Jetwhine

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Runway Incursions

The Aviation Minute: Episode 7 – Synthetic Air Traffic Advisories

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The Aviation Minute: Episode 7 - Synthetic Air Traffic Advisories
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TAM Final LogoRGBPardon our tardiness delivering this week’s episode, but we wanted to wait for our new logo to show up. Many thanks to @runwaygirl’s sister Anne Kirby and The Sweet Core crew for launching us into the 21st Century.

On to the content. This week I’m focused on innovation and the people who create it, like my friend Dr. Dave Byers. A few years back, he figured out how an off-the-shelf radar system might just prevent midair collisions and runway incursions at non-towered airports. He called it the Synthetic Air Traffic Advisory System, or SATAS.

dave byers
Dr. Dave Byers

After you give the show a quick listen, stop back and watch the short video of the SATAS demonstration from Sun n’ Fun a few weeks ago.

Rob Mark, Publisher

For those of you who receive Jetwhine updates via e-mail, click here to listen to this week’s show.

Winter Callback: What Would You Do?

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Immediate gratification is one of my guilty pleasures, especially when it comes to the interactive editions of Callback, the online publication of NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. And there is some pilot ego involved as well, a chance to feel quietly superior—or stupid—depending on the decision you make.

ASRS CallbackIt works like this. Callback gives you three situations, with at least one from airline and general aviation operations. Each are real, derived from the NASA report filed by the pilot involved. After you read the situation you pick one of four choices then click the “What would you have done?” link to see what the reporting pilot did.

I like the airline situations because it gives me a Walter Mitty moment in another pilot’s shoes.  I got two chances to play in this issue. In the first situation I was flying an MD-80 on an ILS through a 500-foot overcast, heavy rain, and a microburst alert as he passed through 2,000 feet. The problem? The left throttle would not reduce the engine’s power beyond half speed ahead. The captain and I did the same thing: divert.

[Read more…] about Winter Callback: What Would You Do?