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By Jodi Prill
Real-Time Accuracy
Fixed base operations are also jumping on the wireless train, for public and operational use.
Clark Tesh, president of New Millennium Aviation, an FBO at Davidson County Airport in Lexington , NC , has been offering free wireless Internet access to his customers since early summer.
The young general aviation airport (some four years old) is located 25 minutes from Winston/Salem and 30 minutes from Greensboro . Tesh, who is also a pilot, explains its frustrating for customers who need Internet access to be tied to a phone jack. "My whole intent was to make our terminal completely wireless," he says. I didn't want to have a lot of extra phone lines, and it was just something to offer corporate pilots so they could sit anywhere they want in the terminal and we don't have a long line waiting to use the phone."
jodi.prill@cygnuspub.com
Beyond customer usage, the 802.11b (the current wireless standard) system has a range of some 14 miles, says Tesh, and is designed to allow line operations, particularly daily fuel quality checks, to be performed, documented, and stored on a server in real-time. "I'm a true believer that any activity should be recorded at the time you do it," he says.
Tesh is currently developing a program in which fuel check standards will be built. The program will prompt employees to perform each task, such as the white bucket test. An interface will also email Tesh a notice, at a time that he selects, if any inspections are not completed, and the FBO manager will receive a message on his beeper. "We'll be beta testing that in the next 30 days," he adds.
New Millennium Aviation has also installed wireless cameras for security, which allow Tesh to monitor the FBO from a secure website.
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