AIRLINES, TECH FIRMS WANT GUIDELINES

Hope is that FAA could commission such evaluation to RTCA, formerly the Radio & Technical Commission for Aeronautics, Dimtroff said. He said RTCA’s role in aviation standards world was similar to that of IEEE for Internet technology. While Dimtroff, who is in FAA’s Aircraft Certification Service, has approached RTCA about establishing special advisory committee, it would require FAA approval. “It’s a very complex issue,” he said. One factor in complexity is that legacy model aircraft may have avionics systems that have different degree of radiofrequency protection than newer planes. “There are quite a mix of aircraft out there that we need to assure that the whole spectrum of aircraft equipage is protected unless the operators want to designate specific aircraft that are eligible to use to these wireless devices,” he said. While FAA’s primary concern is safety, he said FCC had purview over actual laptop devices that were carried onto planes. “It’s going to be a complex issue to try to set some standard,” he said. “The FCC may engage with the FAA. I'm open to that.”

Panelists at WAEA conference, co-sponsored by FAA and FCC, stressed existing standards and federal regulations in that area predated proliferation in consumer wireless devices. One existing RTCA certification standard covers only fixed electronic devices and doesn’t address newer, wireless electronic technology such as Wi-Fi and Blackberry, officials said. John Darbo, mgr.- American Airlines quality measurement process, said of 7 airlines responding to survey on wireless use aboard aircraft, 5 said they didn’t have policy for those devices. Two, which he didn’t name, had policy for multifunction devices such as PDAs. Darbo said one airline never allowed their use in flight and another allowed them to be used in airplane mode, which meant they weren’t transmitting during critical flight phases. None allowed use of wireless devices during takeoff and landing, he said.

Bluetooth Special Interest Group has lobbied FAA to help create some standard test methodology, said Jeffrey Schiffer, co- dir. of wireless research at Intel Labs. One challenge to hand off standards in that area to traditional policy groups such as IEEE is that industry specifications don’t require devices to incorporate features that might be needed to protect aircraft, such as automatic shutoff mechanisms, he said. Developing test methodology with the RTCA could then roll back to airline community to get testing on aircraft. “So this is what we're really after, using the RTCA to develop a test methodology that everybody agrees on to test intentional radiators on aircraft and have that then rolled out to the airline community so they could perform that testing,” he said.

Guidelines that would aid manufacturers would cover such issues as how equipment makers could implement solutions for safe aircraft operation, including user-controlled mechanisms for shutting off device and visual marker that indicated when device was operating, Schiffer said. Current RTCA standard DO-160 covers fixed location electronic certification, but addresses devices such as microwaves and not mobile technology, he said. European counterpart to FAA, Joint Aviation Authority, has issued leaflet permitting Bluetooth operation during “noncritical” flight times, he said.

One theme that emerged repeatedly in first day of 2-day conference is concern that flight attendants can’t be “wireless cops.” Problem is growth in devices that can be used for both communications and games, making it difficult for flight attendant to ascertain whether user has turned off transmit portion of device and is using peer-to-peer configuration. Darbo said: “I have flight attendants who can’t tell whether a cellphone in an i300 is on or off,” and that’s sign of how complicated this technology had become. “Now how am I going to figure out how to tell my flight attendants that this is working on peer to peer.”

“It’s incumbent on us as a group to come up with a system that’s going to operate regardless of the shielding types,” said Tom Roslak, Symbol Technologies vp-strategic markets. “That’s really the challenge for all of us. From Symbol’s point of view, we're looking for the guideline.” He said another issue was that users of laptop PCs and other devices often weren’t familiar with all capabilities of their technology and might not be aware that part of their device was in transmit mode. WAEA board vp Mary Rogozinski, who is involved in marketing cabin electronics for United Airlines, said several panelists had raised concept of radiofrequency shielding that could be placed on plane’s windows to provide another layer against RF interference. Problem with that, she said, is that airline industry doesn’t have funds right now to make such investments.