Riddle Roundup

Embry-Riddle Honored for ADS-B Role

Embry-Riddle is among the winners of the 2007 Collier Trophy awarded by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) to individuals or organizations for improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles.
The trophy was given this year to a team of government and industry leaders that collaborated to develop the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) system.
With ADS-B, both pilots and controllers see radar-like displays with accurate traffic data from satellites, which are updated in real time and don’t degrade with distance or terrain. The system also gives pilots access to weather services, terrain maps and flight information services. The improved situational awareness enables pilots to fly at safe distances from each another with less assistance from air traffic controllers.
Implementation of ADS-B is expected to greatly improve the safety, capacity and efficiency of the national airspace system.
Embry-Riddle’s training fleets at both campuses are fully equipped with the technology.

Students Conduct Aviation Biofuel Research

With an eye on the rising cost of aviation fuel, students in the Society of Aviation Technicians at Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus are researching the performance characteristics of biofuel in an aircraft engine.
The students are using a Lycoming four-cylinder aircraft engine to evaluate E85 biofuel, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline considered the best alternative to petroleum by the U.S. Department of Energy.
“Testing biofuel under controlled conditions in an aircraft engine is an important element in discovering the performance values of these fuels,” said student Rick Cevallos, lead investigator in the project. “It may be the shortest route in cutting the cost of aviation fuel.”
The students will test biofuel derived from corn, cellulose, and hemicellulose, the fibrous material in most plants. Rising corn prices make it crucial to search for new ethanol sources.
Other students taking part in the research are Gary Duce (deputy lead investigator), Tristan Budhram, Sean Feldmayer, Jason Jones, Kris Joseph, Shanely Liston, Gisela Munoz, Sam Sommerville, David Totaram, and Scott Turner. They are enrolled in the aerospace engineering, aviation maintenance science, and homeland security degree programs.
The Society of Aviation Technicians (www.gocivil.com) is a club whose members explore and prepare for aviation and aerospace technical careers in maintenance.

Color Invites in New Campus Buildings

Color has tiptoed in and taken up residence in Embry-Riddle’s two newest buildings, the Christine and Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Library and Learning Center on the Prescott, Ariz., campus, and the College of Business Building in Daytona Beach, Fla.
In the Hazy Library, students sit on candy-colored chairs scattered in the computer commons and the lounge next to a long horizontal window that swoops like an airplane taking off. Imagine the concourse of a very cool airport. But the view through the silvery smooth, aluminum-framed window is not of a runway, but Prescott’s rust-brown rugged mountain landscape, a stimulating contrast of texture and color.
Stretching down the center of the library’s two levels are polished black hallway floors that reflect blue-tinted fluorescent ceiling lights receding in repeated bars like runway lights. At the end of each hallway are huge backlit murals, one of them picturing, with the help of PhotoShop, John Paul Riddle and T. Higby Embry in the cockpit of an Airbus 380.
And of course there are books, journals, and magazines, as well as study rooms, media services, a multimedia technology center with production, digital imaging, and editing suite, and a presentation room equipped with dual-computer projectors and screens, and VCR/DVD units for rehearsing team presentations.
The new library’s airport motif is a successful blend of modern and fun, a crossroads of movement and reflection, searching and creativity. Just what you’d expect in a library that is taking students to exciting new destinations.
The new College of Business Building employs rich browns and dark blue-greens on walls throughout, as well as furniture that blends warm-toned wood and black metal in Euro-look designs. The atmosphere is that of the corporate headquarters of an aerospace company or airline: authoritative, confident, and welcoming.
Inside the two-story building are faculty and administrative offices, energy-efficient wireless classrooms, seminar and conference rooms, computer labs with 90 workstations, graduate research facilities, and IT offices and workspace.
It is also houses the Business and Transportation Research Center, which includes the Aviation Operations Simulation Lab, where researchers identify best practices for airlines and airports, a marketing focus group suite, and a collaborative decision-making suite.
The College of Business offers a nationally accredited B.S. in business administration, with majors in air transport management and general management, and an MBA, available in full-time residential and technology-mediated formats