this. This is the same thing we’re having with the vertical takeoff, the landing stuff that’s going on between the Europeans and the United States where the United States says, well, we don’t even need to make new rules.
We have existing rules and we can work it out. And the Europeans are saying, we need to create this whole set of new rules. Yeah. Someone’s got to, I set the standards so that they were carved out and follow the sky. Not true her. That is. But in this particular case, it’s going to be really complicated because they are dynamics are so.
Complex. Gotcha. Well, speaking of complex, um, let’s go to our final segment here and chat a little bit about, uh, the market. And so do for is testing their tilt wing. EBTL, uh, they’ve completed 550 flights of this interesting design. How do you feel about it? So it’s basically looks like a pretty standard.
Plane like small, small aircraft, but their whole wing will angle upward, allowing it to vertically, take off and then angle back and then get going. So, um, you know, this is like one of the, I mean, we’ve seen, so we’ve looked at so many of these EBTL well models. So I mean, so many different designs and this one, it looks a little nicer in the rendering.
I think it looks like kind of more sleek than it does in this actual. Of actual photo from flight and the actual flight fiddle. It makes it look like a toy. But anyway, what do you think about this, this tech? Well, any of these, uh, VTL aircraft have, uh, similar issues that they’re trying to work through. I think, which is, are they safe enough to put a human in?
Because most of the toughest fights I’ve seen have not had any human in them. Um, same thing here with two fours product, it doesn’t look like there’s anybody in it now. What happens when they start to put humans in it say, I got to go through a safety assessment process or safety process of figuring out how the different ways that a system can go wrong.
And thinking of the aircraft as, as one big system made up of a lot of little systems, uh, how those systems interact with one another, how you can get into trouble and how you can crash the airplane. And. When you start going down these pathways on probabilistic failure modes, um, the more complex you make, something, the more likely it’s gonna fail in a horrible way.
That’s generally how it goes. So when you start playing around with their dynamics, like they’re doing like they’re moving the whole wing. Um, if you remember when they had the, uh, what’s the spaceship, the Virgin galactic spaceship, right. Um, where they dropped off the aircraft and has had the rocket, and that shot up in the shot up into space at that, uh, rocket motor in the back of it.
Right. And they had that one, that shorted self destructive, because they kicked in the bad mitten system too early, or they just bumped it bumped a switch and it just started deploying the tail up. And that created aerodynamic loads and things just came apart. Well, yeah. Um, It seems like a lot of these aircraft here don’t have similar problems.
They have, they thought through all the safety systems and, and all the different safety modes. And that’s why I think in part, when you go through all these things that have rotating structures, uh, especially wings. Oh my gosh. Uh, the. Loss of an actuator or a, an actuator going crazy or responding in a way, or having a computer get upset or multiple computers getting upset or having some sort of weird scenario where it does the unexpected.
It just results in these bad, bad outcomes. So, I know that sounds weird to say, but you know, they usually people that make a good bit of money on aircraft designs or their dynamicist because they’re, they’re the smart people in the room, but that’s okay. It’s gotta change. In my opinion. I think the smart people in the room are going to be the system safety.
Engineers that are going through the, going through the probabilities, looking at the way they aircraft can get into a bad mode and crash, and then figuring out a way that the aircraft doesn’t crash. And how do you make redundancies in the system or in design so that it still remains he’s lightweight, but works.
Yeah. So those are the people that have the. Um, yeah, there’s a lot of different sort of industry standards. SAE has a number of them, but essentially it comes down to this that’s, that’s a, that is a skillset, a very unique skill set. You don’t see a lot and attend to run across the same people over and over and over again in that industry.
Um, they could pretty much ask for whatever they want to right now, my opinion, us electrical people, you know, we were kind of a dime a dozen, but. System safety. People are going to be extremely rare and valuable, especially the good ones that they can look at their aircraft and go, Mia, no, that’s not going to happen.
And we need to fix this aircraft design. Otherwise we can’t certify it because your worst scenario as a company is to think you have a certifiable design and then realize two years in after you built the first flight configure flight, uh, um, aircraft that you can’t do it. That you can’t start a fight after you spent a hundred, 200, $500 million, that all of a sudden your configuration won’t fly or be certified that’s, that’s a killer.
That’s totally a killer, literally wasted all of the, all of those millions. Right. And that’s why I think some of these things have kind of, kind of gone underground. You saw a lot of news and press six. Well, in COVID it’s not helping, but a year ago there was a lot of fanfare about a lot of these different Evie talls and then quiet and all.
And if you’ll watch the, the job listings, what are they looking for? Safety people, a lot of safety people, or top level safety people essentially, uh, to come fill roles so they can figure out whether they’re going to be wasting money or not. It’s it’s a hundred, $500 million killer. It is. It just is. So if I’m a safe to safety guy today, person, I’m going to go ask for a lot of money, you know, and I will probably get it.
All right. Well, that’ll do it for today’s episode of struck. If you’re new to the show. Thank you so much for listening. And please leave a review and subscribe drive on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out the weather, the guard, lightening tech YouTube channel for video episodes, full interviews and short clips from the show.
And follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Our handle is at WG lightning tune in next Tuesday for another great episode on aviation, aerospace engineering and lightening protection.
Striketape, weather guard lightning tech’s, proprietary lightning protection for Ray domes provides unmatched durability for years to come. If you need help with your radome lightning protection, reach out to us at weatherguardaero.com. That’s weatherguardaero.com.
