AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2014 - 109

"There's going to be a very, very brilliant co-pilot with access to all kinds of
information," said aviation futurist and
AOPA "Opinion Leader" blogger John
Petersen. "Even aircraft skin will have
processors sensing temperatures, wing
loading, whatever, and feeding it to the
pilot."
Tyson Weihs, CEO and cofounder of
ForeFlight, agrees. "Computers get more
powerful, go into more places, and get
smaller and lighter. That means that computing power is distributed throughout
the aircraft. Everything gets smarter. The
amount of computing horsepower you can
put into materials gets to be interesting.
The material actually comes alive.
"If past trends [are an indicator], communication gets faster and faster and
applications tend to consume it all. That
means aircraft in the future will be really
chatty. What you may see is much less
pilot-to-national-airspace communication. The aircraft becomes aware and the

"

I will give you one
prediction that you can
count on. You will see a
little floatplane that is
not compromised as a
floatplane but has the
range and speed of a
landplane and can operate
off heavier seas. It can take
off on water, land on snow or
grass, and go back to water
with no modifications.
It will happen reasonably
soon, even though you can
prove it's impossible by
looking at every light
seaplane.

"

-Burt Rutan,

founder of Scaled
Composites, speaking about
his new project SkiGull

Helping modernize
the fleet
AOPA has upgraded
16 giveaway airplanes

AOPA sweepstakes projects have
contributed 18 airplanes to the GA
fleet since 1993, when the Good as
New Cessna 172 was brought back
to life. Most were upgrades to tired
birds, but a few were new. We're
very proud of Good as New, since
it has taught thousands to fly at
Dean International on the KendallTamiami Executive Airport in south
Miami.
Those refurbished ended up
safer, more useful-and, in many
cases, faster-than their original
selves. They were improved to
present-day standards, which
for the past six years has meant
glass cockpits. Good as New still
has analog instruments that were
the best of the day in 1993. One,
a pristine Waco biplane that was
our Centennial of Flight contribution, became a work of art at Rare
Aircraft with modern avionics for
safety.
In a moment of brilliance, Air
Mod of Batavia, Ohio-which has
done many of our sweeps airplanes' interiors, including today's
"The Debonair Sweepstakes"-
added a bed to the interior of a
Cessna 206 (the Aero SUV Sweepstakes in 1999) that later went
to famous actor Edward Norton.
It had what we called "the very
latest in avionics," which turned
out to be a Garmin GNS 430 nav/
com. We said it earned "oohs and
ahhs," and we called our installation "extravagant" because it had
two 430s.
New airplanes also have been
awarded, like the Aviat Husky that
was factory new when a tornado
flipped it during a Sun 'n Fun
show in Lakeland, Florida. It was
restored to its factory-new condition. A Remos light sport aircraft
also was factory new. Overall, the
case could be made that general
aviation is stronger in many ways
thanks to past and present Sweepstakes programs.
-AKM

"

It's a pretty dismal
state right now for

general aviation.
Fuel used to be two bucks
a gallon or less and now
it's six or more. It's not a

good scene.

"

-Lance Neibauer,

designer of the
Lancair line of aircraft

aircraft and system sort of operate in a
unified manner. There's no more tuning of
radios. There's no more programming of
clearances into an avionics system. All of
that is preformulated and updated as you
fly. That doesn't mean humans are out of
the loop. There will be much less human
in the loop." Pilots will do little but monitor the airplane's decisions.
"I think there will be a whole segment
of aviation that is done by autonomous
airplanes," said Joe Hepburn, senior
vice president for customer support at
Cessna Aircraft. "There is a huge use for
autonomous products that serve a specific niche function, whether you want
to talk about border patrol, real estate, or
communications."
John Uczekaj, Aspen Avionics president and CEO, has introduced a product
called Connected Panel, linking a pilot's
smart devices with the avionics panel to
enter and synchronize flight plans. "One
day a guy flying a 172 will have interconnectivity similar to the iPhone. In an
airplane environment that's a major step,"
he said. A well connected airplane can
learn where the bad weather is and divert
by itself, or discover delays at the airport
ahead and fit the aircraft into the flow that
air traffic control needs. He predicted that
the projection of synthetic vision on the
windscreen, mentioned above by Foley, is
"right around the corner."
PROPULSION AND FUEL

MIT's Hansman was asked to describe
what he might see during a visit to the local
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2014

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