TC Minutes

Boeing Company's Longacres Training Center
1301 SW 16th St., Building 25-01
Renton, Washington

June 13-14, 2000
Draft Minutes

TUESDAY, JUNE 13

I. Welcome & Introductions
Mary Rogozinski, United Airlines
Rich Salter, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)

Rich Salter introduced himself and co-chair Mary Rogozinski and WAEA staff members, Michele Berg and Amanda Snow. Mary reviewed the WAEA Anti-trust Guidelines and mentioned that WAEA has legal counsel to review TC documents and answer any anti-trust questions. Rich thanked Han Gim of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group (BCAG) for his efforts to coordinate the logistics of this meeting. He also thanked BCAG for hosting the meeting, providing audiovisual arrangements free of charge and paying for buses to the reception this evening. Rich also expressed thanks to our six sponsors: AT&T Wireless Services Aviation Communications, Boeing Airplane Services, Inflightonline.com, Primex Aerospace Company, Pritchard & Associates, and Tenzing. Rich then reviewed the agenda. Michele Berg, Director of Professional Development, reviewed registration figures and made some housekeeping notes.

Ia. Status of TC Activities
Rich then gave an update on the recent TC activities since the last meeting.

• The WAEA Board adopted the DVD and satellite WG specifications as recommended by the TC at the last meeting (Atlanta), and these documents are posted on the website.
• The Atlanta single-focus workshops on satellite content and seat/IFE integration both received very favorable feedback from attendees, and the seat teams will continue their work at this meeting.
• An Internet WG has been organized and held two telecon meetings, and it will meet separately at this meeting for their first in-person meeting.
• In addition to presentations at the workshops and postings on the website, the work produced by the TC working groups has been highlighted in the press, including the WAEA publications of Avion Magazine, TechFX Newsleter and the new WAEA Industry News (WIN) newsletter.

Rich introduced Mona Charles, the Editor of the new WIN newsletter, and she described the publication.

Mary then reported on the airline industry activity to accommodate hearing impaired passengers, as well as the activities that took place at the London Workshop and Board meeting in May that were relevant to the TC.

II. Opening Presentations
Steve Slotte, FAA, Airplane & Flt. Crew I/F Branch

Steve Slotte discussed the FAA's current special certification review of IFE systems with focus on inseat video, electronics and wiring.. To view Steve's full presentation, please refer to www.waea.org/workinggroups web page. To summarize, the FAA has seen some shortcomings and is working to close the gaps and increase overall safety. You may contact Steve with any questions at Steve.slotte@faa.gov or by phone at: 425 227 2315.

Question: by Rich Salter: Where does all the certification data go that STC applicants send to the FAA?
Answer: To the FAA and then to the archives.

Question: When will this new certification program be available?
Answer: No timeframe is available at this point.

Question by Ron Wong: Were any STC's revoked as a result of the review?
Answer: There are only two ways to revoke: 1) turn it in, 2) FAA to issue a directive to prohibit installation or make mandatory changes to correct the problem.

Question: Are the new guidelines available?
Answer: This is really an internal document, so they aren't available to all. You can ask any questions about what they contain, but we can't give out the document. The guidelines relate to crew procedures, integration, power, etc.

III. Status of the Seat/IFE Integration Team on Certification.
Mike Williams, Jetaire Aerospace and Technology.

Mike Williams has been working with the FAA on certification issues for 10 years and is now helping to lead the WAEA Seat Team on Certification. For a copy of Mike's presentation, please see www.waea.org/workinggroups.

IV. Airline Presentation
Michael Planey, Manager of Product Development, US Airways

Michael gave the WAEA TC Meeting attendees an overview of US Airways' new initiatives, particularly with their new A330. Every one of the seats are equipped with in seat power and Sat com including fax/data capability. Also, adjustable headrest, lumbar support, increased pitch and recline. First class has electronic seat control (for lumbar support). So far US Airways has received great response from its customers.

