Page 19 - World Airnews Magazine December 2019 Edition
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ADVERTORIAL BUSINESS JETS
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFICATION FORGET SELF-DRIVING CARS,
FOR FLIGHT SAFTEY GROUP THIS PLANE LANDED ITSELF
OF COMPANIES Edward Baig describes how
The Australian contingency of the Group, namely: he landed a small private jet,
• Flight Safety (Pty) Ltd Cirrus VisionJet, at New York's
he ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Standard is • Flight Safety Helideck Certification (Pty) Ltd Stewart International Airport
Tinternati onally recognised as the world’s leading QMS. It • Aeronautical Enterprises (Pty Ltd)
is designed to assist companies in meeting statutory and regula- have all been ISO 9001:2015 certified by Lloyds Register for many simply by pressing a button to
tory requirements in their service and delivery and to offer their years. activate autonomous landing
customers the satisfaction of knowing that this service delivered The South African contingent of companies in the Group, namely: technology.
will meet the very highest international standards. • Helideck Certification-Africa (Pty) Ltd
ISO 9001:2015 assures customers of consistency and excellence • Flight Safety Africa (Pty) Ltd The jet's safe return system,
in service delivery. Have recently been audited by Lloyds Register and it can now be which is expected to be
Apart from the company itself becoming more cost effective confirmed that all five companies in the Flight Safety Group are ISO approved soon by the Federal
through the integration and alignment of internal processes, a 9001:2015 certified by Lloyds Register.
company boasting ISO 9001:2015 certification enjoys greater Aviation Administration, is
credibility and is assured of customer satisfaction and improved meant to address the problem
customer loyalty. Improved communication, planning and adminis- The ISO 9001:2015 Certification of the 5 companies is for:
tration guarantees consistency in delivery and this, in turn, leads to Helideck, Helipad, Layout Design, Friction Testing, Safety and of pilot incapacitation
repeat business from customers who expect the highest standards Operational Assessments and Certifications.
of delivery. The Flight Safety Group is unique as the only group of companies
The Flight Safety Group is pleased to announce that all five com- internationally with this all-inclusive ISO 9001:2015 certification.
panies comprising the Group are now ISO 9001:2015 certified. www.flightsafetyafrica.com/www.flightsafety.com.au Q
sion without disrupting the flight patterns on all these considerations, the system
or risking the safety of all the other planes uses text-to-speech software to broadcast
don’t have a pilot’s licence. I’m not in nearby airspace. its whereabouts to air traffic control.
Icrazy about heights. I’m not even great “When you automatically turn that plane Kowalski said it goes something like this:
at flight simulators on a computer. into an autonomous vehicle, the plane starts “Aircraft 149 Victor Bravo, we have an
None of these obstacles, however, acting as if the pilot were still doing things,” emergency onboard. The pilot is incapac-
stopped me from landing a small private jet said Ben Kowalski, senior vice president for itated. I’m 15 miles north of White Plains,
recently at Stewart International Airport in sales and marketing at Cirrus Aircraft. and I’m going to land at JFK on runway 27.”
New Windsor, New York. It was easy, really. The plane has databases of the terrain There’s no particular challenge to push
OK, full confession: Actually, the plane and possible obstacles (like mountains the button – it’s easily reached by an adult
landed itself. I merely pressed a single red and cell towers). It gets real-time weather in the cabin. (The plane seats five adults
button on the roof of the main cabin, trans- and wind information. And it knows the and two children.) But you can only assume
forming it into an autonomous aircraft. weight, how much fuel remains, and all that panic will set in during a real crisis in
I was aboard a (US) $2.75-million Cirrus the nearby airports where an emergency which the pilot has a heart attack, seizure
Aircraft Vision Jet, newly outfitted with an landing is possible, including the lengths of or something else goes wrong.
aptly named safety system called safe return, all runways. The system tries its best to calm every-
which is in the final stages of getting approval After determining the proper path based one down by mimicking what, well, a pilot
from the Federal Aviation Administration. might say. For example “safe return acti-
Prior to my, um, act of heroism, we had vated, landing in 13 minutes.” A moment
been flying at an altitude of about 10,000 later, “safe return activated, landing in 12
feet after taking off from Westchester minutes.” And so on.
county airport in White Plains, New York. Meanwhile, the screens in the cockpit
All kidding aside, the safe return system show that safe return is activated and
is designed to address a dead serious prob- warns passengers not to touch anything.
lem: What happens if the pilot becomes If there is a situation where a passenger
incapacitated and is unable to act? In just inadvertently (or intentionally) pushes the
such an emergency, the system can let any button, the pilot can override the self-land-
passenger safely land the plane. ing system with a control on the yoke.
There was a pilot during my demo flight, The turbine aircraft has other built-in
but still the prospect of having me land a safeguards. For almost three years, Vision
self-flying plane was enough to put some Jet has a standard parachute system that
other newspaper staffers off. They turned promises to safely bring the plane down in
down the invitation to capture the moment case of engine failure. This latest inno-
from the cockpit. vation takes care of the human element,
Safe Return has to able to solve two main rather the missing human element." Q
problems, the most obvious of which is to
return everyone to the ground safely. Article courtesy: https://www.usatoday.
But it must also perform this rescue mis- com/story/tech
World Airnews | December 2019 World Airnews | December 2019
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