Flight and Environmental Risks

 Air Traffic Control Entities     Air Traffic Control is a multi-faceted operation.  Air traffic requires management from multiple different areas.  The purpose of Air Traffic Control is to manage the flow of traffic and prevent a collision between two or more aircraft. (PHAK, 2016). Two different avenues of management for ATC are the ARTCC and Ground control.  ARTCC stands for Air Route Traffic Control Center.  ARTCC's primary responsibility is managing the flow of traffic in certain airspace.  There are 21 of these centers and they cover an airspace of up to 100,000 nautical miles.  The responsibility to direct flow of traffic and ensure seamless transition between each center as a "hand-off" is crucial to the safety of flight.     Ground control is similar to the ARTCC as it's responsibility is again to ensure there are no collisions between moving aircraft; however, they are responsible for orchestrating this movement "on the ground" at airports where no

  Environmental Impacts of Airfield Operations     As air travel has increasingly grown over the last century, the planning and design of airports to mitigate environmental impacts has become an ever-increasing challenge.  Air pollution and grown contamination from fuel are massive concerns for citizens in heavily populated areas that surround airports.  Along with concern for environmental pollution, air traffic induced noise has become an obstacle that many airports face.       Mitigation efforts have been utilized by many airports to reduce the amount of noise affecting the population in the local area of the airport.  Take off and arrival trajectory has been one of the means that airports are utilizing to reduce the effects of noise on citizens. (Visser, 2008).  By adjusting the direction aircraft approach the airfield and the direction they depart can help reduce the number of individuals that are exposed to a high noise environment. When I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall in the U

  The Federal Aviation Act of 1958     During the first half of the 21st century, aviation and technology regarding aviation grew at an incredibly rapid rate.  The demand for civil air travel, mail delivery, and military usage was skyrocketing.  After a very publicized aviation incident in 1956 where two passenger airliners collided over the Grand Canyon, congress sprang into action to provide a much needed re-structure of how air traffic was managed.  (A Brief History, n.d.).  The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 established what we now know to be the F.A.A. (Federal Aviation Administration).       The establishment of the F.A.A. was paramount to safety and the regulation of the United States airline industry.  There was now a government agency who was responsible to solely focus on Air Traffic Control, Aircraft Safety, Aircraft Serviceability etc.  The F.A.A. began to assume it's role over a period of time, taking on responsibilities that had been delegated to the C.A.A. (Civil Aeron

 Human Factors in Aviation     Human factors are estimated to be responsible for 80 percent of all aviation accidents. (PHAK, 2016). While there are many different contributing pieces to human factors, I personally believe that communication amongst maintenance technicians is one that is absolutely critical to overall aircraft safety. Many people are quick to believe that the pilot's of aircraft face the greatest communication risk, but it's often those behind the scene that are forgotten about that have a massive impact on risk reduction.        Above you can see a few A-10 mechanics huddled around a tool box completing some aircraft maintenance forms.  If you look very closely, you'll see that they are all wearing hearing protection and there appears to be some form of a -60 bleed air cart connected to the aircraft as well.  The bleed air carts are incredibly loud.  Even with adequate hearing protection, it is still difficult to communicate over the air cart and hear effe

  Insider Threat: The Unexpected Risk      Aviation is an inherently dangerous occupation.  While it is true that there are significantly less deaths related to airline travel in comparison to vehicle travel, the overall scope of aviation has many risks.  These risks range from the maintenance perspective where technicians perform repairs on multi-million dollar airborne vehicles, to pilot shortages and fatigue.  One of the unseen threats and risks to the airline industry is the Insider Threat.     Insider threat is defined as a person who has malicious intent to do harm. (Aviation Insider, 2017).   This could be a TSA agent who turns a blind eye to contraband being passed through security, it could be ticket counter employee who is passing information on flight times and routes to a foreign government, a maintenance technician who is disgruntled with their job and wants to create havoc and harm others.  There are many forms an insider threat can take.      While the risk is always pre

  Aircraft Pitot Static Systems     The pitot static system is critical to safe flight.  This system feeds the altimeter, airspeed indicator, and vertical speed indicator with ram air (pitot input) and pressure (static) input to determine altitude, airspeed, and rate of vertical climb (the vertical speed indicator).  Aircraft are designed with Pitot probes which face into the direction of travel.  As speed increases, airflow into the pitot tube increases (ram pressure) and correlates to an increase in speed which feed the airspeed indicator.   The static ports (often flush-mounted on the fuselage of the aircraft) measure the atmospheric pressure of the air to determine altitude.  These input sources (pitot tubes and static ports) are connected to the airspeed indicator, VSI (vertical speed indicator), and altimeter directly via airlines.  All 3 indicators receive a static input, however, the airspeed indicator is the only one that receives a pitot input.   Inside the altimeter, there a