US Airways was the first airline to go with full cabin installation of Sony Trans Com's Passport system which features over 100 hours of content, six languages, and is aesthetically pleasing. Content on the system is segregated into three categories - overture interactive (premium content), teen view (13-17), and kid view. Sony Hi-8 Video Walkman are available in the event of service failure at a seat. The Walkman units use the KID Systeme inseat power with adapters provided by Lind Electronics. Twelve (12) movie titles are offered to first/envoy passengers, in 3 languages. First revenue flights began in May 2000.

IV. Panel Presentations: Inseat Power
Rory Briski, Primex Aerospace Company
Peter Schetschine, KID-Systeme GmbH

This panel presentation reviewed the benefits and drawbacks of AC power. The majority of airlines are installing DC power at this time. Full presentations are on the WAEA Working Group website: www.waea.org/workinggroups.

A. Rory Briski - Primex Aerospace - Rory shared the history of Primex in the aerospace power business. Primex pioneered the first inseat power in 1995 with Delta Air Line's installation in July 1996. At this time, the majority of airlines are installing DC power.

According to Rory, DC power is the preferred power choice because there is commonality between airlines, the small form factor can fit into economy seats, and there are mature systems flying without incident. Adapters exist for laptops, palm pilots, Sony video players, DVD players. According to a recent IATA survey, 16% of passengers used inseat power on their last long haul flight.

B. Peter Schetschine - KID Systeme - Peter offered an opposing position, favoring AC power. Peter highlighted that in his experience as a regular business traveler he has noted that 15VDC systems are not used quite often due to the necessity to purchase DC-DC adapters. He observed passengers on his trip to Seattle, and only one person had a DC adapter - and this adapter was a DC- AC adapter which provides 110VAC power without any safety precautions to the passenger. AC outlets allow the passenger to spontaneously use the power and not have to plan in advance to purchase an adapter. Peter outlined that additional certification tests were conducted to verify the system safety features with regard to passenger mishandling, etc. All tests were passed to the full satisfaction of FAA.

Question: What about over-voltage protection for laptops?
Answer: All in-seat power vendors offer Over-Current, Over-Voltage and Short Circuit protection. None can control what goes on "inside" the laptop computer.

Question: Is there power factor correction?
Answer: Yes, it is included in the in-seat power system.

Question: In the case of thermal shutdown, is it resettable or non-resettable?
Answer: Non-resettable if abnormal conditions are detected.

V. Internet WG: Mission, Issues List, Reference Model
Dan Diessner, BCAG and Bruce Bassett, MAS

Dan Diessner described that the Internet Working Group (IWG) had been formed and had held two telecon meetings, and Tim Force (BCAG) and Bruce Bassett (MAS) would be the co-chairs with Rich Salter serving as Secretary.

Dan and Bruce outlined the proposed mission of the Internet Working Group as developed during telecons over the past two months. The group's mission is to: 1) Educate the WAEA membership on what is involved in implementing Internet and Email onboard, encompassing the entire chain of companies, hardware, software, etc. involved in the end-to-end system. 2) Provide a forum to facilitate coordination among the many suppliers of products and services in the supply chain to insure a seamless end-to-end solution. 3) Provide guidance documents for those items needing standardization to the AEEC. 4) Provide input and data to other industry forums and liaison with them as an overall knowledge body (e.g., draw a roadmap to help coordinate what is going on in ARINC 628, 763, 664 and other industry groups).

Dan described that an Issues List had been started to track all the issues that the IWG would address. The IWG will separate the work into categories that can be addessed by ad hoc groups to help manage the issues. Dan further presented possible deliverables that the working group will discuss in more detail during the breakout sessions on the 13th and 14th.

ACTION: Rich Salter made the following motion: The TC hereby approves the creation of the Internet WG with the mission statement as presented by Dan Diessner, and requests the IWG to further define its deliverables and report at the next TC meeting. Mary Rogozinski seconded the motion, and all participants voted in favor of the motion.

