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9.2 Microburst

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     Weather has many different forms and vary wildly between regions. It is important to know what the weather forecast is before you take off on your flight. One of the most spectacular weather phenomenon that poses a huge hazard for aviators is a microburst. They are a tricky bit of weather that is very hard to detect even with todays advanced radar systems.  A visual identification of a possible microburst is virga under cloud bases, particularly under towering cumulus clouds. Virga consists of rain droplets that evaporate before reaching the ground, and has a wispy or shredded appearance (1). Microburst are formed after a strong downdraft that normally occurs over a horizontal distance of 1-2 miles and vertical distance of less than 1000 feet. They can generate wind speed over 100 knots and at a decent rate of 6000 feet a minute!      Microburst are a small violent explosion of wind and rain that can wreak havoc on airplane no matter the size. A famous example of this took place i
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8.2 Air Traffic Control Entities

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    Believe it or not, the sky above our head are packed with people and airplanes. There is an invisible highw ay jetting passengers and cargo all over the globe. on average, there are "between 7782 and 8755 commercial aircraft in flight"(Travel and leisure) at any given time throughout the day. That does not take into account the thousands of cargo, private or military aircraft in the air. It is a monumental task to organise all of these airplanes and make sure they do not crash into one another at any given time. There are multiple layers of air traffic control that take care of this delicate dance and I will be talking about two of these entities, that being the air traffic control tower and the flight service station or FSS.          The control tower is the iconic tower that looms over most large airports. Control towers manage traffic roughly 30 miles in and around the airport. They are responsible for all departing and landing aircraft, along with all taxiing aircraft
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7.2 The Airport and the Environment

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 The Airport and the Environment  Airports come in all shapes and sizes, from large International hubs to small grass runways and one thing can be true for all of them, they are home to some nasty chemicals. The world is slowly shifting its focus on greener, more environmentally friendly ways of transportation and the aviation industry is no exception. Aircraft require vast amount of fuel, oil and hydraulic fluid in order to operate properly. For instance, aviation gasoline or avgas, contains a high amount of lead. This leaded fuel contains Tetra-ethyl-lead (TEL), which is an additive used to prevent engine damage at higher power settings (FAA). TEL, is known to cause nervous system damage in humans, along with a a laundry list of other ailments. If is able to do this to a human, what do you think it can do to the environment? When I was first taking flight lessons, my instructor showed me how to sump check the wing tanks to make sure there was no water in the fuel, and his way of disp
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Legislative Acts

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       Humanity first took powered flight in 1903 and ever since that achievement, the world as we knew got smaller. We found a new realm to explore and much like exploring the west in the 1800’s, it was wild. Aviation was a newfound form of transportation, and over time airplanes became reliable enough to start ferrying passengers and cargo. Fast forward to 1938 and then President Roosevelt signed The Civil Aeronautics Act, which extended the reach of the federal regulation and transferred responsibility to an independent Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) and a 3-member Air Safety Board (1). The CAA was now had oversight in determining if private air mail and commercial companies were charging a fair price, participation on international discussions of regulations and most importantly, safety.      In the years after the creation of the CAA, aviation safety improved dramatically. The agency implemented changes to the certification process of airman and mechanics, added regular aircraf
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Human Factors 5.3

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 Human Factors 5.3  September 5th 2022     Human factors as defined by the FAA is a " multidisciplinary effort to generate and compile information about human capabilities and limitations and apply that information to equipment, systems, facilities, procedures, jobs, environments, training, staffing, and personnel management for safe, comfortable, and effective human performance” (FAA Order 9550.8A). This means making sure all human based systems are performing at a high level with little or no error. Humans are  inherently  wrong, we are not all perfect, and  that's  why we have a system of checks and balances within aviation. The FAA has listed out 12 human factors that are attributed to maintenance related incidents/accidents.      I have been in aviation maintenance for 10 years now and have seen my fair share of screw ups in the work place. A few human factors that I see more often that gets people in trouble and or cause a maintenance mishap is complacency and pressure.
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Aviation security 4.3

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Aviation security August 31st 2022      Most of us dread going to the airport, the rule of thumb is to get there 2 hours early before the flight so you have time to get through check-in and the security screenings. The lines for security are long and TSA always seem to be unstaffed. In the moment I hate standing in the lines and having to take off my shoes and get scanned but I know they are there for everyones safety.      Criminals and terrorist are clever and they are always trying to find ways to smuggle in contraband or weapons onto a flight, its a never ending game of cat and mouse and TSA always has to be one step ahead. Airport security has metal  detectors, drug sniffing dogs and sometimes they have armed agents doing random checks on passengers who seem a little nervous. All of these layers are pretty easy to spot by everyone but one things that is hard to catch is the insider threat. An insider threat is typically a current or former employee, third party contractor, or a bu
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Aircraft systems and flight

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 Aircraft Systems and Flight August 23, 2022 FADEC      The FADEC or full authority digital engine control is the brain of all jet powered aircraft and some piston engines. The FADEC on jet powered aircraft are in charge of monitoring multiple parameters hundreds of times a second such as engine inlet temperature, air pressure, fuel flow, turbine temperature, vane position and much more. Its overall purpose is to "provide optimum engine efficiency at any given flight condition" ( SKYbrary Aviation Safety ). They are complex computers that alleviate a lot of workload from the pilot, it can deliver max engine power without going over the operational limits therefore not over stressing the engine. The FADEC is in charge of start and restart procedures, it also monitors the engines overall health and can even diagnose system faults for ease of maintenance. It has many advantages but the one big downside is that is has full control over the engine and if it goes out, the engine fa
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