What was a topic of discussion on Business Insider a few years ago is quickly becoming a reality: Managing Aircraft Big Data.
Two weeks ago, SmartSky's VP of Product Development, Blane Rockafellow, participated on a panel detailing connectivity that supports real-time aircraft monitoring and the Big Data it creates. Modern aircraft are capable of transmitting huge amounts of data, leaving operators to look for new ways to more efficiently capture and analyze the bits they can act upon.
This panel at the 2017 Global Connected Aircraft Summit looked to industry experts to glean information on how airlines can use and interpret Big Data on an aircraft to increase safety and enable savings.
Key takeaways include:
- Concerns exist around the security of moving data off the aircraft inflight.
- The key to data collection and privacy is to avoid intrusion but maximize and leverage the data.
- Everyone knows things can be better in the Big Data world. Companies are recognizing the importance of finding the right people and platforms to look at their analytics.
- Panelists suggested that companies need to start small with data sample sets and move up to larger data samples.
- A strong return link can accelerate data in motion (inflight) as opposed to data at rest (unloaded after landing).
- Data without analytics is useless.
Panelists included representatives from Global Eagle Entertainment, United Airlines, Boeing, SmartSky Networks, Honeywell, and HCL America.
As VP, Product Development for SmartSky Networks, Blane heads up the “SmartSky Select” program which promotes industry-created aviation apps, services, and hardware optimized for the high bi-directional bandwidth, low latency performance of the SmartSky 4G LTE air-to-ground network. He is also working to bring the “SkytelligenceTM” technology framework to market, which is a new, open, API-based system allowing innovations in apps and patented methods to be applied to any aviation network. Blane brings a history of success in new ventures as co-founder of several technology firms developing connectivity applications, middleware, and firmware. His 30-plus years of experience include developing one of the first commercially available Wi-Fi mobile phones. He has also worked with Fortune 500 companies on real-time solutions in big data analytics, in-memory analytics, cloud, and data center networking.
You can connect with Blane and other members of the SmartSky Networks team through our LinkedIn Company Profile.