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Airplanes and Weather

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  Airplanes and Weather      When you look at all the hazards that come with weather in aviation, there is one that sticks out as top dog. Thunderstorms have probably the most significant impact on aviation and are possibly one of the pilots' scariest situations to encounter. The Flight Service Stations, Air Route Traffic Control Center, and Enroute Radar Services do a good job warning the pilot about a storm ahead of time. The pilots can also tune into services like the Hazardous Inflight Weather Advisory Service (HIWAS) to constantly repeat storm warnings (PHAK, 2016). These broadcasts are continuously updated to give the pilots the most current information (PHAK, 2016). When evaluating the accidents that happened with thunderstorms, aviators did not always recognize the dangers, and some evasive actions were not done, leading to accidents (E.A.I., n.d.). The reason thunderstorms are so dangerous to the aviation community is the unpredictability of situations that ...
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Air Control Towers and Flight Service Stations

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  Air Traffic Control Towers and Flight Service Stations         We all undoubtedly know about the tall round building at airports and probably have some idea of what they do. You probably would be surprised that they are just a small part of the bigger picture of your safety and the safety of others. Air Traffic Control Towers (ATCT) handle airport operations, takeoff, landing, and aircraft flight plans. You probably didn't know that there are about 1.5K Flight Service Stations (FSS) scattered across the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico (Flight, 2021). So what do these entities do? How are they different from each other? An ATCT is usually the tallest building on an airfield and is topped with a glass room that has people controlling what goes on at the airport. The ATCT has three primary operations: ground operations, approving launches, and filing flight plans (Freudenrich, 2021). These operations are done by different people inside the...
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Airport Pollution

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Airport Water Runoff      Imagine going to your favorite lake or pond and when you get there you see something like this picture above. This would be upsetting to most people and maybe they would want to find out how this happened. Well, what if I told you it came from the airport? IS there anything you could do about it and who would you talk to? This happens more often than not.      One of our planet's greatest resources is water, and airport water runoff, if not controlled, pollutes the surrounding water. There are many pollutants in aviation, and when it rains, or the snow melts, it gets washed into the storm drains. Pollutants such as Hydraulic fluid, aircraft fuel, motor oil, metal particulates, aircraft firefighting foam (AFFF), and deicing fluid constantly are spilled onto the ground and are sometimes minimally cleaned up. Sometimes it doesn't even come from the aircraft, and it will actually come from support equipment or storage locations. The Ai...
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Aviation Legislative Acts

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    The Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938      One aviation act that I find the most influential to the national aviation community today is the Civil Aeronautics Act. Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, it established the independent Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) (FAA, 2017). The CAA was made up of a three-member board that conducted safety investigations and would recommend ways to prevent accidents (FAA, 2017). The CAA also had the authority to regulate airfares and airline routes (FAA, 2017). This is an important stepping stone for regulations we have today and what we call the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).       The Civil Aeronautics Authority was the first sight into a safer, more reliable air travel system. They were tasked with performing air traffic surveys, analyzing mail rates charged by private carriers, examining passenger price complaints, authorizing overseas travel routes, oversight on the...
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Human Factors

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  Human Factors In Aviation      To me, a working definition of Human Factors in Aviation is defined as; "A person/persons that is either knowledgeable or not with a task. That takes an unnecessary risk in a situation that results in an incident or accident which could have been mitigated had they done a proper risk assessment." This falls in line with many aspects of Aviation and all the people that are involved. Chapter two of the PHAK (2016) talks about how up to 70% of the accidents/incidents are human factors, and it is not only air operation but also maintenance and air traffic management. Everyone from the people working at the check-in counter weighing bags, the ground crew maintaining and fueling the aircraft, and the pilot and crew ensuring they are fit for flight, has a part in safe air travel. Most of the time, we hear the term "pilot error" and think, "oh, the pilot is solely the one to blame," but when looking broader, you find that it is mor...
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4.3 Aviation Safety-Vetting Insider Threats

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Vetting Insider Threats      This week I want to talk to everyone about insider threats to the aviation industry. These are situations where crew members, maintainers, and so on pose a threat to the safety and reliability of aircraft. One of the first insider threats that come to mind is that pilots and crew members can be used as mules for a drug syndicate. Like in 2013, several British Airways cargo workers were smuggling massive amounts of cocaine through Heathrow Intl. valued at around £4.5 million each year. (Baldwin, n.d.) Insiders can also attack the airport databases collecting millions of pieces of personal data and banking information. (Baldwin, n.d.)  These are just some of the threats the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has to deal with.      While TSA already does a lot to protect the aviation industry, they also have a broad spectrum of constantly evolving security risks they have to monitor. I believe insider threats are har...
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3.2 Aircraft Systems and Flight

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  Hydraulic Systems          One of the systems that is crucial to aircraft flight and landing is the Hydraulic system. The hydraulic system controls many of the secondary flight control systems as a primary method of use. The systems usually operate wing flaps, spoiler/speedbrakes, landing gear, and aircraft brakes. They are pressurized by pumps driven by accessory gearboxes off an engine, electrical motors, by hand, or air driven. When a hydraulic system fails, it is usually catastrophic, pouring gallons of hydraulic fluid overboard. I have attached a video of what it looks like from inside a KC-135 when catastrophic failure happens to a pressure relief valve in a system. The second picture is what the valve looked like when I removed it.      One of the biggest fears of losing a hydraulic system is losing the ability to brake once the aircraft has landed. When losing the ability to brake on aircraft, many factors have to be assessed, runwa...
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