According to a story published on our website, those in the greater Hampton Roads area of Virginia will soon have a veritable plethora of acronyms flying overhead. Buckle up.
NASA seeks BVLOS flight-corridors for AAM vehicles. UAS will test ConOps between CERTAIN and USRTC. This AAM HDV will pave the way for more complex routing of larger UAM aircraft.
If someone in the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) world had committed to understanding all the newly created acronyms, I believe the above three sentences make sense.
For me? I say, Huh? And I wrote it.
Let’s see if I can translate.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and partner, The Longbow Group, will use unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to begin testing beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight-corridors.
The two organizations will develop a Concept of Operations (ConOps) to include supporting infrastructure, data sharing needs, and other requirements to operate between Langley’s City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN) and Longbow’s Unmanned Systems Research and Technology Center (USRTC) on Fort Monroe in Virginia.
This effort is called the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) High Density Vertiplex (HDV) project, which is designed to “prototype and assess an ecosystem using small UAS as surrogates for larger Urban Air Mobility (UAM) aircraft.”
Not satisfied with “simply” prototyping, planners will also test, assess risk, document, and collaborate with the FAA on that ecosystem with the goal of allowing routine beyond visual line-of-sight flights of unmanned aircraft at NASA Langley.
Once operational, all the above will hopefully lead to longer, more complex flight routes.
Naturally.
As if the above wasn’t complex enough, Raytheon and Hampton University’s Skyler radar will enable ground-based sense and avoid as a complement and extend the project’s designed radar systems being installed at NASA Langley.
I had to read the original story more than once to make sure it made sense. I think it does.
The dawning of the drone industry has accelerated the creation of a new batch of acronyms. Some may even apply to those of us who fly from inside the aircraft, not the ground.
As always, best to keep your head on a swivel.
I recall doing a webinar where I defined best glide speed (Vbg) and a few other acronyms. I happily continued the conversation, inserting one previously defined acronym after another. I received more than one feedback complaint. Lesson learned. It’s really easy for the lazy writer (or speaker) to blast along with strings of code words (aka “acronyms know to ‘a’bfoscate”). Buckle up. Grow up… use clear text (that’s the unencoded name or phrase) in any essay, document, speech, webinar, class, or conversation where just a Single, Individual Person (SIP) of the Occasionally Not Enlightened (“O.N.E.”) Person Is Present. I.e. focus on Clear Communication. Think of it as CC, SIP ONE PIT.
Typical government crap
I’m coming up on 5 decades and 3000 hours of flying soon, and the only acronym I’ve ever committed to memory, i.e., remembered what all the letters stand for, is GUMPS. All the rest that various instructors and the FAA have tried to throw around in hopes that I’d catch them have gone in one ear and out the other. Like IMSAFE, for instance, to which I answer, “yup!” Or TVMDC, which has something to do with heading, but I only remember as true virgins make dull company. I hate acronyms!
At a meeting years ago, the briefer was throwing acronyms around like confetti at a parade.
People kept asking what he was talking about, until one baffled participant remarked, “What we need here is an ACO…..Acronym Control Officer.”
But one timeless acronym comes to mind after reading of plans for the larger Urban Air Mobility (UAM) aircraft. FUBAR!
Now, now, that is uncalled for. If we look up all the appropriate acronyms it would not be Beyond All Recognition. It would however still be SNAFU 🙂
So “they” want to experiment with their UASs in BUSY areas. BS
Does BS have something to do with bovines ;-?