What Ethics in the Aviation World Means to Me

  Hi all,      In the ever growing world of aviation, organization plays a more important role than ever before. Incoming and outgoing flights, ground taxi support, and clearance delivery are just a few of the roles that need to be diligently performed so that these operations can be performed day to day with the utmost efficiency. For this blog I've decided to set EUROCONTROL and FAA-ATO side by side in terms of area of scope, performance data standards, and organization to see how they measure up.     The area in which these entities perform their services is called scope. According to a study done in 2015, EUROCONTROL is responsible for 62  European Area Control Centers while the FAA-ATO is managing only 20 CONUS Centers ( Comparison of Air Traffic Management-Related 2015 Operational Performance 2016) . These centers are the primary method of data tracking for both entities. Items of interest include: the total IFR traffic picture used to dete...

  Hi All, Airports are a necessity for the ease of travel that they provide for both commercial and business use, but as Uncle Ben once told us, with great power comes great responsibility. One of these responsibilities that airfields have to mitigate is that they can be a source of many gaseous and particulate matters that can have a negative effect on the air quality, climate and the ozone layer both locally and on a global level ( Management of the environmental impact at airport operations , 2009). The gases and particles that are emitted from aircraft engines are the primary cause of these harmful effects during the different stages of the flight. Our focus of the ground level, where airports are involved, is that the aircraft emissions degrade the air quality, which may directly impact human and environmental health ( Management of the environmental impact at airport operations 2009).      Thankfully today, there are environmental limits and constraints which ...

Hi all,      The instrumental law I have chosen is the Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970. This legislative act was developed for the sole purpose of "filling the gaps" in funding for airports and airways, which was desperately needed during the popularity and growth of commercial aviation at the time ( Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970 1999). The budget was greater than $11 billion dollars, however it was funded throughout the implication of taxes. These taxes were rendered on commercial airline tickets and paid for by the passengers. The powers at play decided to implement taxes on items of note such as: waybills, aircraft fuel, and new aircraft registrations. An easy comparison of this would be toll roads. As tolls provide money for new infrastructure and roads, these taxes provided the funding for more modernized airports.       These taxes provided not only a more modernized airport system for many airports, but it also provided a...

 Hi All,      Since the dawn of aviation, humanity has been a factor in it's development, continued progression, and unfortunately it's setbacks. In fact, according to the AMT Handbook, human factors directly cause or contribute to many aviation accidents and about 80 percent of maintenance errors on aircraft (FAA, Human Factors ). The FAA defines the human factor as  ergonomics or  the discipline concerned with optimizing the relationships between people and their activities through the application of the human science and  system engineering  (FAA, Human Factors ).  As a current naval maintainer, I can relate to the importance of the human factor in aviation, because it directly influence everything from the pilot who flies it, to the people who maintain it, and even those who complete the ever important documentation for it all. For this blog, lets narrow it down and focus on human factors with respect to maintenance.     ...

 Hi All,      For this week's blog I have chosen the threat of Aircraft Hi-Jacking. Perhaps the most infamous version of this of that most everyone is familiar with is 9/11. Hi-Jacking is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as to steal or commandeer a vehicle by force ( Hijack 2021). This obviously is done by a person or persons with nefarious purposes, so how does the TSA or Transportation Security Administration combat this? They have layers of security that can be broken down into  20 major components. These layers are both readily apparent and done behind the scenes. An argument could be made that they all are relevant to Anti-hijacking/ terrorism practices, but I'll identify those that seem to be a direct confrontation. The first layer of security is Intelligence. When someone books a flight, the person or persons are subjected against a database of known or suspected person's of interest, the idea being that the TSA knows who is on ea...