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Final Blog 9.2: Weather Hazards

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And The Thunder Rolls While there are many environmental factors that play a role in the aviation industry, weather must be one of the most significant. Weather can reduce speed, lower visibility, damage equipment, and among other things, be a danger to personnel. Out of the many forms of weather, I believe thunderstorms are one of the most dangerous obstacles in aviation. A thunderstorm will make its way through three stages before finally dissipating (PHAK, 2016). For a thunderstorm to form, the air must have sufficient water vapor, an unstable lapse rate, and an initial lifting action to start the storm process (PHAK, 2016). The fact that you do not even need to be in the middle of a thunderstorm for it to present a hazard to your aircraft, such a storm can be quite hazardous. The FAA recommends that pilots keep their distance, advising that personnel remain at least twenty miles away to avoid hail and severe turbulence from the outer layers (Cutler, 2020). It should also be known
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8.2 Blog Discussion: Air Traffic Control Entities

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 Air Traffic Control Entities      When it comes to Air Traffic Control (ATC) entities, the first thing that comes to my mind is the ATC tower. ATC goes so much further than just the tower. Radar air traffic control is the behind the curtain, unseen entity, and is comprised of two different agencies. Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), more commonly referred to as approach/departure and Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC), more commonly referred to as center (Freudenrich, n.d.). Now lets go further in depth and see how each of these entities support air traffic management. Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON)      TRACON’s jurisdiction is air traffic that is departing and approaching airports within its airspace (Freudenrich, n.d.). Typically TRACON controls a 50-mile/80-km airspace radius From its location. This means one TRACON station could have several airports within its control (Freudenrich, n.d.). These stations use radar to monitor the aircraft and must maintain
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Blog 7-2: The Airport and Environment

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Noise Pollution      When it comes to airports, it is inevitable that the constant occurrence of noise is always going to be an issue in the industry. In my opinion, noise pollution carries the weight of most of the environmental impacts.      Noise is generally referred to as unwanted sound that can negatively disrupt human or animal life (Murphy, E. 2015). Environmental noise has been defined as any unwanted sound created by human activities that is considered harmful or detrimental to human health and quality of life. Aircraft have been probably the most dramatic of the man-made noise sources which are heard by the community, especially in the vicinity of an airport. Not only does this effect personnel working at the airport, but an increasing number of people live in the vicinity of major airports and experience considerable noise and air pollution. Investigators have studied health effects associated with exposure to aircraft noise. The most common issues lead to moderate to se
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6.2 Discussion: Legislative Acts

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             On November 18 and 19, 2001, the United States Congress passed the Airport Security Federalization Act and the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. The laws sought to standardize pre-flight passenger and cargo screening by federalizing security service and screening personnel in the nation's airports. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act created the Federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to supervise security operations for sea and air transportation. The TSA hires and trains Federal airport screeners, who under the new law must all be American citizens. Though the acts govern only United States airports, many of the new initiatives and procedures outlined in the legislation have been routine in many foreign airports for several years (Encyclopedia.com, 2020).          Some may think that the TSA has more flaws and adds inconvenience on your flying experience and I can somewhat agree on that. Some of the things that came about because of this
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Blog Discussion 5.3: Human Factors in Aviation Maintenance

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     Human Factors: Aircraft Move      In todays Aviation industry, there are several policies and procedures in place to mitigate accidents or mishaps. Despite all of those things, human factors are a constant issue and cannot always be avoided. Human factors can be defined in many ways but mainly involves an individual in every aspect of an aircraft design process, flight, maintenance task, and even the mental/physical state on that individual such as stress, fatigue, and experience (Panger, 2015). There are a dozen of pinpointed elements of human factors: lack of communication, complacency, lack of knowledge, distractions, lack of teamwork, lack of resources; to name a few (Panger, 2015).      As time goes on, aviation becomes more and more complex. The need to work as a team is one of the most important elements of human factors. Weakness in this area can cause chaos within the maintenance realm. Lets say a team of aircraft mechanics are preparing for an aircraft move. There are ma
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4.3 Blog Discussion: Aviation Security

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Increased Hacking Threats       In this blog, I would like to discuss an emerging threat to todays aviation security and that would be software hacking which would mostly fall under cyber security. Whether its light traffic management systems or cloud-based airline storage, it can all potentially be attacked. Even systems within the aircraft such as flight control, GPS navigation. and fuel consumption systems. All can be placed in a vulnerable position.       The Intelligence layer of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security plays a huge role in the mitigation of cyber-attacks. The TSA have four cyber security priorities and six goals that will direct efforts to improve its protection of its internal information technology systems as well as the nation’s transportation (TSA, 2018). There are constant efforts to help mitigate occurrences such as collaborating with federal and non-federal entities. The development of tools and services will help improve cybersecurity. Re
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Blog 3.2: Aircraft Systems and Flight

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  Hydraulic System      In this blog, I will be discussing the importance of the hydraulic system in aircraft. In my opinion, the hydraulic system is arguably the most important system on any aircraft. There are a variety of functions that are driven by hydraulics. Some of these functions include: braking, landing gear deployment/retraction, and flight controls such as operating flaps and spoilers (PHAK, 2016).     One of the most common failures in the hydraulic system is a leak. A leak in the hydraulic line could lead to low pressure in the system. If this event occurs, lets say in the braking system, it could be a lethal situation on the ground given the speed at which aircraft travel during a landing. Among other things, over servicing hydraulic systems or allowing contaminants to enter during service could also lead to failure. Failure of these particular components and unreliable operation of hydraulic systems is often caused by inadequate contamination control, which should also
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