Lorraine Bolsinger is president and chief executive of GE Aviation Systems, which has had a busy year with the completion of its acquisition of performance-based navigation specialist Naverus and the establishment of an integrated modular avionics joint venture with AVIC of China. The company also supplies the core computing system and nose-gear steering for the Boeing 787, which makes its debut at this year's show. Bolsinger tells Flight Daily News that she wants to see implementation of the USA's NextGen air traffic management system speeded up so that the environmental benefits can finally be realised
Has the industry downturn caused you to scale back your participation at the show?
No, not at all. Our participation is the same. We have more programmes and are pursuing more things than we ever have in the past, so our appetite for meeting with customers and attending air shows is really no different. Over the past year we've had pretty substantial movement in the direction of growth. We've opened a new facility in Suzhou, China to make sure that we take advantage of the great workforce that's there and the low cost, and the fact that China is a burgeoning market. We also had some good technical firsts with our applications on the Boeing P-8, X-47 and AgustaWestland AW139. We had our first proof-of-concept flight using an unmanned aircraft in US national airspace using the GE flight management system, which is important for us to prove that this system - along with our ATM endeavours with the acquisition of Naverus - really is moving us in the right direction to further the interest of the industry in having much better flight paths that will allow manned and unmanned aircraft to fly much more efficiently. On the electric power side we're going to open up an integrated power lab in the UK at our Cheltenham facility.
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Are you seeing signs that the industry is recovering from the economic downturn?
I would say the business jet market is sluggish, but it's not the biggest part of our business today on the aviation systems side. However it is a large opportunity for new platforms. We actually see quite a bit of activity both on Gulfstream products as well as Bombardier. For us it feels like it's been a huge pick-up, but that's really been proposal activity.
Are you talking to Airbus and Boeing about the possibility of incorporating avionics upgrades into their respective A320 and 737 product refresh studies?
We have had - and will continue to have - conversations with them, although it's difficult to justify the additional certification costs if you were to put all-new avionics in the cockpit, not to mention the changes to training programmes, maintenance and the additional logistics. I hate this answer, but if I'm honest about it I think it's probably not likely that a major avionics update will occur. However we will continue to have many conversations over their [all-new] next-generation narrowbodies, and there's a great deal of interest there. In fact there's great deal of interest in every one of our integrated platforms, including avionics, electric power, propulsion, health monitoring and ATM. We are talking with all airframers, including Bombardier and Embraer.
What GE Aviation Systems equipment can we see on the 787, which is making its show debut?
I think the most notable is our core computing system, the first open architecture system, which we delivered on time, is working flawlessly. This is the backbone of the avionics system. And it's probably the most complicated of all the systems that we are delivering. We also have the nose gear steering system. The flight actuation system is no longer us because we've sold that business to Moog.
Is the fact that many operators have delayed replacing their aircraft during the recession benefiting your aftermarket business?
For us it is a little less dramatic a change, although we do see benefit from it. On parts that wear out, for us the wear-out modes are a bit different. We have long mean time between removals by design. Electronics particularly really don't wear out. We've seen some opportunities but I would say probably not as dramatic as mechanical systems would see.
Why have you decided to launch a 50:50 avionics joint venture with AVIC in China, and what role will it play in your strategy for that market?
This is a huge commitment on our behalf and theirs to first create an integrated avionics package for the [Comac] C919 airliner and then to take that joint venture global. The purpose of the joint venture is not only for the C919, but to really create a competitive best-in-class avionics provider. We hope to get a positive decision for the C919 soon and that will launch us off on a brand new open-architecture system whose advantages are first of all being shown with the core computing system on the 787, but will be taken to the next step in terms of its benefits with reductions in weight, better reliability and less complexity. The system will literally replace dozens of standalone computers. That commercial entity - the GE-AVIC joint venture - will be our route to market for all platforms going forward for integrated avionics suites.
Airframers and avionics suppliers are beginning to talk about "reduced crewing" for future airliners. Do you think single-pilot cockpits can become a reality?
Our customers have asked us to look at that and we think that the FMS capability is critical to that, so that's why we have such a keen interest in integrated avionics and the unmanned space. I echo pretty much what the airframers tell us, but there are number of factors. It's the supply of pilots for sure, and the training costs, and then the cost in general to have two pilots. When you start breaking down the costs of operating an airline, the personnel costs are high. Obviously fuel eclipses everything, but the airlines have to find every opportunity for cost-out to become more productive and I think this is one more area.
The other part is whether [reducing crew] can be done in a cost-effective way. I'm not sure this will be a data-driven decision. I think there will also be public opinion that's going to have more confidence in an individual than a machine, but the world is changing and people have more trust in technology than ever.
In what areas is Aviation Systems focusing its efforts to reduce aviation's environmental footprint?
For us the place that we're concentrating our energies on lowering fuel burn is really in our ATM endeavours. We have purchased Naverus. I've not seen too many initiatives like NextGen that really have something in it for every single stakeholder. No one can be mad about this initiative. For the airlines it's better asset usage, better fuel burn and lower cost. The air navigation service providers and airports are able to have better throughput and better usage of the airspace. Passengers are going to be happy with fewer delays, and there's the noise and emissions reduction for the community. For the airlines there's somewhere between 5% and 15% fuel burn advantage. That's like buying a new generation aircraft.
What's frustrating is that this is happening everywhere around the world. If we could just do the 10 busiest airports in the USA, the required navigation performance approaches could cut 2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That's huge, and we're already seeing it done in Australia, China, Chile and Canada. I hope that we get moving a little faster in the USA.
I think we're outpaced a little bit elsewhere in the world and we've got to get on with it. We've got a little bit of bureaucracy that we're fighting. It's just perverse thinking that something that's going to lower your CO2, NOx, noise, fuel burn and dependence on foreign oil is something that should take a long time and require an environmental impact study that can actually hold it up. It is our responsibility at GE, and for anybody that participates in this industry, to make it more viable. It's a vital industry and now we have to become a viable industry that can flourish.
Source: Flight Daily News
