More than 300 pilots gathered outside Leinster House in Dublin on Monday morning to protest the Irish government’s air travel restrictions. We spoke to the Vice-President of the Irish Airlines Pilots’ Association (IAPA) to find out why.

The Irish government is set to announce its plan to restart aviation on Friday. The airline industry, however, has concerns that the plan will not be sufficient to save their industry.

What are they demanding?

Protestors believe that Ireland’s air travel restrictions are an outlier in the EU. All non-essential international travel is currently prohibited in the country, with passengers from risk areas required to undertake a 14-day hotel quarantine on arrival.

The EU recently announced its Digital Green Certificate which will allow vaccinated people to travel within the EU. An implementation period of up to six weeks was granted to Member States and the Irish aviation industry is concerned that the government will take the full period, leaving them no time to plan internally.

IAPA Vice-President Alan Brereton is asking for the government to extend the certificate to US citizens too. His association also demands the immediate reinstatement of the Common Travel Area with the United Kingdom.

Ireland and the United Kingdom have a long-standing agreement that allows citizens from both countries to move freely between each nation. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, however, this freedom of movement has been heavily curtailed.

This relationship has posed health risks for both nations too. When the UK Covid-variant struck, many people in the UK flew to Belfast, Northern Ireland (which is part of the United Kingdom) and drove to the Republic of Ireland from there, amid much controversy.

Brereton believes that this loophole creates an “arbitrary artificial barrier.” He wants the Irish government to harmonize with the UK’s aviation strategy, which is considerably more lax. This coordination should be immediately implemented, he says.

Now that those terms have expired, airlines have begun furloughing thousands of workers and are cutting additional routes — service reductions that are hitting smaller cities especially hard. Talks for additional aid have dragged on for months without a deal.

American Airlines, for example, initially suspended service to 11 cities from Oct. 7 to Nov. 3 and has recently extended those suspensions until the end of November. CEO Doug Parker told CNBC’s “Squawk Alley” on Oct. 8 that Americans would be forced to make cuts to other markets if the government fails to provide additional aid to the industry.

For six of those airports, American is the only carrier operating scheduled flights. Many of them are hundreds of miles from the nearest airport or major city.

Service cuts at airports like these are more than an inconvenience. Airports, even small ones, provide a wide range of jobs, everything from maintenance and food service to taxi driving and construction. Some airports may get by with private and chartered flights, but scheduled airline flights provide a valuable stream of visitors and revenue.

Congress approved $10 billion for U.S. airports in the March CARES Act, and the industry is seeking $15 billion more. Airports Council International, an industry group, expects U.S. commercial airports to lose an additional $23 billion in revenue this year. Airports generate revenue from airlines through fees for landing aircraft and gate rentals that airlines pay and from a host of other sources like retail and parking, all of which are suffering because of the pandemic’s toll on air travel.

Unless they remember their ground school training, new pilots may be surprised at how their aircraft reacts as they engage their ailerons to make a turn. They may be caught wondering why if they were making a turn to the right, the aircraft suddenly seemed to have a mind of its own and pivoted to the left first. Sounds like it is time for a refresher on the topic of adverse yaw.

What is adverse yaw?

Adverse yaw is the tendency of a fixed-wing aircraft to yaw in the opposite direction as you roll into a banked turn. If you roll the plane to the right, it will have an automatic tendency to make an unintended yawing motion to the left and vice versa.
This adverse yaw tendency exists to varying degrees on all fixed-wing aircraft although it is less pronounced on planes with shorter wings and those flying at higher speeds.

What causes adverse yaw?

Adverse yaw is caused by a lift and drag differential between your two wings. To initiate a right banking turn, you need to roll the plane to the right. This is done by raising the right aileron and lowering the left. Raising an aileron decreases both the lift and drag it generates. In our example, raising your right aileron will cause the right-wing to dip, initiating your right roll.

In contrast, lowering an aileron generates more lift and correspondingly more induced drag. The reason a lowered aileron generates more lift is that it alters the chord line and increases the angle of attack. At a higher angle of attack, more lift is generated. When we lower our left aileron, it will result in the left-wing lifting.

If the drag decrease on one wing was perfectly balanced by the drag increase on the other, the plane would simply roll without yawing, however, in real life, there is a drag differential between the two wings. A drag differential occurs because the raised aileron is deflecting into lower pressure airflow and the lowered aileron is deflecting into higher pressure airflow. If the amount of deflection is the same, the drag on the lowered aileron will be greater than it is on the higher aileron. This causes the plane to yaw in the direction of the lowered aileron which is the opposite direction of your roll.

