Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Airlines flying in Europe are finding different ways for handling the new emission trading scheme that took effect at the beginning of the year. While many airlines in North American and Asia continue to question the validity of the requirements to purchase carbon credits, several European carriers are developing plans for buying and trading carbon credits.

Germany’s Lufthansa told Reuters it has been continuously buying up credits on the open market. Currently carbon credits in Europe are at bargain prices. The price is about half of what it was in 2010 at roughly 7 Euros per ton of carbon. The requirement to buy carbon credits is effectively a tax to provide an economic incentive to minimize emissions of C02 by the airlines.

As of January 1, airlines flying to and from EU airports must have enough carbon credits to cover the emissions from their flights. The airlines join power and industrial plants in the EU that have been submitting carbon credits since 2005. Under the plan the airlines are given a number of free carbon credits to cover some of their operations, they must acquire the remaining credits either through trade or purchase.

Members of the Star Alliance group which includes United and Lufthansa told Reuters they will likely use a broker to help members buy credits on the open market at discounted rates. Airlines in the rival SkyTeam including Air France and Delta are expected to trade internally with members of the airline group to acquire some of the needed credits, purchasing the rest on the market.

Some United States carriers have already said they will be adding a surcharge to cover the cost of the credits.

A representative of Air France told Reuters the fleet will receive a free allocation of about 12.6 million tons of credit, but it expects to emit between 16-17 million tons for 2012.

Both Air France and Lufthansa say they are buying credits directly from a Paris based exchange known as BlueNext.

In the coming  years airlines are expected to begin hedging and trading carbon credits in much the same way they do with jet fuel today. Buying and trading of carbon credits is expected to pick up dramatically this year as the airlines will be required to submit their credits against the free allocations.

Photo: Lufthansa

The Japanese airline All Nippon Airways has been flying the first passenger carrying Boeing 787s for about two and a half months now. But so far all of the flights have been short, domestic routes (with the exception of the ceremonial first passenger flight to Hong Kong). That should change later this month as ANA plans to begin flying to Frankfurt, Germany, giving the 787 a chance to stretch its long range legs for the first time with paying passengers.

In the first few months, a pair of 787s did most of the work on the Japanese routes between Tokyo and Hiroshima or Okayama. A third 787 was delivered just before the end of 2011 and in the new year two more have been added to the ANA 787 fleet.

With the limited data from just a few planes and short routes, the new composite airliner has not encountered any major setbacks in service. According to Flightglobal, the ANA 787s dispatch reliability rate stands at 96.3 percent. This is close to the airlines overall dispatch reliability rate of 96.5 percent. According to Boeing, the dispatch reliability rate for some of its other aircraft such as the 777 is over 99 percent.

These early figures might not be indicative of the overall reliability of the 787 so far as the dispatch reliability rate is highly variable between airlines and aircraft. Some airlines may consider a flight delayed for maintenance reasons if a seat cushion has to be replaced, and the flight leaves a few minutes late. Another airline may only count more serious mechanical issues that temporarily takes an airplane out of service.

The early reliability rate of the 787 will of course change as more enter service and different routes are flown.

All Nippon Airways recently began service to Beijing, and is scheduled to begin service to Germany on January 20. The first routes to the United States are expected to begin later in the spring with flights to Seattle and San Jose.

Photo: All Nippon Airways

After some teething issues on the development side, Sonex Aircraft’s SubSonex jet has finally flown. The tiny single-seat jet completed a 14 minute first flight in Oshkosh, Wisconsin last week. The first flight was successful according to company founder and SubSonex designer John Monnett. He says the jet project will continue and there are still hopes to offer it as a kit to customers.

“We have a test flight plan to expand the envelope of the aircraft” Monnett said. “We’ll see where the project takes us from here.”

Wasting no time, the SubSonex completed five more flights in the two days following its first flight. So far all of the flights have been made by Bob Carlton who flies a jet powered glider in front of the crowds each year at Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Sonex is also based in Oshkosh. The SubSonex uses the same, Czech built, PBS TJ-100 jet engine used by Carlton on his glider. The tiny engine produces 240 pounds of thrust.

With the conservative first flight out of the way, Sonex’s Mark Schaible says Carlton did some moderate envelope expansion on the subsequent flights, “exploring higher power settings and climb rates.”

No word yet on what kind of climb rates are being seen in the lightweight jet.

