Listen: Avionics, drones and a mid-year scorecard

On this episode of “Cargo Facts connect,” Cargo Facts Associate Editors Andrew Crider and Robert Luke start with systems upgrades and more 777 conversion news. The editors also discuss two items published this week, including our magazine feature where the team went in depth with a number of manufacturers who are bringing products and new aircraft to the emerging cargo drone space, as well as a mid-year overview of freighter aircraft deliveries and redeliveries, featuring commentary from Cargo Facts Consulting. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and is being presented as is. Some transcription errors may remain. Andrew Crider Hello and welcome to this episode of cargo facts connect the podcast of cargo facts the newsletter of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I'm your host Andrew Crider, associate editor of cargo facts. Robert Luke And I'm Robert Luke, associate editor of cargo facts. Andrew Crider I want to begin today with discussing some details regarding avionics patch, which is Mexico based aeronaves TSM tapped universal avionics to certify avionics upgrades to 15 MD 80s and 11 DC-9 cargo aircraft to provide the universal SBA s flight management system. Allegedly this system is going to be used to improve the performance on localizer and vertical guidance for LPV approaches, as well as other safety enhancements to comply with ATSB mandates. As a pilot. I think this is really cool. It shows continued investment in a fleet of classic aircraft, and EMEA we heard about a few avionics upgrades like that from texel, which is incorporating Collins avionics in their heads up displays on their 737s which is going to allow them to improve their flight reliability and getting into more approaches and more airports and having confidence under more challenging weather conditions. But this wasn't the only detailed upgrades we heard this week. Robert, what did we hear about conversion programs like mammoth triple seven, which had upgrades of its own? Robert Luke Good question Andrew, triumph interiors was selected by mammoth freighters to redesign the Air Distribution ducting system in the cargo compartment for its triple sevens. This system will pull energy bleeding off the ancient thrust into the cargo compartment for hot and cold air flow to the goods being transported. Interestingly, this deal falls into place a little over a year after Trump sold three of his Aerostructures sites to Arlington Capital Partners. Your transaction was effective when May of 2021 and includes the Triumph composites business consisting of Milledgeville, Georgia and Rayong Thailand operations as well as their red oaks Texas facility. Combined businesses encompassed approximately 1.8 million square feet of factory space and employs over 900 people. But nonetheless, they still continue to progress forward with this recent deal and continue to prove that they wanted the best in the industry. Andrew Crider And that's in addition to both Mammoth and KMC announcing their own choices for cargo loading systems for their respective conversion projects, you can check out those stories at cargo facts.com. I also want to touch on two items published this week. One of them was for this month's issue of the cargo facts magazine. This month, we have begun a online only publication format like our sister publication, air cargo world. Our my magazine items carry feature content and in depth conversation with leaders from the industry. Our featured item this month was about drones. We spoke to several different manufacturers and companies in the drone space for are part of a new effort to bring you the latest developments on the emerging cargo drone market. What did we learn in some of these conversations? We really spoke to a lot of people. Robert Luke We certainly did Andrew and it was a great experience. We we really learned a lot of fascinating new facts about the various drones from the electric power with drone delivery Canada to hybrid engine technology drones that were produced by parallel flight with the Firefly, and volansi's voly 50 and the Elroy Chaparral one and as well as some turboprop powered drones and conventional drones consist of agility and novelist. You can find out more about that fascinating information on our feature that will be promoted this month in our magazine, which will give you more details about the specifics of those drones and their capabilities. But some of the some of the most important things that we learned from these manufacturers was that the most significant challenge when it comes to entering the market with cargo drone technology is the regulatory aspect. That seems to be an issue that's definitely one to overcome as both drone technology and artificial intelligence are trying to do their best to meet regulatory compliance that were they being The various civil aviation regulators across the world will feel comfortable allowing drones to operate more freely in their skies, particularly the United States was very stringent when it comes to their regulatory policies and practices. Even for a sub 55 pound drone that was trying to get certification, they would have to go through the same process as the 747. Which putting puts it's a very arduous task, you know, from the from the perspective of the manufacturers. And recently, the FAA did create the beyond program, which they sent, which was a simplified process to enable drone companies to get their certifications completed for their for their prototypes that they're developing. But even with that new system in place, a lot of the manufacturers are still seeing a lot of major hurdles that they have to climb and overcome in order to receive the certification to move forward and productively to serve the logistic industry. The basic strategy of most companies right now are to kind of put their aircraft into locations where the regulations are a lot less stringent and more relaxed, particularly in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, in Africa and various other places in the European Union, that are looking to bring in this advanced technologies that drones provide rather quickly and onboard that technology as soon as possible so that they can begin an initial operations. But despite the challenges the US poses to drone manufacturers, San Francisco based zipline did clear a major hurdle within the United States by becoming the first US drone operator to obtain an FAA part 135 certification for what's called the beyond visual line of sight drone delivery under the beyond program, acronym BVLOS. The company is also one of the first fixed wing drone operators to be certified in joins wing aviation UPS flight forward and Amazon is part 135. Carriers seeking to not only indoctrinate our regular airspace into with with drone technology, but turn it into a regular mainstay for the rest of the logistic world that is anticipating the entrance of the drone itself. And that's what we've pretty much covered this week on the on the actual drone, you can get more details again on the drone feature. And Drew I'll turn it back over to you to continue forward. Andrew Crider The other item I wanted to bring up was something Jeff Lee and I worked on that was our mid year overview for deliveries and re deliveries. I think that it was in total, the deliveries and re deliveries that we saw this year was significantly higher than the same period of time as last year. And maybe not too surprising. But the 737 800 conversions stood out of the pack with more than 30 airframes. Only two of those airframes were 7374 Hundreds. We didn't mention the story, but the term I'm which had suffered and 2020 seemed to somewhat improve around this period. Nonetheless, we had a total of more than 82 deliveries and read deliveries. Check our facts, we touch base with cargo facts consulting, and they saw something a little bit ominous. They believe that with all these orders and deliveries, there's still going to be a lag time or gap between when these orders are have been placed, whether they be for conversions, and then when these conversions will actually be able to be turned around and placed back in the hands of the airlines that ordered them. There's somewhat of market frustration or idea that the aircraft won't come in time to see the demand that we're seeing right now. Or at least on the current schedule. That's all the time that we have for today unfortunately to end on a little bit of a low note. But to those of you listening, thank you for tuning in to this episode of cargo facts connect for more multimedia content like this, check out cargofacts.com and search cargo facts connect on iTunes and Spotify. Join us again next time. Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor .

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