How does aileron design impact adverse yaw?

The two main types of ailerons in use today were both purposefully designed with countering and minimizing adverse yaw in mind. Frise and differential aileron designs can be used solo or combined so their benefits work in a tandem hybrid configuration.

Since the adverse yaw is caused by a drag differential between the up and the down aileron, a frise aileron is designed to create more drag on the up aileron. This helps balance the higher degree of drag experienced by the lowered aileron. The increased drag is achieved by setting the aileron hinge point backward. When the aileron is raised, part of it protrudes lower than the bottom of the wing. The air hits this protrusion and generates extra drag.

On a differential aileron design, adverse yaw is decreased through limiting the aileron’s downward range of motion compared to its upward range. When one aileron is fully raised and the other is fully lowered, the raised aileron will move up further than the lowered aileron goes down. By decreasing the range of motion of the lowered aileron, the amount of generated drag is also reduced so it more closely matches the drag of the raised aileron. This decreases the amount of drag differential and thus the severity of the adverse yaw.

One day after United Airlines announced it will offer COVID-19 testing for Hawaii-bound passengers departing from San Francisco. Hawaiian Airlines announced it will also provide the service to passengers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

In a Friday press release, Hawaiian said services will be in place by Oct. 15. Hawaii will begins allowing out-of-state visitors to bypass its mandatory 14-day quarantine by presenting a negative PCR test for COVID-19 taken within 72 hours of travel.
Hawaiian Airlines passengers who avail themselves of the offer can use drive-through services at Worksite Labs locations near LAX and SFO. They can opt to pay $90 to get their results within 36 hours or $150 for same-day results. Its Droplet Digital PCR shallow nasal swab tests meet Hawaii’s testing requirements.

“As Hawaii’s leading airline, it is critical to ensure that access to testing does not impede travel to Hawaii, for visitors or our kama‘āina (residents).”Avi Mannis, senior vice president of marketing at Hawaiian Airlines, said in the press release. “Our testing option will offer Los Angeles and Bay Area travelers superior value and we look forward to expanding the program and bringing additional choices to more of our gateway cities as we welcome guests back with our industry-leading Hawaiian hospitality, while keeping our community safe. We’re grateful to the state of Hawaii for its partnership in developing the pre-travel testing program.”

The COVID-19 crisis and ensuing economic downturn has led to significant challenges in the global aerospace industry. Rapid reduction in demand driven by travel restrictions has airlines grappling with how to conduct business. In a recent article for The Air Current, Courtney Miller highlights an interesting development in the commercial aviation industry that has emerged in light of the pandemic.

While the early months of 2020 have proved challenging for some regional carriers, the crisis brought on by COVID-19 paradoxically has left the segment – particularly independent regional’s – in a position of relative strength.

Among other topics, Miller explores some of the near and medium-term potential impacts of COVID-19. This includes how airlines’ pursuit of the breadth of service through off-balance-sheet options might bring continued relative stability for independent regional’s.

Not long ago, the biggest concern the aviation industry had was whether Airbus or Boeing could produce enough aircraft’s to meet demand.

After an unprecedented set of events with an industry that seemed to have no bounds, aviation and the aerospace industry has become a perfect failure. Since the global pandemic emerged, we have seen a big amount of fleet shutdowns, layoffs, and order postponements or cancellations.

Amid fear and panic, we must take a deep breath and remember that this industry has survived many major challenges: spikes in oil prices; the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; and the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Each time, aviation has recovered and strengthened, resuming its trend of improving faster than global economic growth.

Of course, there are lessons to be learned from this crisis, and getting back to normal simply won’t be that easy. Many companies will seek to reduce costs.

For example, numerous planes are being stored due to the lack of people to travel. Former Delta Air Lines executive and now IATA’s head of operational cost management, Chris Markou, said at the Cirium webinar that OEMs have been working with airlines to find efficient ways to service aircraft’s on the ground. Finding ways to keeping them safe and saving man hours. “They are tackling tasks on calendar time and looking for opportunities to combine tasks.”

So as we go through this as an industry together, we must realize that it is not about politics or competitive advantage. It’s about helping our essential industry survive this tragedy.

Let’s remember in the current state of uncertainty, one thing is certain… We will fly again! PartsBase will continue to provide cost-effective technology to support your business and meet your every demand.