Schaible says there will be changes made to the prototype before the final design is set. Some ideas include  aerodynamic enhancements that should add to the performance.

“John Monnett has talked about retracting the nose wheel, to clean it up a bit.”

The SubSonex is the latest airplane developed by the veteran airplane designer. Monnett first made a name for himself designing in expensive and efficient homebuilt airplanes that used Volkswagen engines. In the decades since he has built a successful business that includes many one and two seat designs aimed at the sport pilot who wants good flying performance – including aerobatics – on a budget.

Calling the SubSonex his “Walter Mitty project,” Monnett plans to offer the airplane as a homebuilt kit like other aircraft in the Sonex family. With plenty of development still left to finish, a price hasn’t been set for the single seat jet. Similar aircraft powered by the company’s new VW based engines cost less than $25,000. The price of the jet engine is likely to be the big variable with the SubSonex.

A short video of the first flight and more photos after the jump.

Pilot Bob Carlton taxis after the first flight of the SubSonex.

SubSonex designer John Monnett congratulates pilot Bob Carlton after the first flight.

Photos/Video (via EAA): Sonex Aircraft

The Solar Impulse team continues to expand the capabilities of their airplane, HB-SIA, with a tour of Switzerland this week. The flights are aimed at making multiple takeoffs and landings in one day and have the airplane fly in the same airspace as other aircraft.

Yesterday pilot André Borschberg flew from the home base in Payerne to Geneva and back again all in one day. The flight to Geneva lasted about four and a half hours and marked the first time the plane has landed at a civilian airport.

After a press conference and some tests on the ground, HB-SIA made the return trip in under four hours.

Today Borschberg again lifted off from Payerne, this time bound for Zurich. Regular Twitter updates let airplane watchers on the ground know when the slow flying airplane would be overhead. The team joked that the flight may be a distraction for parliamentary elections happening as the solar powered airplane flew over the Swiss captial of Bern.

After a brief stay in Zurich, Borschberg lifted off a few hours ago and returned to Payerne a little after noon eastern time.

The path of the two flights (complete with a few sightseeing distractions) can be seen here.

The tour of Switzerland comes after HB-SIA’s historic night flight in early July. The team is working on the next generation of its solar powered airplane that is expected to make a transatlantic flight some time in 2012.

More pictures of the flights around Switzerland after the jump.

HB-SIA enroute to Geneva

HB-SIA touches down in Geneva

Solar powered mountain flying

Here’s what happens as a result of security theater at the Orlando airport:

• You wait in line at least twenty minutes
• There’s a scrum of pushing and shoving
• The staff are unhappy and not afraid to share it
• An unreasonable workload leads to fatigue and errors
• People miss their flights

Here’s what doesn’t happen:

• Security is not increased
• Peace of mind is not enhanced

In other words, we’re paying a significant tax (time and money) and getting nothing in return. In fact, we get worse than nothing. We could call it an anxiety program, instead of a tax. (After all, when you pay a luxury tax, you get some hard-won luxury as part of the deal).

The reason the TSA keeps changing the rules is not because the rules work, but because changing the rules creates more anxiety (for bad guys, they say, but for us too).

Another example: the MBA. A lot of entrepreneurs get an MBA because they are afraid to go out into world without one. They are seeking the reassurance a credential will bring them, even though the cost is huge and there’s no data to indicate that they’ll be more successful as an entrepreneur as a result.

We pay the fear tax every time we spend time or money seeking reassurance. We pay it twice when the act of seeking that reassurance actually makes us more anxious, not less.

We pay the tax when we cover our butt instead of doing the right thing, and we pay the tax when we take away someone’s dignity because we’re afraid.

We should quantify the tax. The government should publish how much of
our money they’re spending to create fear and then spending to (apparently) address fear.
Corporations should add to their annual reports how much they spent
just-in-case. Once we know how much it costs, we can figure out if it’s
worth it.

Instead of seeking out gatekeepers and critics and others that demand we get the broom of the wicked witch, perhaps we should just publish our work. The tax is too high.

Instead of forgetting about the wasted anxiety after the fact, perhaps we ought to keep a log of how often we needlessly pay the fear tax.

Instead of over-staffing, over-planning, over-meeting and over-analyzing, perhaps organizations should take lower-cost steps and actually ship.

Think about how much you could get done if you didn’t have to pay a tax to amplify or mollify your fear…