VI. Seat/IFE Integration Initiatives
Wade Price, Boeing Airplane Services

Wade discussed the initiative that first began at the Salt Lake City Annual Conference when an ad hoc group met to discuss challenges related to Seat/IFE integration. The group first identified 150 issues and then consolidated to the main issues the group wanted to tackle. Wade then gave a review of the Atlanta Single Focus Workshop including a review of the major representatives from the industry. He reviewed the main goals of the workshop. In Atlanta the attendees voted on the top 5 issues and developed teams to further work those issues.

Goals for this June Meeting: 1) Review report outs from Atlanta meeting, 2) Look at consolidating efforts where appropriate. 3) Identify benefits of each initiative for each industry. 4) Develop a follow on working/communication plan. 5) Identify opportunities to implement improvements now.

VII. Concurrent Breakout Working Sessions - Minutes from Report out on 14 June.

Internet WG - Co-chairs for this meeting Dan Diessner and Bruce Bassett reported on the progress of the Internet Working Group. During this meeting, the group obtained official approval from the WAEA TC and was successful in gathering the key players to work the issues. The group agreed to focus on the educational deliverables for the near term and address future standards recommendations after more meetings/time.

Five ad hoc groups were identified: Off-Board Infrastructure, On-Board Infrastructure, PED Connectivity, Services/Content, and Security. Each of the five ad hocs are now to better define the issues to be addressed, develop detailed reference models for their area, focus on educational deliverables and prepare a list of applicable reference papers, and the leaders will report in on progress at telecons and present the status to the IWG.

Dan and Bruce thanked Steve Galipeau (Primex) for his presentation on the Passenger's Perspective and Michael Childers (Lightstream) for his presentation on SuperCOMM. They also thanked Han Gim for agreeing to be IWG's liaison to ARINC activities for the IWG.

The IWG will continue to hold teleconferences (approximately every three weeks) and in person in October 2000. Next telecon is 6 July 2000.

Seat/IFE team: Certification - Leaders: Wade Price/Michael Williams. Wade Price reported to the full TC the results of the Certification team's discussions. The group agreed with the main goals first identified in Atlanta. The Certification team highly endorses and encourages the Communication team and Design Process group's efforts to define an industry acceptable definition of roles and strategies. The group agreed to develop and post some general guidelines for creating a preliminary certification strategy on the WAEA working group website. Michael Williams' presentation will be use to start the discussion. Michael and Wade will prepare the initial input and will bolster the website as a communications tool.

The group requested that WAEA research the possibility of establishing a separate bulletin board page on the web site for certification. The group would like to meet in person again some time in the future.

Seat/IFE team: Communications & Design Process - Leader: Dan Vargas. In Atlanta these were two separate teams, so the group decided to identify a new mission statement: "To define a process and vehicle that will identify roles, responsibilities activities and information required from all participants to support the total program from pre-kickoff to aircraft delivery."

Deliverables for the team include: 1) Program Definition Guide (pre-ICTM); 2) White Paper for providing Guidelines including overall Program Management Activities, Data and Information, Communication, Roles and Responsibilities; 3) Responsibility Chart - Contractual; 4) Checklists.

The group is in the process of assigning various team members to each deliverable and developing a timeline. The group plans to work a lot by phone/email in the next few weeks.

Seat/IFE team: Standardization & Wiring Practices
Team Captains: Rob Hofmann & Allen Stewart
From Standardization side, the group focused on complying with 628 as it is today. From wiring side, ARINC has provided access to the data in Arinc 626 Part 5. The group was concerned about the lack of participation from seat suppliers. They will work to contact seat suppliers and they are looking for a July 28 response date. They are investigating the possibility of a meeting in late August in Everett, WA.

VIII. Wrap Up - Adjourn
Rich Salter thanked all the Seat teams and the Internet Working Group for their work and progress to date. The group then discussed a possible date for the next meeting of the TC. There is a possibility of co-locating with the Arinc CEI meeting in the Irvine area in mid-October. Rich and Mary will take this under advisement and determine a date for the next meeting. Rich once again thanked the sponsors and adjourned the meeting at