The Operating Environment and Aircraft Performance: Blog Discussion 2.3

 There are many factors and elements that can influence an aircrafts performance and flying safety. In this blog, I will be discussing one particular element; lightning.

    As there are many stages of a thunderstorm's life cycle, lightning can be the most dangerous of them all. A lightning strike to an aircraft while inflight is rather frequent in the U.S. The effects of lightning strikes can be very minimal no damage at all, or can be very destructive. They can puncture the skin of an aircraft and damage communications and electronic navigational equipment (PHAK, 2016). Without some of these controls or navigational instruments, the occurrence could be detrimental to the safety of the flight crew. Pilots need these controls to stay informed on how the aircraft is performing and the adjustments that may be needed. Not only can lightning hinder the structure of the aircraft, but it can also cause the pilot to experience blindness rendering them unable to navigate either by instrument or visual reference.

    Luckily, there are engineering processes and controls that help mitigate the effects lightning strikes have on an aircraft. During the construction phase of an aircraft, lightning protection is a very important topic to focus on. All of the principals of lightning protection remain the same while flying either a light aircraft or a large airliner. The sole purpose of the protection is to allow the lightning to spread across a large surface to lower the amps to a harmless level (PHAK, 2016). An aircrafts outer casing basically acts as a conductor to let the electricity pass through and into the air. Aluminum and copper meshes are bonded to the skin surface and are among the most popular used on fiberglass and carbon fiber.


References:

Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge - Chapter 3: Aircraft Construction (PDF); https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak/media/05_phak_ch3.pdf

Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge - Chapter 12: Weather Theory (PDF); https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak/media/14_phak_ch12.pdf

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

8.2 Blog Discussion: Air Traffic Control Entities

Image
 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
Read more

Blog 7-2: The Airport and Environment

Image
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
Read more

4.3 Blog Discussion: Aviation Security

Image
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
Read more