Almost any other system would be safer. If you sent airplanes up to fly in random point-to-point paths, e.g., from Boston to Denver, they’d be less likely to encounter one another.
I do think the airway system may need revision. With an increase in ATC and general computing capacity, there’s little reason to keep an airway system. Going direct, or near direct is somehow in our future.
Posted by Stephen WaitsMon, 15 May 2006 16:15:52 GMT
Wow, this thing is rad. With the advent of Mode S and ADS-B transponders, we’re seeing a huge opportunity for improved safety margins in aviation.
Now, companies are bringing the technology down to the “little guy”. AVWeb links to a review of the Kinetic Avionics system, which includes a receiving and decoding hardware as well as PC software. This is fantastic!
Posted by Stephen WaitsTue, 09 May 2006 17:10:56 GMT
You probably know that a large number of FedEx aircraft land in Memphis every night. Everything is unloaded, moved around, loaded, and then they all head back out.
This is an interesting visualization of what happens to those arrivals when a thunderstorm moves through the area.
A couple of good Samaritans in California are caught in that awkward maw between heroism and recklessness after some pretty interesting flying led to the rescue of two 11-year-olds last week. …
The Sheriff goes on to complain about the rescue; however, he wasn’t getting the job done. While he doesn’t need to condone this, he should be thankful.
Posted by Stephen WaitsSat, 31 Dec 2005 18:04:49 GMT
Tim Bray posted a link to a thorough airline biz blog, called enplaned. Looks fantastic, I’m subscribed. That puts me at 86 feeds.. I need to prune soon!
Additionally, I’ve been reading AVWeb for years. It’s bi-weekly newsletter, covering news across the entire aviation spectrum. I highly recommend it to anyone with interest in aviation.
Finally, I recently discovered a fantastic TV show, called Wings to Adventure, on OLN. I found this via an advertisement on AVWeb. I’ve only caught one episode thus far, but it was fantastic. It even had a commercial from Cirrus Design – any show sponsored by Cirrus has to be cool right? In that episode, they explored flying to Catalina Island, off the Los Angeles coast, amongst other things. The nice thing is they aren’t afraid to talk in pilot-speak; in other words, it’s not dumbed down – instead they seem to be aiming right at pilots. Very cool!
